Human Resources Committee on Nov. 1st, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We are out of time, sorry, but maybe we'll come back in a later question.

For three minutes, go ahead, MP Sansoucy.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you very much. Before I turn to Ms. Farha, I would like to make two comments.

Ms. Milne, I appreciate the importance of what you have said. You stated very fairly and very clearly that your recommendations must have a gender perspective. Thank you for that.

My second comment is for Mr. Lee. Your remarks lead me to the following question: as parliamentarians, over and above the expenditures we have to decide upon and in view of reduced revenues, what revenues are we missing out on due to our current tax system and the way we operate?

My question is for Ms. Farha. Departmental officials have told the committee that we do not have a definition of poverty in Canada. I think that is the starting point. Within your organization or internationally, is there a clear definition of poverty that we could use?

[Leilani Farha]

Thanks for the question.

I just want to say one thing about spending and poverty. If I said to you that 235,000 people were being tortured in Canada, would we ever say, “Yes, but we don't have enough money to deal with that”? No. We would say that's a human rights issue, and we need to solve it, and that's what we're saying here. When I say 235,000 people in a country that the World Bank says has the 10th largest GDP, I'm saying we have a human rights crisis on our hands that has to be solved. You can't just say we don't have enough resources. Even in times of conflict, in natural disasters, in places where there is no money—and I mean no money—we expect human rights to be respected, protected, and fulfilled. Period.

On the issue of not having a definition, the measures that we have are good definitions. Can a person make ends meet? We don't have to be all technical and complicated about this. It's pretty straightforward. The Market Basket Measure that Ms. Milne referred to is a good one because of its regional specificity. If you don't have enough money to pay your rent—and we know affordability is a huge issue across the country—or you don't have enough money to buy a basket of groceries—and we're not talking caviar and fancy orange juice; we're talking basics—then you don't have enough money to live. Heating costs in Canada are another major component.

At the international level, there are standards for particular areas of poverty. For housing, food, water and sanitation, there are adequacy standards. You'll find that Canada is failing our lowest income group on all of those measures. If you look at indigenous populations, we're not meeting the adequacy components of housing, food, or water and sanitation.

There are guidelines, but they're not hard definitions, because you have to have a contextual approach.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

We're going to briefly suspend to give people an opportunity to stretch their legs. We'll be back in two or three minutes, please.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We're back.

We have Monsieur Poilievre for the next six minutes.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you.

I'm very interested in Madam Farha's conversation on the human rights angle of poverty. I would expand on that. We have to talk about rights, but equally important are freedoms.

One of the freedoms most ignored but also most important is economic freedom, the freedom to earn a living and enjoy the fruits of one's labour, to escape want, and to live in dignity.

One of the things I'd like to hear more of from our witnesses is how the government's violation of economic freedoms leads to poverty in the first place.

Witnesses have talked about how housing is too expensive. I was in Belleville about a year ago. I spoke to an older Italian man who was taking an old Victorian mansion and turning it into five to seven affordable housing units, with no help from the government. The number one cost to him was not materials or labour. It was paperwork. It was the delays that the government imposed upon him.

This is a perfect example of the transfer of wealth. You're taking a mansion that would be a house for a millionaire and turning it into an apartment building that will be homes for people who pay $500 or $600 a month. And far from being helpful, the government is standing in the way. As I understand it, he's still not done—I spoke to him over a year ago.

Ms. McLachlan spoke about her challenge to pay hydro bills. In my province, Ontario, hydro bills have more than doubled, because the government has made a decision to subsidize investment bankers and well-connected insiders through inflated electricity payments. There are a lot of people making a lot of money, people who don't need it. There are a lot of people on fixed incomes who are scraping by and can't afford to pay their hydro bills. Or we have people who, we're told, need to be on social assistance because they can't find a job, and yet we're raising taxes on people trying to hire.

I wonder if people can talk about the ways in which government is causing poverty in the first place rather than just talking about how government can be a solution to that poverty. We don't need a doctor to administer poison only so that he can then administer an antidote. We'd rather he didn't administer the poison in the first place.

Do you have any comments on how government is robbing us of our economic freedoms and then proposing itself as a solution to the resulting suffering?

[Leilani Farha]

Thanks.

I very much appreciate those comments and the question.

I need one point of clarification. There is no human right to economic freedom.

If you look at what Canada has signed and ratified, it is the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and then a whole bunch of other ones on specific populations—people with disabilities, women, etc. Those treaties say that everyone has the right to an adequate standard of living, which includes adequate housing, food, and clothing. Water and sanitation are now also included in that.

So there isn't actually a right to economic freedom, but I'm going to take your comments—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Actually, there is. There is actually a right to economic freedom, and it's 800 years old. It's based on the Magna Carta, which is the oldest constitutional document in our tradition, and is actually cited in jurisprudence all over the Anglosphere.

[Leilani Farha]

Fine. It's not considered a human—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It is a right. It might not be something the UN is interested in—

[Leilani Farha]

It's not considered to be a human right. That's right.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

—and certain commissions that you're a part of might not be interested in some of those old-fashioned ideas like freedom. That being said, they do exist, and they are real.

