Human Resources Committee on Feb. 14th, 2017

[Émilie E. Joly, Community Organizer, Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain]

Good morning.

First, I would like to thank the committee for inviting FRAPRU to appear.

My presentation will be in French but I can take questions and discussion in English afterwards.

First of all, it is important to mention that FRAPRU is pleased with the federal government's interest in implementing a poverty reduction strategy. We hope that the federal government's next efforts will lead to a real poverty reduction strategy that takes a holistic view, rather than arriving at piecemeal strategies, measures or programs.

In our view, in a strategic way, if we really want to focus on poverty reduction measures, we must inevitably begin by recognizing economic, social and cultural rights, which go hand-in-hand. In our view, not only should the recognition of economic, social and cultural rights be the basis for public policies, but it is also one of the key ways to ensure the long-term basis for these policies, so that the next poverty reduction strategy is not the effort of a single government, in this case the one in place. At the moment, the development of a Canadian poverty reduction strategy, along with the national housing strategy, provides an opportunity to build a strong foundation for the long term.

Some of my colleagues have already spoken about this, but I am pleased to be able to emphasize the importance of the right to housing in the fight against poverty. FRAPRU is a group whose main focus is the right to housing and the fight against poverty. We believe that the right to housing is the cornerstone for ensuring that several other rights are respected and, as a result, meeting several other needs. As my CHRA colleague said, if you do not have a place to live, it's hard to talk about adequate food, and if you spend too much on housing, you're not able to meet all of your other housing needs. It is important to keep in mind that housing is one of the essential determinants of health. A poverty reduction strategy cannot be built without a comprehensive analysis of needs and the right to housing.

Today, we are discussing a poverty reduction strategy. At FRAPRU, we are convinced that in a country as rich as Canada, not only do we have the means to reduce poverty, but we should also really be moving towards a strategy to eradicate it.

The portrait of renter households in Canada is rather disastrous for such a rich country. My colleagues talked about that a little while ago. It was mentioned that there are four million tenants in the country, of whom there are 1.6 million tenant households whose needs are considered urgent, that is, they pay too much or they have a housing that doesn't meet their needs. That said, another figure is even more striking. I don't want to dwell too much on statistics, but I think there are some that must awaken our consciences. In Canada, 1 in 10 tenants spend more than 80% of their income on housing. So close to 400,000 renter households in Canada are forced to spend 80% of their income just to pay their rent. You can imagine that there isn't much left after that for their other needs. This is not to mention the homelessness situation in Canada and the tragic situation in many indigenous and northern communities, where there is a very high rate of inadequate housing. These communities also lack easy access to electricity and drinking water.

What can be done about the right to housing in order to address these problems? FRAPRU has put forward three solutions.

First, long-term subsidies for existing social housing must inevitably be maintained. We can't rely solely on the $30 million allocated in Minister Morneau's budget from last year. In the long term, the financial accessibility of existing social housing must be ensured.

In addition, we must focus our efforts on creating programs to build new social housing. At FRAPRU, we did the calculations and determined that the CMHC budget should be doubled to meet all the needs. So the amount should be increased from $1.7 or $2 billion to $4 billion, just to build new social housing and make sure that these units are affordable to low-income households in the long term. That's what social housing can do.

At the moment, there are several discussions on how to best ensure the right to housing and to ensure that low-income households have access to decent housing. Individual aid often has adverse effects, such as rent increases. We are convinced that we can fight poverty through affordable and long-term social housing.

Finally, we need a national housing strategy that recognizes the right to housing from the get-go and serves as a cornerstone for building long-term programs. As mentioned, it is difficult to build with programs spanning two or three years. A long-term, massive investment strategy is required to enable communities, community groups, cities, provinces and territories to build and plan for the long term.

Lastly, I will say a few words on the importance of transfers to the provinces.

For us, the fight against poverty isn't a matter of provincial, territorial or federal jurisdiction. There are already very adequate transfer mechanisms in place to make investments in the fight against poverty. These transfers have to be much larger. Several transfer amounts have not been indexed. Compared to 1990 levels in constant dollars, they are well below what they should be.

Clear priorities need to be established to ensure that some of the transfers in the fight against poverty, housing in particular, are not used to replace budgetary envelopes already set out by the provinces. These transfers have to be used to make additional investments in social infrastructure, for example. We must ensure that this money will be used for the construction and renovation of infrastructure, which will make it possible in the longer term to fight poverty effectively.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much. Also, I note that your brief is being submitted for translation and will be distributed as soon as it's available.

