Human Resources Committee on March 10th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Good morning, everybody.

I welcome John Brassard to our committee to replace Mr. Zimmer for today.

I would like to officially welcome Madame Sansoucy to this committee. As we know, our former member of this committee is moving on to a higher pursuit.

Welcome also to everybody here. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, June 13, 2016, the committee is resuming its study on poverty reduction strategies.

Today is the last day of witness testimony for this almost year-long study. We've gone coast to coast and met with a number of great organizations and individuals. I'm very excited that we will soon be tabling a report on this very important topic.

I would like to welcome today a number of witnesses to speak. From the City of Toronto we have Pamela McConnell, deputy mayor. From the Canadian Association for Community Living we have Michael Bach, executive vice-president. From the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario we have Magda Barrera and Mary Todorow. From United Way Toronto and York Region, we have Pedro Barata. As an individual, we have Donald K. Johnson, member of the advisory board, Bank of Montreal Capital Markets.

We have a full panel. We're going to start with opening statements from each of you. Because we have such a large group and a tight timeline, I'm going to ask that you keep your comments to seven minutes. If you see the red light go on, it's my very polite way to say that you're out of time.

To start us off, from the City of Toronto, Pamela McConnell, the next seven minutes are yours.

[Pamela McConnell, Deputy Mayor, City of Toronto]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the opportunity to address the committee on such a very important issue as poverty reduction strategy.

I'm very aware that you've already heard from our staff, and I very much appreciate that they've talked to you about the technical elements of our poverty reduction strategy, which is called “TO Prosperity”. I'm therefore going to focus my remarks on my perspective as deputy mayor responsible for this role, and also on looking at the innovation and collaboration that we can have between orders of government, because that's a very important piece of it.

I will just remind you that on November 4, 2015, almost two years ago, the city council unanimously adopted the TO Prosperity strategy. It's a 20-year prosperity plan to advance equity, opportunity, and, obviously, prosperity for all Toronto residents, and to build a strong safety net as well as a lifeline to keep people out of poverty and to pull them out if they get there.

It's a systems strategy and focuses on five different issues, all of which are in our jurisdiction; we focus only on our jurisdiction. They are housing stability, transit equity, service access, food access, and quality jobs and livable wages—sort of like the fingers on your hand—with an equity lens and systemic change.

We have three overriding objectives that guide our work.

The first is to address immediate needs, or what some call the “low-hanging fruit”, and it is really, for many, something that can make a big difference in their lives immediately. Therefore, I want to ensure that these vital services are well funded, well coordinated, and meet the immediate needs of our people who are living in poverty. I've worked with the FCM, and I can tell you that in Toronto there's a huge difference in the numbers, with one in four children living in poverty as opposed to 8% across the country.

Second, we must create pathways to prosperity. We want to ensure that city programs and all the services are integrated, client-centred, and focused on early intervention.

The third is to drive systemic change. We want to leverage the economic power of the city to stimulate job growth through things such as social procurement, which is a very important policy piece; to support local businesses in their drive to help; and, to drive inclusive economic growth and tackle deep-rooted social inequities.

There are some areas, obviously, in which the city has many tools, resources, and opportunities, and we can use those as an authority to lead and to take meaningful action. In other areas, the city looks to collaboration with other orders of government, and that's really what I'm here to push today. We also work with the private sector. Jobs on Bay Street are very important, as is labour, which helped in some of our youth employment and in community organizations that we collaborate with.

At the city, we are very encouraged that the federal government is committed to developing a new poverty reduction strategy, and more and more municipalities—as I said, I'm on the board of the FCM—and the provinces are developing strategies as well. What I would suggest to you is that they need to all come together. Given that there's enormous economic potential for collaboration and coordination, it seems to me that we have an obligation as well.

To be very clear, without resources and the support of the federal government, the efforts of cities—our city and others—and other efforts within the city of Toronto cannot have the desired impact. There are three areas that I would emphasize where there should be intergovernmental collaboration; coordination has been an enormous need and has an enormous potential for us. Those areas are housing, child care, and transit. I'm sure you've heard that right across the country. These are the key components that most of the existing poverty reduction strategies across the country are focusing on, and I would suggest that the committee look very carefully at these things.

