Human Resources Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Louise Levonian]

Right.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

That seems to be one of the cruxes of the problem we face. Is there something we can do as the federal government that won't necessarily cross that line?

[Louise Levonian]

Our department isn't responsible for this, but I know that there was a financial literacy strategy that was put in place. It's about outreach, making sure that there's consensus building, and that the issue is raised among provinces, but it's not run out of ESDC, so I'm not that familiar with it.

That, for example, is the kind of thing that can be done. It can be more about raising awareness, convening power, and sharing best practices. Definitely, there are mechanisms, without entering, I believe, directly into provincial jurisdiction.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

The Canada child benefit has been in effect for a couple of months now. Is there any feedback? Any idea of how it's working? Can you speak to that?

[Jacques Paquette]

What I can say is that it's working as expected. The cheques are going out. Families are receiving money. The administration or the delivery is done by the Canada Revenue Agency. That's how it is being done.

We haven't heard of any issues. What we understand is that it is going as planned and is having the impact that it's supposed to have.

[Louise Levonian]

As the minister mentioned, there's also concern around certain more vulnerable groups not being able to access it. A lot of work is being done to try to get to the people who are less likely to access it, to provide information, to facilitate, and to find ways to make fewer barriers to accessing the Canada child benefit.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

In the 30 seconds I have left, could you speak to anything in relation to mental health? That seems to be a big challenge behind all of this. Is there anything you can to speak to from your department with regard to mental health?

[Louise Levonian]

What I would say, as the minister said, is that all of this is multi-dimensional. It's not just about mental health. It's not just about food security. It's not just about income. It's all interconnected. Hopefully this will happen over the next number of months.

That includes the study you will do, which will be extremely important in providing input into creating that overarching poverty reduction strategy that will be connected with hopefully the provinces, the municipalities, and other organizations that are doing that. Hopefully part of what your feedback will be will itself lead into the strategy.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

MP Sangha, please, for six minutes.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much to the departmental officials for being here today.

This question would probably be best answered by you, Mr. Thompson. As a committee, we are supposed to be studying the promotion of education and training. In my riding of Brampton Centre, I feel there are huge groups of youth who are not in university. They either leave education or they don't want to go to university.

Do we have the facilities to give those types of kids basic training for things like construction work? Billions of dollars are spent in the construction industry. Do we have programs for youth who leave school and want to do something in the construction industry? Do we have anything for those kids?

[Paul Thompson]

As I mentioned in my previous response, there are two tracks of federal investments in training, one through provinces and territories. That is one avenue where we're working on collaborating with all provinces and territories to meet the changing needs of Canadians with respect to training and youth. It's a very widely shared priority for provincial and territorial investments of those transfer programs.

We're also working very actively in federally delivered programming. I would highlight the youth employment strategy, particularly a stream called Skills Link, which is aimed at vulnerable youth, particularly those who have perhaps dropped out of high school or are not pursuing education. We're in the process of doubling that program across the country. It does invest with partners in programs that try to provide broad-based supports to get people the essential skills to move into better-paying jobs.

More specifically on your question about the trades, there's also a mandate commitment to work on pre-apprenticeship training. A lot of trades require a little bit of advance training, such as upgrading your essential skills so that you can get into the actual technical training. We're in the early stages of work on pre-apprenticeship training to deal with that target client group.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Will we be giving them training in the schools, or will there be some new schools? In terms of apprenticeships, will we putting them alongside those who are already working in the industry so that they can start working there as apprentices?

[Paul Thompson]

We're working on improving the training that exists but also making it more accessible for other people to get into it. The pre-apprenticeship training will help make it more accessible for individuals who are struggling to qualify for trades training.

There's also the commitment we're working on to strengthen union training centres, to increase the number of spaces and improve the technology available in union-based technical training. There's some capacity enhancement as well that we're working on in the training system there.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

The Canada child benefit aims to take 300,000 children out of poverty. It will provide more than three million families with more support than before it was implemented. Is this target of poverty reduction still a priority? If so, what is the time frame for achieving this aim?

[Louise Levonian]

I'm sorry, just to clarify, you asked about the priority of children in poverty reduction, or generally?

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

I'm talking about poverty reduction for children.

[Louise Levonian]

The 300,000 number remains the expected outcome of the Canada child benefit. However, part of the paper or study that would be undertaken here, and part of what the poverty reduction strategy in the end would try to articulate, would be on the kinds of targets and indicators that we would want to have in place to ensure that poverty reduction is actually taking place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You have one minute, Mr. Sangha, for some closing thoughts.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

How is the government helping children living in poverty in general?

[Louise Levonian]

The foremost thing that I would say, as the minister said, is that it's the Canada child benefit that was put in place. It shifted the previous programs into one program that really targets families that are more in need than were supported previously. That is a first big step in reducing child poverty. As we said, the expected outcome for that is that 300,000 children will be removed from poverty.

Are there other things that you would mention, Jacques?

[Jacques Paquette]

I could add, as the minister said, that the government is working with the provinces and territories to develop an early learning and child care framework that would help the development of children. We know that will also have an impact on reducing poverty. We're working closely with the provinces and territories, given that this is their jurisdiction. They have the tools, but the government announced some funding in the last budget to support that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We'll go quickly over to Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you to the departmental officials for being with us today.

I want to focus on seniors housing. In the different forms of consultation, I've heard a number of times the importance of taking care of our seniors at the end of their lives. I was at a care facility, where the manager of that facility said that Canadians cannot afford to build enough housing to take care of our aging population, and that we have to think of how to do it differently. The average stay in a care facility at end of life for a senior is 18 months. He said that if we can reduce that to nine months, we can afford to take care of our senior population in the last days of their lives, providing dignity, pain management, and the care that Canadians deserve.

The government had made a number of comments about providing housing. That's good. Yes, we can improve and we're going to have to improve, but I think it's a combination of both. Providing better home care would be an issue for the Department of Health, not for you, but in the strategies of different departments of government federally, is there any thought given toward that? There's a limit to what we can build, and we need to change how we're providing care. A lot of this is provincial jurisdiction. Are there negotiations and discussions going on provincially, federally, and municipally? That's why I believe it's so important that we have a national strategy. Without a strategy, we're not going to get it done, so are discussions happening?

[Louise Levonian]

Mr. Chair, let me just answer at a very high level, and then I'll turn it over to my colleagues.

The poverty reduction strategy is meant to be, as the minister indicated, a collaborative effort. He said it is not for one jurisdiction, not for one level of government, not for one other stakeholders, but for everybody to work together to come up with a solution for it. Part of all of that is interacting with provinces and municipalities.

I don't know if there's anything that you would add on the housing part, Michel.