Human Resources Committee on Oct. 4th, 2016

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

For homelessness?

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

Yes, for homelessness and poverty reduction.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

For homelessness, we have a good start. The homelessness partnering strategy exists. It will need to evolve. We have collaborative mechanisms with provinces, territories, municipalities, and collectivities, which can be used to channel those additional resources rapidly and efficiently.

For the poverty reduction strategy, the table is to be set. Again, I re-signal to you the importance of your work. We really count on you to make us, the federal government, better able to engage inclusively and efficiently with other levels of government and with the social and private sectors. Those sectors have a role to play, and they know it, and they're able and willing to play that role and to sustain it over the longer term. The longer term is key for the poverty reduction strategy. As member of Parliament Sansoucy said earlier, there's been initial work over the years. Now we're ready to build on that initial work to have a longer term agenda for the Canadian government to be a key and helpful player in that initiative.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Now we're over to member of Parliament Warawa.

Welcome back, sir.

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Minister, for being here. I want to give kudos where they are deserved. I sent you a letter regarding New Horizons and seniors' issues, and within a few days I had a response from you. You are the fastest responding minister, by far. I still have letters from last November waiting for a response from a minister, so to get a response in three days was fabulous.

Minister, as the critic for seniors, I've had a number of opportunities to meet Canadians across the country on various seniors issues. Seniors poverty and elder abuse are very important, but the number one issue that I'm hearing about from seniors groups is the need for a minister for seniors and a national seniors strategy. Canada has a grey tidal wave coming. We know it's coming, and Stats Canada has told us it's coming. Indeed, we see it now with the baby boomers. I'm in that group. I'm 66 years old. There's this tidal wave of grey coming, and considering the unique needs of Canadian seniors, we have to deal with it.

In hindsight, we probably should have come up with a national seniors strategy 15 years ago, or 10 years ago when we were the government.

Minister, I plead with the government to come up with a national seniors strategy, because without a strategy, and without working with all levels of government to come up with a proper strategy, we are going to be in trouble as a country. Please, make that a priority. Dr. Avery, with the Canadian Medical Association, is going around and also saying that. It's a number one priority.

When it comes to poverty, there are some very wealthy Canadian seniors, but there are also seniors who are living in poverty. The Library of Parliament provided each of us with a document that indicates that there's been a significant decrease in poverty among seniors over the past few decades. It's dropped from 29% of Canadian seniors to 3.9% in 2014. There has been a significant drop, and there have been some good successes, not just by the previous Conservative government but also by previous Liberal governments. There have been significant successes.

The discussion paper by the Library of Parliament downplayed that and said that we've only seen “some” successes. Well, there have been significant successes, not just “some” successes. The discussion paper zeroes in on single seniors. The statistics show that 30% of poor seniors are couples, and 70% of poor seniors are single. The government is focused on just the single seniors, and yet we've seen in the news over the last many years, and almost every few months, couples who are being separated. It's heartbreaking.

I'm asking the minister to comment on this. Would the government be willing to expand its focus from single seniors to any seniors living in poverty? The Prime Ministers made a promise during the election campaign. He mentioned single seniors, but if you're a senior and in poverty, then you also need help, even if you've been together as a married couple for 50 to 60 years. Would the government be willing to reconsider and expand that, so that if you're a senior in poverty, as a couple or as a single, then you would get the help? You'll get that GIS because $1,000 a year does help. For the 30% of Canadians who are in poverty and are not going to get the help they need because they're living together, would the government show compassion and expand its focus to include them?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You have a little over a minute, sir.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you. I was going to spend that much time thanking you for complimenting my team on the speed with which is responded to you. I didn't hear from you anything about the quality of the letter you received. Speed is an issue, but quality, I suspect, is also one. So if you have any guidance for us, or appreciation about, the quality of the letter you received, that would be kindly received.

On elder abuse, I must acknowledge that a previous government, in collaboration with the provinces and territories, did serious work in building our understanding of the causes and consequences of elder abuse. I had the privilege of getting to know that work earlier this year.

The poverty reduction strategy and the national housing strategy—key elements of my mandate letters—have obvious and direct relevance to the well-being of our seniors. The quality of the work we do around this table, when it comes to building the poverty reduction strategy, will feed into the quality of our ability to support our seniors over the long term. That's true for the poverty reduction strategy, and that is also true for the national housing strategy. For seniors, housing needs are key to their well-being and to their ability to look forward to spending the rest of their lives with income security and physical security.

I take note of your suggestion of a national seniors strategy. This is a very important idea that we should be discussing in this context.