[Leilani Farha]

Casting aspersions aside, let's agree to your formulation. I really liked your question, because it goes straight to what would happen if a human rights framework was employed. Whether it's your framework or my framework, it doesn't matter, because you and I end up in the same place, which is pretty interesting and surprising. It's probably going to cause you nightmares tonight.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Yesterday was Halloween.

[Leilani Farha]

It goes on and on.

I find it interesting because if we take a human rights approach and look at what you're saying, I've heard before about people wanting to engage in the affordable housing business, if you want to call it that, and not really being able to, and that there aren't government programs. I do think it's an area in which there's a lack of facility. The government doesn't make it easier for someone like your Italian friend to do. I do think we need to look at that.

A human rights framework gets us there because it asks, “Are we doing what we need to be doing to ensure that those with the least amount of money can afford housing?” We know home ownership is not going to be a viable option for every person in Canada or every household in Canada. It's just not. People don't have the ability to make the original down payment, etc. Rental accommodation is something that might work for a huge percentage of our population, but no one is building rental accommodation. Why? It's very cumbersome. There are no incentives at the moment to build rental accommodation, because it's cumbersome and problematic.

A human rights approach gets us to ask the very questions that you want asked. What's causing poverty in Canada? What are the major triggers? The hydro bill issue is another one. This goes right to the adequacy of housing. Under international human rights law, you have to be able to have basic services and afford basic services, like hydro. The human rights question asks, “What are we going to do about the fact that a lot of poor people cannot afford to pay their hydro bills?” From there come the solutions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

We now go over to MP Sangha, please.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a question for Ms. McLachlan.

As part of the particular groups that you have talked about for human rights regarding immigrants, regarding the people with lone parent families, unattached persons, and senior women, all possibly with low income and possibly with disabilities, they have low income rates that are twice that of others.

In your opinion, how might federal poverty reduction be tailored to make reductions? You talked about a comprehensive way. Give us some innovative ways to suggest to the committee how to reduce poverty.

[Harriett McLachlan]

First, I think we need to understand some of the situations. You need to look through a disability lens. You need to look through a gender lens to understand, just as Kendra Milne was saying.

There are a number of ways you can do this. They are detailed in the national anti-poverty plan that the Dignity for All campaign produced. We spent five years in a consultative process with 600 people across the country over six main themes. This comprehensive plan is detailed and on the website. It details a lot of the responses that you're interested in, that would take up way too much time here. I would direct you to the Dignity for All campaign's anti-poverty plan.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Could I request that you provide your submission in writing to the committee, so that your suggestions for the committee to follow would be there?

[Harriett McLachlan]

Yes.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

My next question is to Professor Lee.

Professor, you talked about your personal experience leaving education and then restarting it after the fifth class. You are known as a professor, and you are teaching students. I hope you might be a role model for the students when you tell them your stories. That's a great thing you have done in your life.

You have suggested encouraging people to go back to work or to improve their education. What other measures would you suggest to the committee that we should take not to force but to encourage people to go back to work or to go for higher education?

[Dr. Ian Lee]

That's an excellent question, because I think there are different angles to it or different facets to it.

I fully recognize that education is a provincial responsibility. I know that, especially in the university, which gets its money from the province, not from the federal government, or at least not directly from the federal government. We get it through the province setting tuition fees, and of course through the transfers to us.

I'm really following my colleague, Professor Ross Finnie of the University of Ottawa, on this. I want to distinguish between the so-called hardcore unemployed, which include some people in the aboriginal community, because that's an untapped resource. We're not talking about 16- or 17-year-olds. These can be people who are 25 or 30 and they are not really strongly attached to the workforce. They haven't been able to obtain any long-term career or a permanent career. That's one group that needs special attention.

That can be done through what I've been calling HRSDC, Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, but you have a new name for it and I can't remember what it is. Programs can be developed through that and Employment Canada to target the hardcore unemployed. I'm guessing that will mean working with the provinces, too, to include people on social assistance.

If I can use business language, the ROI, the return on investment, in targeting the hardcore unemployed is going to be very high. If you hired some people to crunch the numbers, I think you'd find a very strong correlation between poverty and the hardcore unemployed. If you can crack that nut by training them.... I don't think they're choosing to be poor. I don't think they're choosing to be in that position.

I've seen the data, by the way, and I will provide it to the committee after. This is from the U.S. Census Bureau and StatsCan. It actually shows income and education as being incredibly correlated. It's not a one-for-one relation, but it's very high; that is to say, the fewer years of education you have, the higher the probability you will be in poverty. You can make that kind of probabilistic statement.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

Professor, you suggested that for people with low education who enter employment, there is only a low chance for them to have a better standard of living because of lack of education. That's your stance on it.

[Dr. Ian Lee]

Let me be really blunt so I'm not talking in generalities. If you don't have post-secondary education today, as a young person, you're going to have a miserable life for the rest of your life.

[Ramesh Sangha, Liberal, Brampton Centre, ON]

I do agree with you, but—