In my view, the federal poverty reduction strategy in housing should be very closely aligned with the national housing strategy, which I hope is going to be released later on in 2017, and should include significant investments in building affordable housing, ownership housing, and maintaining and repairing social housing—I'd underscore that.

As Mayor Tory has stressed, the lack of affordable rental and ownership housing in Toronto, combined with the terrible state of repair of much of our social housing, is undermining the quality of our residents' lives, denying the residents their basic rights, and negatively impacting Toronto's economy and its capacity to attract new business and new business investment.

As we suggested, regarding the national strategy, there are several opportunities for immediate action by the federal government that would have an immediate impact. For example, it is the position of the city, as well as the FCM, that it should maintain existing levels of funding and reinvest savings from the expiring social housing agreement. We've pushed for that over quite a period of time.

In our city, as in others, we're trying to help people avoid poverty. Therefore, it's important that we invest in the capital repairs for the TCHC, our housing company. That's an urgent need, and a massive one, so we require a lot of support from you, the federal government, to repair that essential infrastructure. It's an ask of $864 million, and we know that's a lot, but we've put our money in and we're asking the federal and the provincial governments to match that. Of course, as you well know, our population keeps growing, so we also need to build more affordable housing.

We have a couple of long-term investments that I would suggest to you. One of them is also the position of the federation.

We're calling for $12.6 billion in phase two for social infrastructure over the next eight years. We've been working very hard to lobby for that and we're waiting for March 22. In addition to that, however, we have what's called the mayor's “open door” program. It has various incentives such as taxation waivers, and it helps us to develop our program. We think you could do that.

The second and third ones, I think, are more obvious to you. They include child care. The national framework for early learning and child care is coming onto the agenda, and we would hope that you're working with that. Perhaps you would like to know that if you have a child in Toronto and put your child into child care and have no subsidy, it's $2,350 a month. It's hugely expensive.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Yes, if you can find it.

[Pamela McConnell]

That's right.

The last one is transit. Transit, of course, is not just about building infrastructure, but also about allowing access to it. I know that Calgary has just gone down to a $5-a-month pass. We have implemented a pass. It's not $5, but we hope that it will be.

In conclusion, I would encourage you to continue to think about these things across the country, to think about us in Toronto, with the highest population in poverty, and to think about our 20-year strategy and how we need to work together to get there.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Michael Bach, executive vice-president of the Canadian Association for Community Living.

The next seven minutes are yours, sir.

[Michael Bach, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Association for Community Living]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to be here today.

The Canadian Association for Community Living is a national federation of over 200 local associations, provincial and territorial associations, and our national organization. Our mission is to advance the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities, and we work closely with the cross-disability community.

We are very encouraged by this committee's study on poverty reduction strategies. This has been a primary area of concern for us, given that over 70% of adults with intellectual disabilities who do not live with their families live in poverty. At the outset of your study, we encourage some consideration of what we mean by “poverty”. I appreciate the deputy mayor's comments on the need for a multi-sectoral approach.

What do we mean by poverty? We're guided by the definition in the Quebec act through a study we did with the cross-disability community—“Disabling Poverty/Enabling Citizenship”—to combat poverty and social exclusion. I'd like to read for you the definition in that act. Poverty is defined as:

the condition of a human being who is deprived of the resources, means, choices and power necessary to acquire and maintain economic self-sufficiency or to facilitate integration and participation in society.

As a starting point, we would encourage a comprehensive definition of poverty, which would then take us to thinking about what kinds of investments are required to give people the capabilities and opportunities they need in order to participate. As an overarching frame, we would suggest a capabilities approach developed by Amartya Sen and adopted by the UN development index. Before we get into the details, let's be clear about what we're trying to accomplish, which is to provide people greater power over their own lives so they can participate in the social, economic, and cultural lives of their communities in a way that gives them well-being.

I don't need to go into the details. Our brief will leave you with the details of the realities facing people with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities. I'll give you just a couple of highlights.

We're talking about 13% to 14% of the population, or over four million Canadians. Seven out of 10 need help with daily activities. Caregiving of people with disabilities is part of the lives of over eight million Canadians.

Parents who have children with disabilities are much more likely to have to downscale their participation in the labour market or leave it altogether. Consequently, we're seeing that families who have family members with disabilities are more likely to live in poverty as well. This doesn't just affect individuals; it affects families as well.