Last but definitely not least, we welcome the Nunavut Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.

Aluki, the next seven minutes are all yours.

[Aluki Kotierk, President, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Nunavut Roundtable for Poverty Reduction]

[Witness speaks in Inuktitut]

I want to thank you for the opportunity to make a presentation on behalf of the Nunavut Roundtable for Poverty Reduction.

My name is Aluki Kotierk. I'm the president for Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated. I'm here with Aqattuaq Kiah Hachey, who is the assistant director for social and cultural development. Before I begin I'd like to extend a special recognition and welcome to the Nunavut Sivuniksavut students.

[Witness speaks in Inuktitut]

Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated, NTI, is the co-chair of the Nunavut Roundtable for Poverty Reduction with the Government of Nunavut. As you already may be aware Nunavut has 25 communities. The population is a little over 35,000, and of that, more than 85% are Inuit. Because the territory is so vast, politically, Inuit are represented by three different regions, by three different regional Inuit associations. In the east, we have Qikiqtani association. In the centre, we have Kivalliq association. In the west, we have the Kitikmeot association.

In recent living history, Inuit were moved from the land to communities, which explains the 25 communities that I just referenced. Inuit, as you may be aware, were a nomadic gathering and hunting society. Traditionally, Inuit didn't have a wage economy, yet they were able to provide for their food and shelter needs. There was no formal school system as we know currently but there were intricate ways in which knowledge was passed from parents, and from grandparents.

Inuit governed themselves autonomously and were not subject to policies from the government. Above all, Inuit were self-reliant and interdependent on each other in their family group. They were masters of their own destiny, of their own lives. I like to think of Inuit as the original affluent society because they had the skill sets to live on the land and were able to provide for their needs.

For many Inuit, poverty is associated with contemporary society. We will look at the numbers currently in Nunavut. In 2014, the median income reported for Nunavut, before tax, was $26,098, with 25% of the population reporting income less than $8,589. In Nunavut, 40% of the population are recipients of income assistance. Nunavut-wide, 52% live in social housing, with 38% of social housing tenants living in overcrowded conditions. In Nunavut, 56% of Inuit households are food insecure. This was recently highlighted in a Statistics Canada report on Inuit Nunangat last week. The cost of living, as you know, is 30% higher, with food costing twice as much as in southern Canada.

I will just talk a little about the poverty definition. The conventional definition of poverty used in Canada and internationally is a formula of various states of inequity and unfulfilled need conditions that were introduced in what is now our territory during the colonization process. Many of the indicators we use to measure the extent of poverty in Nunavut today are based in ways of living that emerged in our new communities.

The Nunavut Roundtable for Poverty Reduction in 2012 commissioned a report called “Understanding Poverty in Nunavut”. It outlines three elements that are used to measure poverty: financial poverty, not having enough income for basic needs such as food, shelter, and clothing; capability poverty, lacking the skills or health to meet their needs and participate fully in their community; and social exclusion, being excluded from economic, political, or community opportunities as a result of barriers to participation.

Since then, the poverty reduction round table has defined poverty in Nunavut as a situation that exists today in Nunavut when people cannot access the supports they need to maintain their connection to the land or to participate fully in a wage-based economy.

I'll just give you a background on the process by which we developed the round table for poverty reduction in Nunavut. In August 2010, Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated and the Government of Nunavut entered into a co-sponsorship partnership for the creation of the poverty reduction strategy for Nunavut. Learning from the Nunavut suicide prevention strategy community engagement model, NTI and the GN developed community engagement models for poverty reduction in Nunavut.

Members of the Nunavut Roundtable for Poverty Reduction include all the Nunavut communities and hamlets; regional Inuit associations, which include elder and youth representatives; businesses; and not-for-profit organizations and wellness centres.

Between August 2010 and November 2011, many dialogues on poverty and how to reduce it were undertaken across the territory, such as community round tables, a policy workshop, and ultimately, a territorial poverty reduction summit, held in November 2011 in our capital city of Iqaluit. Participants in the summit collectively drafted the makimaniq plan. For those of you who don't understand Inuktitut, “maki”, the root word, means “to stand up, to rise”, so makimaniq is the way in which we stand up.

The makimaniq plan was finalized in February 2012. This plan was created in response to the issue of poverty in Nunavut. The Government of Nunavut and Nunavut Tunngavik Incorporated allowed voices of each and every community to be heard. The makimaniq plan is our response to the poverty we see across our territory.