How do we fight seniors poverty? Eighty per cent of seniors living in poverty are single and living alone. Seventy per cent of those seniors in poverty are women. So basically, the most significant poverty challenges faced by our seniors are faced by single women. They are, of course, vulnerable from an economic perspective, but they are also vulnerable from an elder abuse perspective, from a physical security perspective, and from a family security perspective. That broad vulnerability is very concerning. I meet so many of these single women. It is often very challenging to feel the degree of their natural anxiety and to feel their need for us to be supportive of their living conditions, circumstances, and needs. That is why the GIS was targeted for them. However, the CPP expansion, the restoration of the age of eligibility for old age security and GIS benefits to 65, the significant housing investments we are going to make, and the seniors price index that we're going to construct are all measures that will have a key, tangible impact on every senior, whether living alone or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Minister. That hour went by way too fast. I think we can all agree that the information you brought here today is incredibly valuable. We're very excited to see this paper, to delve into it, and to have it support and guide us in our study.

I think I speak for the committee as a whole when I say that we recognize how important this is and how critical it is to get this right. To echo MP Long's comment that there has been study after study after study, we want to make sure that we're not simply rehashing old studies. We've definitely been doing our homework to make sure that we're using those as a launching point and not just putting them through the grinder again. We really want to see results, and we're very hopeful and thankful for the opportunity to be able to contribute to the work that you're doing.

I checked with our clerk, and for those who have additional questions for you—with your permission, of course, Minister—we'd like to collect those by the end of the week. We could send them to you and then report back to the committee.

We know you're incredibly busy, so we will not take any more of your time. Thank you very much, sir, for being here this morning.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We will suspend for about five minutes just to bring some more people in, and then we'll be back.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Welcome back, everybody.

We would like to welcome to the table, from the Department of Employment and Social Development, Paul Thompson, senior assistant deputy minister, skills and employment branch; and Kathryn McDade, senior assistant deputy minister, income security and social development.

Welcome to both of you.

For those of you who stayed on, thank you.

We're going to dispense with any opening remarks and get right back into questions.

First up is Mr. Deltell.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Chair, thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to meet with you.

I think that we all share the same goal, of serving our fellow citizens and fighting poverty. According to our reading, the best way to fight poverty is to give people the tools they need to get out of poverty. As they say, it is better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. I'm sure that my friend and colleague Mr. Long, from Newfoundland and Labrador, would agree with me, because before he was an MP and before he was in the hockey world, he worked in the fishing industry. We believe that the best way to fight poverty is to give people the tools they need.

I would like the people here to tell us which of the measures put forward by the government would allow people in difficulty to get the resources and the means they need to get out of poverty themselves, once and for all, with the help and support of the government. The government is there to give them the tools they need to get out of poverty, and not to give them money, because that would mean that they would not necessarily be able to develop the skills and the independence necessary to get out of poverty.

[Louise Levonian, Deputy Minister, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for having invited us here today. We are very happy to be here to answer your questions.

This is a very good question. I think that the study this committee will be conducting is exactly the type of thing that will allow us to have all the information we need to develop a good strategy that will exactly answer this type of question.

A lot of tools have now been made available by the government, but there are also tools available at the provincial and municipal levels. We can give you some examples. I know there are a lot of tools like this, and that is exactly what is required.

I think that the study, the engagement and the consultations that will be happening in the coming months will help us respond to these questions and develop a good strategy. We need to work in collaboration with our partners to have an overarching strategy. I believe it was Ms. Sansoucy who described the strategy that way. We need to collect all the information in order to have a good strategy that will cover all of the different aspects, to reach that exact goal.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

I would like to give you a few specific examples to give you inspiration.

As MPs, we are all asked to contribute to Christmas hampers during the holiday season. We distribute food to those who are less fortunate than us. We all do it and we do so in good faith.

I will always remember one occasion where we went to deliver a Christmas hamper to a family that didn't even have a refrigerator or an oven. I have been in politics for eight years. So it happened when I was a provincial MNA, not a federal MP. I wondered what the point was of giving these poor people a huge turkey or a huge steak, when they didn't even know what to do with it.

It led me to take the following action. In provincial ridings, MPs have a very high discretionary budget, around $80,000. I had been to the food banks to say that I was ready to help them, but that I wanted them to use my money to hire a nutritionist who would give courses in the communal kitchens every week. In those classes, people would actually be taught how to cook. That would be better than giving them a frozen turkey that they wouldn't know what to do with and that might end up in a landfill in March.

There's something else I want to tell you, but I don't want to say exactly at what point it happened in my political career. I remember that a completely destitute woman came to see me. We tried to help her. She lived in Sainte-Foy, and I lived in Loretteville, about 20 minutes away by car. I had told her that this worked out well and told her which bus to take from her house to come and see me. She answered that that wouldn't be necessary because a taxi was waiting at the door. This poor woman had paid $30 to take a taxi and she had been with me for half an hour. So she probably had to pay $150 for the taxi. She didn't understand. That's when I said to myself, for Heaven's sake, even if we gave her money, I'm not sure it would help.