Almost 700,000 people with disabilities also give care to other people with disabilities. More and more, this is going to be the case with the dramatic aging of the population and the increase in our population of people with cognitive disabilities, traumatic brain injury, etc. All those numbers are going up. That's who we're going to be. Despite how we think of ourselves, despite our ideal of intellectual and physical prowess, more of us are never going to meet that, and certainly, at some point in our lives, we will be nowhere near meeting that. We're an increasingly disabled population, so we need to accept disability as part of the fabric of our personal lives, our families, and our communities.

Because this is a study on poverty reduction strategies, while we have our list of what a strategy for people with disabilities might look like, we are more interested at this point in leaving you with some ways of framing this issue overall. In starting with a broad definition of poverty, and then in terms of a framework for thinking about what poverty means and how it happens, it's very important to start with the outcomes of vulnerable groups. I appreciate that in your terms of reference you've referenced that we should focus on particularly vulnerable groups.

What does “vulnerability” mean when it comes to people with intellectual disabilities? We've identified six key dimensions of exclusion. If we take the starting point in terms of the definition, we're trying to address exclusion. What do we mean by “exclusion”? People are lonely, stigmatized, and isolated.

Up to 50% of people with intellectual disabilities experience chronic loneliness and isolation compared to 15% to 30% of the general population. Over 50% of people with intellectual disabilities experience mental health issues. When the experiences of isolation are combined with low income or a disability, these things start to get compounded. When you add gender into it, you add refugee or immigrant status into it, you add racialized status, or you add indigenous status into this, the issues of exclusion grow.

People with intellectual and cognitive disabilities are four times more likely than the general population to experience violence and victimization. These things start to compound. In terms of income, as I've indicated, over 70% of adults with intellectual disabilities are living in low-income situations. Another dimension is people who lack personal and communication supports at home. More than 50% of children with disabilities do not have access to the needed aids and devices they require.

In terms of homelessness and lack of affordable and adequate housing, we know that on any given night, 35,000 people are homeless in Canada, and the evidence points to a much higher proportion of people with intellectual and other disabilities. Almost 30,000 adults are currently placed in congregate residential facilities, which means they don't have power over their own lives. While in one sense they may have basic needs met in congregate facilities, if we stake our starting point of what poverty means in terms of being socially excluded or not having power over your own life, those people need to be part of a poverty reduction strategy because they don't have power over their own lives.

In Ontario alone, there are 10,000 to 12,000 people on waiting lists for residential services. Their families, according to a report released by the ombudsman of Ontario last year, had absolutely nowhere to turn, which leads to the institutionalization by default because families don't have support. We have a basic sort of infrastructure system in this country that relies on families to provide all caring responsibilities, and it's becoming increasingly unsustainable.

The final dimension of exclusion is that people are powerless. Just yesterday the Law Commission of Ontario released its report on decision-making capacity and legal guardianship, and despite years of advancing proposals to recognize the legal capacity of people with intellectual disabilities and the support they need, the Law Commission has refused to go down that path and has continued to press for guardianship systems despite the United Nations calling Canada out on this.

Our approach is to start with exclusion and those realities of exclusion and then to begin to think about the kinds of areas in which we need to make investments, to understand what those core barriers that result in that kind of exclusion are. From the perspective of disability, perceptions and attitudes of others are critical. Access to communication support is critical. Deaf Canadians in Canada don't have access to the basic interpretive services they require to access health care.

As far as social infrastructure goes, we've talked about social infrastructure in terms of a housing strategy being absolutely critical as well as for indigenous and first nations communities. We would really encourage extending an understanding of social infrastructure to families and investing in family support.

Finally, we need to invest in and ensure that people have basic legal status in this country. The federal government has a role in that, as do the provincial and territorial governments.

I'll leave it there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, sir.

Now from Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, we have Magda Barrera and Mary Todorow.

[Mary Todorow, Research and Policy Analyst, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario]

Thank you for inviting me and my colleague Magda Barrera to be part of this important discussion.

The Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, or ACTO, is a community legal clinic funded by Legal Aid Ontario. We provide legal advice and representation to low-income Ontarians. We also work for the advancement of human rights and social justice in housing through law reform, community organizing, and education initiatives. Our focus is on homelessness prevention and bettering the housing conditions for low-income tenants.