As stated in this plan:

Public engagement allows for the community voice to be amplified, as the process builds from the community level to the regional level to the territorial level. The essence of this process is respect for community perspectives, capacity and self-determination, demonstrated in the public community dialogues that took place across Nunavut. Dialogues informed regional roundtable discussion.

The makimaniq plan focuses strongly on community self-reliance and collaboration, and relies on Inuit traditions of working together—piliriqatigiingniq—and helping one another to address the root causes of poverty. The themes include collaboration and community participation, healing and well-being, education and skills development, food security, housing and income support, and community and economic development.

Themes for each round table have been consistent with priorities set out in the makimaniq plan and have been determined by round table members. Past themes have included inunnguiniq, justice and community healing, and income assistance.

I want to spend a few minutes talking about inunnguiniq—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I really hate to interrupt you.

I have your brief in front of me, and I see that you have quite a bit left to go. We're actually two minutes over. I can have this translated and get it out to all the committee members.

I'm going to give you another 30 seconds to wrap up. It goes by quickly, I know.

[Aluki Kotierk]

When you think about how best to support Nunavut Inuit in the area of poverty, I ask you to think ultimately about rebuilding self-reliance among Inuit. I ask that you incorporate Inuktitut and Inuit ways of being. I ask that you think about social infrastructure in terms of transitional housing and second-stage housing, wellness centres and youth centres in all communities, and spaces for not-for-profits to operate, and that you think about mental health and addictions in terms of substance abuse treatment centres and mental health and wellness funding.

It is important to explore barriers in language and otherwise in the federal eligibility criteria and policies that impact Nunavummiut who speak Inuktitut: the nutrition north program, the employment assistance program, the charitable organization system, and the tax system.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you so much.

[Aluki Kotierk]

Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

We're going to get started right away with questions.

First up is MP Zimmer, please.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you.

I know there's a lot to say. It's unfortunate we have to limit time on such an important topic, but it is what it is. A lot of people have input.

I want to focus on Mayor Hall and Ms. Bone from Prince George. I want to thank you, especially, for appearing today. You have to get up early to appear at committee in Ottawa, thanks.

One thing that got my attention specifically was what the Prince George housing strategy steering committee had come up with. Chris, I believe, was part of it back in 2011-12 and continues to be part of the Prince George plan today.

One topic I've brought up a lot in this study is that we don't want to sustain poverty. We want to have a reduction strategy. That's the one reason you're appearing today because Prince George is very forward thinking in that you have a plan to get somebody out of poverty, and to me that is a great plan.

Can you explain why you saw the need to formulate a housing strategy in Prince George and how has this strategy been rolling out?

[Chris Bone]

I'll respond and Mayor Hall can certainly add anything to it.

The City of Prince George formed a standing committee on housing and homelessness several years ago for the most part to achieve better collaboration among the partners who work on housing strategies in the community. We work very closely with community organizations and are aware that the City of Prince George only has a very small contribution to make to that overall housing strategy.

The strategy identified a number of key things that we highlighted during our presentation this morning, the primary one being that we need the support of all levels of government to ensure attention to housing along the continuum. When we first formed as a standing committee, our focus was on homelessness and providing an opportunity for people who were on the street or close to the street to find housing. Our attention as a community has now shifted to how we provide sustainable, long-term housing that's not just shelter housing for individuals. Our challenge of course is that we don't always have enough space in our community. Moving forward, I think one of our greatest pleas to this committee is to help us with the infrastructure that's needed so we can house people along the continuum and ensure that housing is more sustainable.

Are we there? Is our strategy perfect? It isn't because it's reliant on the contributions of all levels of government and certainly the contributions of a number of community organizations that have to collaborate.

[Lyn Hall]

To add, the other piece of this that we identified in our presentation this morning and is so crucial to the work that Chris is doing is the fact that we're a hub city and we're a regional service centre. That impacts any strategy that we put forward around poverty reduction or housing. It's one of the first considerations many times because of the regionalization we deal with.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

The one thing that I appreciated too, from Prince George's approach, is that it involved all aspects of the population. Seniors were my introduction. Prince George had a strategy to have seniors who weren't necessarily of means to have a place to live out their days in comfort and support. The seniors housing announcement in Prince George was one of the first announcements I made. You saw how deeply involved in this process Prince George was.