That's why I think if we want to help people get out of poverty, we need to give them the tools necessary to take control of their own lives.

As for the food strategy, are you in favour of the idea of helping food banks? The government could support these people by offering classes led by nutritionists, who would teach them how to eat well and how to cook properly. What do you think?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Actually he's out of time, but I'm going to give you a few moments to respond very briefly.

[Louise Levonian]

I will say two things very briefly.

First, I hope that innovation will be part of the strategy. The things you just mentioned are a little innovative. There are things that we can try, and if they work well, we will have to see how to implement them to have a better strategy.

Secondly, the document that we have before us today mentions exactly those things that you just mentioned. This is not just about ensuring income security, it is also about doing some of the things that you just mentioned. We hope that this document will inspire more discussions that will lead to future documents.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Mr. Long, please.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you to everybody for coming this morning.

As I said before, poverty certainly is near and dear to my heart. My city, Saint John, New Brunswick, leads the country in childhood poverty and is at the top of the numbers in a lot of other categories, too.

I will focus my question on CMHC right now. Obviously, there was the announcement here on September 30, and I quote, “New Fund Aims to Revolutionize Affordable Rental Housing in Canada”. I spoke for about a minute and a half in the last session about innovation and how important innovation and new thinking are. Can you elaborate a bit about what that announcement means, how it's going to be implemented and how important you see innovation being in the fight against poverty?

[Michel Tremblay, Senior Vice-President, Policy, Research and Public Affairs, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation]

As Minister Duclos mentioned, there are a lot of variables that affect poverty, whether they be education, health, or housing, which is a key component of it. Indeed, affordability of housing in an issue in a lot of Canadian cities.

The innovation fund is meant to stimulate the supply of rental housing, and we're looking for innovative ways of doing that. It's actually going to be a call. People are going to come in and submit proposals of innovative strategies they have to facilitate the building of rental housing—an increased supply, obviously.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Another issue that I certainly have, living in Saint John, has to do with project financing. If I'm working on affordable housing or a mixed housing project with seniors, I'm a rookie MP and I'm learning as I go, but a lot of times I'll hear, “Well, I love the project, and a lot of my colleagues love the project,” but then it ends up that it's provincial and the money goes to the province, and then obviously the province decides how to allocate that money.

Can you comment on whether you think that system can be improved? Is there potential for more input from the federal government on that?

Again, I'll just leave you with this. There are projects that I personally like in Saint John, for example, but I can't just get the money for them or to move forward with those projects, because the money flows to the province and then out from the province.

Can you comment on how you see that structure? Can you see improvements being made to that, and what would you suggest?

[Carla Staresina, Vice-President, Affordable Housing, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation]

As you know, we are in the midst of the national housing strategy, so we anticipate getting a lot of feedback on the mechanisms we have in place right now.

The mechanism we have right now with the province is the investment in affordable housing initiative, wherein the provinces cost-match the federal dollars that go into those agreements. With the 2016 budget announcements, we signed a new agreement, an additional agreement, in New Brunswick in September.

As you said, the province decides, designs, and delivers those programs that meet the local needs and they have some common reporting that they do to us. In budget 2016, there are some very important tracks that the federal government thinks are important to invest in, including seniors housing, victims of family violence, and investments in the north. Those are not cost-matched by the provinces, but the provinces will deliver that money for those specific needs.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Do you see, though, a potential opportunity to get more involvement from those who are ultimately on the ground? Again, the frustration that I think a lot of groups have right across the country is that, between here and there, the message isn't quite getting through.

[Michel Tremblay]

As my colleague mentioned, the national housing strategy consultation is all about determining whether there are new and innovative ways of delivering housing in Canada. As the minister mentioned, it ranges from homelessness all the way to market housing. It's going through all the different levels, and we're certainly looking at various ways that could be achieved. What we have been hearing, though, from all experts and stakeholder groups is that housing is very much a local issue. So whichever way we decide to deliver it, who's involved, and so on, we still have to have enough flexibility to recognize local needs also.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Right.

I have one minute, and so my question for Mr. Thompson will be very quick.

Our government has come out and talked a lot about skills training and putting more money into that bucket. Can you comment on how important you think an innovative initiative on skills training is in the fight against poverty?

[Paul Thompson, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development]

As has been noted, the development of skills is critical to alleviating poverty and getting out of poverty. There are a number of measures that we have, both federally delivered programs and also programs delivered through the provinces and territories. We're working on both fronts. There is a range of federally delivered programs targeted at under-represented groups such as youth and indigenous Canadians, but we're also working on renewing the four transfer agreements with provinces. The two biggest are the labour market development agreements, which involve over $2 billion in EI funds, plus the Canada job fund. We're working on both fronts, and provinces have a strong interest in looking at the barriers facing those who are farther from the labour market, and helping them get into more sustainable and higher-paying jobs. There are some supports on that front.