Housing costs are the largest expenditure for low-income households. Any federal strategy to reduce poverty must be fully coordinated with a robust and effective national housing strategy, which we believe should be rights-based, adequately funded, and enshrined in legislation. Tenants and people who are homeless are disproportionately among those living in poverty. In renter households across Canada, nearly one in five are paying more than 50% of their income on rent, and they're at serious risk of becoming homeless. Among this group are a disproportionate number of women, especially single parents, indigenous households, seniors, recent immigrants, and people with disabilities, as you just heard.

Crucial to the success of the strategy to reduce poverty among these vulnerable communities is a bold commitment to address, one, the shortfall in supply of new affordable rental housing; two, the retention of existing affordable housing; three, the growing gap between low household incomes and market rents; and four, legal protections for tenants.

[Magda Barrera, Housing and Economics Policy Analyst, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario]

Ontario needs to build about 10,000 new rental units annually to meet the demand of the growing population. We've seen an average of about 3,200 rental completions annually over the last 20 years, much less than half of what we need. The private market has produced plenty of new ownership housing, but it has not delivered a significant number of new purpose-built rental properties, with even fewer affordable rental units.

The housing developed under the cost-shared Ontario-Canada funding program provides affordable rental units, with rents that are on average at or below 80% of CMHC market rents than the local community, but these below-market rents remain unaffordable to people who are homeless or who are on the social housing waiting list. In addition, private for-profit landlords own 35% of the rental housing built in Ontario with funding from these programs. It is shocking to us that projects approved under the rental housing component of the investment in affordable housing program are only required to be affordable for a minimum period of 20 years. This means that over one third of the units built to date will not be permanent public infrastructure with affordable rents over the long term despite a significant investment of public dollars.

We need an affordable housing building program with adequate funding and firm annual targets. In addition, we strongly recommend that all new rental housing developed with public funds should be owned and managed solely by the non-profit sector and remain affordable over the long term, not just 20 years.

[Mary Todorow]

Social housing providers, like all residential landlords, are required under the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act to keep their portfolio in a state of good repair and fit for habitation. The replacement cost of the existing social housing portfolio in Ontario is estimated to be $40 billion, while the capital repair deficit for the Toronto Community Housing Corporation alone, the largest social housing landlord in the country, is estimated to be $2.6 billion over the next 10 years. The lack of funding and resulting disrepair is harmful to tenants, and it also sets a poor example for private sector landlords.

The national housing strategy should recognize the massive federal investment in this housing and the need for funding to maintain Canada-wide minimum standards of habitability in these homes.

[Magda Barrera]

The gap between what low-income tenants can afford to pay for their housing and private market rents has caused the number of households on the active waiting list for rent-geared-to-income housing to soar to over 170,000. We understand that a federal housing benefit is being considered that could provide income support to tenants to bridge the gap between an affordable rent and the actual rent. We certainly support an initiative that would provide greater income to low-income tenants. However, any housing benefit policy must be carefully examined in order to prevent such potential downsides as the possibility of rent inflation, the lack of housing choices for tenants when there are low vacancy rates, and the fact that tenants in social housing could end up paying more for their housing if the benefit replacement of the rent-geared-to-income subsidy is at a lower rate.

Ontario is currently conducting a two-year pilot housing benefit program for victims of domestic violence. Housing benefits may be best used in such cases where assistance is needed quickly, and this type of program could be expanded to people experiencing short-term income loss.

[Mary Todorow]

We know from our experience that low-income tenants are disadvantaged in the housing market because of inadequacies in the provincial laws that regulate their relations with their landlords. The federal government should encourage strong provincial tenant protection policies. These would include effective rent regulation, protection of the rental housing stock, security of tenure, and fair and accessible dispute resolution that is integrated with homelessness prevention measures.

Comprehensive rent regulation can prevent rent gouging during market upswings, encourage stability in the rental market, and keep long-standing tenants from being pushed out of their homes and neighbourhoods by dramatic rent increases.