I'd like to bring a graphic to the committee. I know we didn't have it before. It wasn't tabled, but it's the housing continuum graphic that you have in your strategy. This goes to what I was saying before about taking people out of poverty, taking them from emergency shelters, transitional and supportive housing, which is deemed a non-market temporary category; to mid-category independent social housing and rent assistance, the non-market permanent part of the strategy; up to below market home ownership; all the way up to affordable rental and home ownership. To me, that's a very progressive way of looking at getting people all the way from emergency shelters, which is the point where we need to take care of people, to transitioning them to where they're sustaining themselves and living in a comfortable home.

Can you explain a bit more what that looks like, to integrate what Prince George is contributing? Because I think you understate financially what Prince George is contributing to this happening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

You have about 30 seconds, sir.

[Lyn Hall]

Just quickly, one of the things we did early on—about a year and a half ago, as you know, MP Zimmer—was to be very aggressive in seniors housing. There was a lack of housing in our community for seniors. We now have a 175-unit seniors housing complex going up. It will be fully functional within the next eight to 10 months. We heard loud and clear from seniors that these are the kinds of facilities they require.

We continue to be really aggressive in trying to create good, solid, affordable seniors housing, and I think that's one of the big steps we've taken within our own strategy.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Thank you very much.

[Chris Bone]

We've been able to do that through such considerations as land gifts and development cost charges. We've actioned a variety of municipal local government tools in support of affordable housing development.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Mr. Chair, can I ask that they table that housing strategy for the committee?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Yes.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies, BC]

Excellent. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

No problem.

We'll go to MP Robillard for the next six minutes.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome everybody, especially the Inuit students from Nunavut. Usually I ask my questions in French, but since you don't all have hearing devices, I'll try to ask in English today.

First, to the representatives from Nunavut, we know that Inuit communities get their government funds through a distinct channel when compared with the reserves. With that in mind, could you reiterate the needs that you see on the ground and explain how a new government program in a poverty reduction strategy could help solve those problems?

As well, Inuit youth are one of the fastest-growing populations. How are you predicting housing needs based on this growth?

[Aluki Kotierk]

Qujannamiik.

I'll just reiterate the things that are outlined in our makimaniq plan. They include collaboration and community participation, healing and well-being, education and skills development, food security, housing and income support, and community and economic development.

I know we're limited for time, so I would invite everyone to look at our website, www.makiliqta.ca.

One area I'd like to expand on is education and skills development, because I think if there are investments in our people, in Inuit, then they will be able to do their part to get out of poverty. Given the drastic changes we had from the land to the communities, we're still working through how we address that. We're starting to get our footing in the modern world, but my view is that we can be modern and Inuk. We can still have a strong identity in being Inuk and also be part of the Canadian story.

I think investment needs to be focused on our people, however, so that our people are able to be in decision-making positions and make positive improvements in all aspects, including housing, child care, food security, and things of that nature.

[Yves Robillard, Liberal, Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC]

Turning now to housing, can you tell us more, just broadly, about the needs you see as far as housing is concerned? What are your thoughts on how at the federal level we can best help to fix those issues? As well, what can you tell us about the situation regarding the poverty faced by elderly people in the north? What are their housing conditions?

Could you also provide us with data for both your answers to these questions, please?

[Aluki Kotierk]

Qujannamiik.

I'd like to commit to provide that data to the committee.

In terms of elders, I think there's currently an emerging issue in Nunavut. Many of our elders are being sent to Ottawa and other southern places because we don't have facilities that can house elders when they need support. I find this particularly concerning given that many of our elders are not able to speak English. There are not enough supports in our southern cities, including Ottawa, to provide patient care in Inuktitut or to provide “country food”, as we Inuit call the food we get from the land. I think that's a real concern currently and we need to find a solution for that.

Following this appearance, we'll write to the committee and provide information regarding your specific questions about housing.

If you don't mind, I'll ask Kiah to add to that.

[Aqattuaq Kiah Hachey, Acting Assistant Director, Department Social Cultural Development, Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., Nunavut Roundtable for Poverty Reduction]

Statistically, as Aluki referred to earlier, 52% of our people are living in social housing units; and of those units, 38% of tenants are living in overcrowded conditions. I just want to make that clear as well.

Then, on the private market level, to give you a direct example in Iqaluit, as the standard rate for a three-bedroom home in terms of home ownership we are looking at around $500,000. I just want to throw that out there as well for context.

We have a lot of very real housing challenges. We can provide that in writing, further to this. We have already provided a submission to the standing committee on housing in November. We can follow up with that.