Human Resources Committee on Feb. 15th, 2017

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Are there enough dollars coming from the federal government through the resettlement programs? Have you seen an influx of money that way or no?

[Josh Brandon]

All the programs are stretched. I don't think anybody really understood how much work it would be to bring in 25,000 people in such a short period of time. The bigger challenge is just ramping up the capacity. It's not so much the dollars that are coming in but the capacity in the community.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes, absolutely. It's just that when we talk and.... Ms. Redsky, we look at the work that you're doing with the indigenous people, and now what we're doing with the refugees. We're dealing with a program that is widespread but needs to meet everybody's needs. We're taking people who have had issues for centuries, and then people who have come over and had traumatic situations from foreign countries. It's one of those things. It's finding the balance.

I want to know if there's something we can do better, especially since we have two very different types coming to these resources. Do we have the resources that are necessary?

I was out at Saint John where I saw some awesome work being done at the YMCA with their resettlements. I think they spoke 28 languages or something crazy like that within the area.

Are those resources for language training available for the refugees coming to the area so that we can try to put them on the same step as everybody else?

[Josh Brandon]

There are programs available. It's a huge leap to come to Canada. People are enthusiastic about coming here. I'm confident that within a few years, we're going to be reaping the benefits of those communities making their homes here.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

Please, go ahead.

[Diane Redsky]

With my perfect wand to make the world better, indigenous people would have the equivalent resettlement services that newcomers do. By far, there's no equity when it comes to what happens to a newcomer versus what happens to an indigenous person coming to an urban environment. The amount of resources available are nowhere near as much.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you very much for that comment. I think that's necessary for us to hear.

Diane, you seem to have a great deal of wraparound services available. I think you said that you had served about 25,000 people. When we're looking at the data—I don't know if you have any data on this—are we looking at people who have had trauma, people who have mental illness, and people who have disabilities? Do you have a breakdown or any ideas in terms of what that demographic looks like for those who are coming to your services?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Give a very short answer, please.

[Diane Redsky]

Yes. Of that 25,000, they're all indigenous people. You can be pretty much guaranteed that there's some level of trauma in all of them. The severity of it will depend on a whole bunch of factors.

Of the 25,000 people who access our services, 80% are first nations individuals who are connected to a first nation somewhere, mainly in Manitoba.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

Anju, you have six minutes.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

I will continue with Mr. Brandon.

You spoke about working with other agencies. Which agencies do you work with?

[Josh Brandon]

We work with over a hundred different organizations that are working on hunger, employment, mental health—it's the whole range of social justice agencies—and one thing we've tried to do is to bring those priorities together.

One thing we've recognized that really needs to happen is that there needs to be a comprehensive approach to poverty reduction in Canada. When you look at housing, you see instantly that it's connected to employment, to income, and to mental health issues. All those systems need to be integrated.

We also need to focus on targets for where we're going to get to and timelines for realizing them. Those are some of the major lessons we learn when we bring together large coalitions from across the community.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

Do you have one umbrella organization, or is it spread out everywhere so that people have to seek it out themselves?

[Josh Brandon]

Here in Manitoba, I chair a coalition, Make Poverty History Manitoba, and that does a lot of the work of bringing together community organizations from various sectors and helps set and develop priorities.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

You may not be able to answer this, but you didn't get to answer earlier when we were talking about job discrimination and saying that even if they have the degree or the training, they won't get the job. Why is there this discrimination?

[Josh Brandon]

There have been centuries of discrimination and racism in Canada, and I think all Canadians have absorbed some of that to one degree or another, either on the receiving end or in perpetrating it. It's a part of our culture that we really need to deconstruct.

In terms of employment, I think there are some great organizations that are doing good work here in Manitoba in helping to give training to people. There are social enterprises that are bringing people into apprenticeship programs. They are helping people by recognizing that more than just training is needed. Life skills development is also needed, as is working with the employers, in order to recognize that different groups have different abilities, different capacities, and different skills that they're bringing to a job situation.