We'd like to make just a few brief comments on housing first, which is championed by many as a solution to homelessness. Housing first targets long-term chronically homeless individuals who live on the streets or in shelters. Most of these individuals are men. Many have addictions, often concurrent with a mental health issue. But housing first fails to address the problem of the hidden homeless, and those are the estimated 50,000 people who don't live on the streets or in shelters but who are without a safe, permanent, and stable home on any given night in Canada. As well, housing first doesn't address the prevention of homelessness.

To reduce poverty, we need innovative thinking, but we can't forsake what has worked in the past and what continues to work for hundreds of thousands of Canadians, which is rent-geared-to-income subsidies, publicly owned rental housing, and laws to protect tenants from unfair or opportunistic behaviour by landlords and developers.

Thank you for your attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much to both of you, and I look forward to hearing some of those innovative ideas as the questions start shortly.

Before that, however, we're going to hear from Pedro Barata of United Way Toronto and York Region.

You have seven minutes, sir.

[Pedro Barata, Senior Vice-President, Strategic Initiatives and Public Affairs, United Way Toronto and York Region]

Thank you very much.

The last time we were all supposed to get together in this very hotel, the meeting had to be cancelled. For those of us who live here it was a mild annoyance, but for you and the whole team around you, it meant another day away from your families, another day living out of a suitcase, another day re-booking meetings, scheduling meetings, and spending a lot of time on the phone. We want to thank you for the public service you and your support staff are doing on a very important issue, which is of great concern to Canadians and which really requires the multipartisan nature of a dialogue that is not about who's right but about what's right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you for that.

And most importantly, the worst part of it was that we had to stay in his riding for an extra two days. He got to go home early.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Pedro Barata]

I'm sure he was a good host.

It's also fitting that you would end your proceedings, or at least this part of your study, in a place like Toronto. This may not be the generally held consensus around the table, but Toronto's a pretty awesome place in which to live, and it may be one of the best places in the world in which to live. One of the things we are particularly proud of here in Toronto is the fact that, yes, we have a lot of cranes, and yes, we are a beacon of prosperity, but we're also a place where diversity truly is our strength and our motto. It's based on values like fairness, belonging, opportunity, and the kinds of things that really hold our community together.

Those values and all of the things that really make us proud of the places in which we live—Toronto is not alone in this, as these are the same values that hold Canada together—are being compromised by things like the growth of precarious employment in our city; the growing gap between neighbourhoods, between those who are doing well and those who are not doing so well; and the real challenges facing the next generation. What's happening in terms of the intergenerational deal, and what will happen to our legacy in terms of the opportunities for the next generation? The idea of a poverty reduction plan is really the foundation in terms of reinforcing the kinds of values that make this the best country in the world in which to live, so you have a great responsibility that we really appreciate.

There are things around a poverty reduction strategy that we've learned are really important. It starts with having a plan. This is not a one-off. It is not an announcement or a ribbon cutting. It has to be a multi-year endeavour. It helps to have targets and timetables so that we're all pushing in the same direction. It really helps to understand as well that there's no silver bullet. There's no one sector. Government can't do it alone, and neither can the private sector or United Way. We're all part of the solution. Having a plan with a target helps us all push in the right direction.

You will hear a lot about investments and the need for new investments. Those are absolutely required. The Canada child tax benefit is an absolutely historic achievement that will be a game-changer when it comes to moving the needle on child poverty in Canada. We'll begin to see those results fairly soon.

I want to do something different today and talk about, in addition to those investments, five ideas that the federal government could implement. They have very modest or no cost at all, and could start to be implemented right away. I'll try to move through them very quickly.

The first one relates to the very significant investments in infrastructure that the federal government is putting in place. In addition to building roads, bridges, sewers, and the kinds of things that make our communities and economy go, I would urge you to also consider the role of community infrastructure and community hubs. In our own backyard here in Toronto, we're seeing that the city is changing, the region is changing. In some neighbourhoods that were originally built as primarily residential neighbourhoods, those neighbourhoods are changing. They are now destinations for newcomers. They are the places where there is affordable housing. The problem is that those neighbourhoods don't have any community infrastructure. We at United Way, working with many of our partners, have built community hubs, one-stop shops where people can get the services they need. I would encourage you, in the envelope of infrastructure investments, to think about opening up opportunities for community hubs.

