Evidence of meeting #42 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was winnipeg.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Tyler, I'm going to turn to you. You brought up the basic annual income. As part of the all-party poverty study, we're looking at this as well.
There are very different ways of looking at it. What's the cycle of it going to be? So many people will say, “This is what we need to do”, but there are so many different ways of actioning it. Can you tell me what you believe is the best way of actioning the basic annual income for Canadians?
9:10 a.m.
Chair, Federal Working Group, Manitoba, Right to Housing Coalition
I wish I could answer that. I am not an expert in basic income. All I know about it is that there are many approaches, some that actually cut social services and some that will top things up. I am going to say that I'm not the expert to speak on that.
9:10 a.m.
Chair, Federal Working Group, Manitoba, Right to Housing Coalition
But I think we need to appreciate the push and pull between income and the cost of housing, and you have to consider both. There's not going to be a magic bullet whereby if you can raise people's income, it's going to solve their housing stress.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thank you very much.
That's one of the reasons I ask. I've studied this a lot. I see some positive approaches to it, and I've seen some negative approaches. We've seen that over in Europe. I believe it's Switzerland that said no to it because it was for everybody.
I'm going to ask this. Has anybody talked about the basic annual income and had a greater access to the information? Jino, have you studied it at all?
9:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
Manitoba did try the guaranteed income program.
9:10 a.m.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
Again, we always look at that.
My view remains that income is one part of this. Again, maybe as an educator, I still feel that, as we all know, the single greatest determinant of well-being and healthy outcomes is education. Education to me is the piece.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thank you very much. I agree very greatly.
Kate, I believe you brought this up. When we talk about some of the barriers that we have to housing, a lot of it has to do with red tape. I think you said there are so many challenges to building the rent-geared-to.... You know what I'm saying.
What are some of those challenges and how can we fix some of those barriers? What do you see as being some of these issues?
9:10 a.m.
Director, Community Inclusion and Investment, Citizen Services, City of Edmonton
Access to affordable housing, we believe, is a human right. We see that there are barriers for newcomers and for our high-risk, at-risk youth. Certainly in Edmonton now, we're very pleased that we have a 10-year plan to end homelessness, which is well toward the 10-year period. They're looking now to update that and to ask where some of the gaps are.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
What are some of those barriers, specifically?
9:10 a.m.
Director, Community Inclusion and Investment, Citizen Services, City of Edmonton
One of the areas, I think, that has been identified very recently from our experience in Edmonton is the permanent support of housing that is needed. It is really an area that has come to the fore. In the homelessness counts that are done regularly, annually, in most cities, ours included, I think a significant portion was the chronically homeless. It was very hard to find housing.
As they go forward, to look at the next 10-year plan to end homelessness, that's going to be a focus. They also have a focus on working with aboriginal youth. That may touch on some of our issues having to do with racism and discrimination in terms of housing.
9:10 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Thank you very much.
Allan, thank you very much for your presentation. As part of a job before, I tried to set up charitable organizations, so I can see the issue with that.
What have you tried to do to have that legislation reviewed and looked at? I hear what you're saying. I think it's a great idea, but what have you done, or what challenges have you made to the government on this?
9:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Central Neighbourhoods Development Corporation
It's the decision to actually approach it this way. This is a first step. I took over the helm at CNDC in 2009, and since then we have applied twice. Right now we are under review.
Again, how do you alleviate poverty with all that you do? The definition is very focused on the actions rather than the purposes of what we do. In community economic development, you don't just look at it like “Here is bread. You're hungry. Go home.” You look at the long-term effect.
9:15 a.m.
Conservative
Karen Vecchio Conservative Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON
Having charitable status would be a way to engage people to provide so that they have income tax benefits.
9:15 a.m.