One of the important roles that government can have is not just in funding those organizations, but in procurement from them. A lot of the really good work that has been done in Manitoba housing in recent years has been done through social enterprises that provide training and employment opportunities for people with barriers to employment. That helps get people in the door and it gives people confidence. Once people have more confidence and more work experience in their jobs, they're able to move out into other sectors of employment.

[Anju Dhillon, Liberal, Dorval—Lachine—LaSalle, QC]

You mentioned that income support programs are also needed. Can you please tell us what you would like to see as part of these programs?

[Josh Brandon]

We've had some really good steps during the past couple of years, both in Manitoba and in Canada. With the introduction of the Canada child benefit program, you start to see a drop in food bank use already because of that. People have access to better shelters because of the rent assist program.

I think if you start to look at it globally, you can start to see the makings of a basic income program right across Canada because we have basic income for seniors, we have, for families, the start of basic income with the child benefit program, and for renters here in Manitoba there's rent assist. One of the biggest gaps we see, though, is for the basic needs of things like food, clothing, communications, and transportation. That chunk is missing, and people have to go to social assistance programs that are almost always inadequate and have barriers and all kinds of problems.

Diane was talking about it taking all day to be poor. If you're having to go to the welfare office to knock on six different doors, it's not only inefficient, it's degrading. It reduces your ability and your capacity to enter employment and to develop your training and skills. If we could just get, across the board, basic income programs that deal with all of those elements, then people can have firm ground to stand on to get to the next level of their development.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Karen, you have five minutes.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Thank you, Josh, for breaking into this, the basic annual income.

I've done a lot of research on it personally and I am part of the all-party anti-poverty caucus, which has heard different people come in and discuss this. There are different ways of approaching this, so tell me the model that, for basic annual income, you think is best.

[Josh Brandon]

I think it's important not to take away from existing programs. Recognizing that, as I said earlier, we need a comprehensive approach to poverty reduction.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Could you be much more specific? There are different models, so what I'm looking at specifically is what model it is that you're saying we should bring to the table when we talk about basic annual income.

[Josh Brandon]

There are two main models that are usually proposed. One is a model that's universal, that just provides a flat income benefit for all people, and then there are adjustments to the taxation system to claw it back. The other would be a negative income tax model—there are different terms for that—where you have a graduated approach. Generally speaking, the research is starting to show that a graduated approach is better at targeting the families that are most in need, but either way it's proposed, it really depends on how it fits in with other systems.

[Karen Vecchio, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

Yes, I think we saw that Switzerland is looking at the universal. Of course, if somebody's making $150,000, why would they need the basic annual income? You're talking about a much more targeted approach.

Now, here's where I need to get into it, and I've said this many times. I've done 83 tax returns, and I'm looking at the basic annual income, the child benefit, and all of these things. I'm not going to say that the child benefit is not a positive thing for families, because it is. I know that; it does help families. At the same time, when you talk about marginal rate of tax, there are a variety of different things that weigh.

When I was working as an assistant in an MP's office, I made $40,000. A person who was on benefits made $72,000 and had affordable housing as well. My whole household income at the time was $75,000, and that included my husband's and my income, and I was serving somebody who had housing and a non-taxable child tax benefit, because it was never taxable. What are we saying here when you're saying not to take those programs away?

This lady made $3,000 less than my spouse and me, but had all of these non-taxable benefits coming to her. How do we have equality? I'm going to use what good old Bob Zimmer says, “Joe and Jane Taxpayer.” How can we settle this, when people like me and my husband, who worked 40 and 50 hours a week, were not benefiting, yet we had some people on programs that were fully benefiting, especially when you're saying you cannot take those benefits away?

If they get the basic annual income as well, they're going to continue to draw away from the working poor. How do we deal with that?

[Josh Brandon]

I think we need programs that provide a basic platform of income for all households. We still need to recognize that some households may have other needs. One participant in one of the programs that I'm working with has severe disabilities. She needs medication and she needs supports for helping her around her house. We can't say that her needs will be the same as my needs. The kinds of income supports that people need will vary across the board.

We need to provide a basic platform for all Canadians and then look at other programs to see where the gaps are. We know that a basic income doesn't mean that families don't still need child care to be able to access employment or access their education.