Executive Director, Central Neighbourhoods Development Corporation
Absolutely. We started under a Manitoba government program. We have a Manitoba act, actually. We have The Community Renewal Act that was adopted by our NDP government previous to the current government. That act enables 13 organizations funded by the Province of Manitoba to operate in designated areas. You can read the statistics on, for example, three of my neighbourhoods that fall within the federal riding of Winnipeg Centre. That is practically the poorest area in Canada. A corner of it starts with the R2W postal code. That is the poorest place in Canada.
So what do you do? You don't approach this simply through charitable acts such as opening up a soup kitchen. In times of crisis, that is great, but how do you follow the life of a young man or woman who starts in one of our kindergartens, follows through to junior high, and goes to the high school? How do you make sure that person graduates?
Most of our schools—and this is very important—are trying to maximize their instructional dollars. That leaves a whole bunch of extra supportive activities and extracurricular activities that my agency provides. I hire and train people who live in the area, who are living below the low poverty line or at the poverty line, and I send them to school, for example, to learn how to read. There's a program called read-assist for kids. We follow those kids, but not statistically, because, again—and Jino said this as well—there is a whole lot of focus on statistics, on reports, and on red tape. That really undermines and does not give any consideration to the dignity of the individual.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bryan May
Thank you.
Now for the next six minutes, we have Mr. Wayne Long.
Go ahead, please.
9:15 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to our guests this morning for their very heartfelt presentations.
Mr. Distasio, I just want to talk with you, if I could, for a minute. Your presentation was excellent, and I apologize in advance. You're more than just an academic who is giving me numbers. There's a lot of passion and experience there. Where have we as a federal government gone wrong? I see your frustration. I see everybody's frustration. You were given $750,000 over three years to study this. You said yourself that billions of dollars have been spent.
I come from Saint John—Rothesay, in New Brunswick, and we do lead the country in child poverty at 31%. Some of our priority neighbourhoods are upwards of 50% to 60% child poverty, but I believe that transformational change comes from federal programs, such as the Canada child benefit, or for seniors, the OAS or the GIS, for example. Where have we as a federal government gone wrong? Can you just speak to what you think we could have done?
This isn't a political statement. It's us, it was the Conservatives before us, before that it was us, and it was the Conservatives before that. Where have we gone wrong? Have we not aligned properly? Have we not been focused? I know I'm asking you six things at once. Is there a better way we can align that money between federal and provincial, and then with the municipalities? There's something missing here. Again, my biggest frustration in Saint John—Rothesay in particular is that despite what we do, the needle isn't moving.
9:15 a.m.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
I think that's a recurring thought. It's hard to put a single.... I think the federal government has done not a bad job with respect to housing and homelessness over the last 15 to 17 years. I think, interestingly, that policy has evolved from the 1999 approach to building shelters to now realizing that mental health, addictions, housing first, employment, and all these kinds of pieces are important. I just think we've overtasked organizations that know what they're doing.
9:20 a.m.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
I think we've just burdened organizations. I'll give you an example. I received HPS money to do a report on the African housing situation in your neighbourhood, $25,000, and toward the end I said to the community entity, “Why don't you just keep the money? I can't deal with all your requirements and my finance department telling me they've never been asked these questions on reporting, on requirements, insurance, and certificates, and all these kinds of things.” I just said, “We don't need the money. We're just in education. I'm just an academic.” I keep saying, “How the hell do organizations deal with this bureaucratic quagmire?”
What we've done well, though, is that we've created community advisory boards, we've created the CEs, the groups in each city that are tasked with doing things. Just empower them.
9:20 a.m.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
Yes. I think there is room for some exploration. Again, selfishly, the At Home/Chez Soi project is a good example of an applied research demonstration project. We were demonstrating housing first in five Canadian cities that then leveraged $650 million through HPS into housing first.
9:20 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
I've met frequently with Claudette Bradshaw. She's in Moncton and obviously, she was—
9:20 a.m.
Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Institute of Urban Studies, University of Winnipeg
She was a powerhouse.