Second, also on the infrastructure side, the board of trade in Toronto just released a study showing that 147,000 new jobs will be created in the trades, and they will require new supply. Through infrastructure and community benefits, you can think about not just how you're building transit and other needed hard infrastructure but also how we're connecting people, especially young people who are looking for opportunities, to careers in the trades that they might otherwise never have thought of. We can use a dollar to build not just the things we need but also opportunities for young people. Through projects here in Toronto, we're actually modelling and piloting how some of those approaches could spark partnerships that provide opportunities for people to pursue careers at the same time that we drive our economy.

Third, youth are facing challenges, but not all youth are facing the same kinds of challenges. There's a youth employment strategy that the federal government has in place. It's booked. It's happening. There are investments happening. In terms of the youth who are furthest away from the labour market, who are facing the greatest barriers, we need to really target resources, as part of the youth employment strategy, at those youth. If we don't act, they are the ones who are most likely to fall through the cracks and the ones who are most likely to cost us down the line in terms of health, criminal justice, lost productivity, and all kinds of other costs that will not just compromise our values but also hurt our bottom line.

Fourth, community service infrastructures are absolutely essential, but how do Canadians connect with those services? At 211 is one way. It is a one-stop shop that is 24/7, multilingual, with very high satisfaction rates, and it can connect people to the services they need.

Lastly, the government is investing in a national housing strategy, and, as part of that, we hope it is about to announce a fiscal framework. We think it's time, alongside with new builds, repairs, and addressing homelessness, for a portable housing benefit. That could be a game-changer when it comes to addressing the needs of Canadians. Evidence shows that such benefits, when properly designed, do not inflate rents, complement social housing by freeing up space to those who need it most, and are cost effective. There are five or six provinces that are currently developing housing benefits.

Yes, we need new builds, but those will take time. Yes, we need repairs, but that doesn't give you any new supply. Housing benefits are the most efficient, broad way to start helping Canadians now, and we would encourage you to consider that as part of a national housing strategy and a poverty reduction strategy.

Thank you very much for your time. I look forward to the discussion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much, sir.

As somebody who has spent most of my career working with volunteers and advocating in the area of philanthropy, it's an honour to introduce our next witness. He has been recognized at the highest level in this country for his philanthropic work in volunteerism.

The next seven minutes, Mr. Johnson, are yours.

[Donald Johnson, Member, Advisory Board, BMO Capital Markets, As an Individual]

First of all, I'd like to thank the committee for inviting me to appear as a witness and to provide some suggestions to help achieve the objectives on this important public policy issue.

While I'm here as an individual, my title is member, advisory board, BMO Capital Markets, and I am a volunteer board member on four not-for-profit organizations. I really am here to speak on behalf of charities that support the people on which your committee is focused.

In further enhancing the skills of working Canadians and providing support for persons with disabilities, a major opportunity exists through a tax-effective measure as an alternative to direct government funding for agencies that provide these services. These organizations, including colleges, universities, and social service agencies such as United Way Centraide can all be rendered more effective by a modest tax amendment.

On behalf of not-for-profit organizations and education, health care, social services, and arts and culture, I made a submission to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance during its pre-budget consultation hearings last fall. A copy of my submission is attached to my speaking notes in both English and French. It outlined the opportunity to increase charitable donations by $200 million per annum, which would benefit all Canadians who are served by our charitable organizations.

Our recommendation is that the government remove the capital gains tax on charitable gifts of private company shares and real estate in the 2017 budget, which will be tabled on March 22.

Charitable donations to organizations in the not-for-profit sector are much more tax effective than direct government funding because the fiscal cost is shared between the government and the donor. A portion of the incremental charitable donations would be directed to colleges and universities that provide skills and training to our workforce, including those with disabilities. A portion would also be directed to social service agencies, such as United Way Centraide, that provide such support.

The 2015 budget included a measure such that if the owner of private company shares or real estate sold the asset to an arm's-length party and donated all or a portion of the cash proceeds to a registered charity within 30 days, the donor would be exempt from capital gains tax on that portion donated to a charity. Although the measure was in the budget, it unfortunately was not included in the budget bill that was passed in June 2015, a few months prior to the election, and, consequently, it was not enacted into law. As you may know, the 2016 budget stated that the government was not going to proceed with this measure.

Although it was the Conservative government that tabled the 2015 budget, this measure had the support of all three parties. Scott Brison, who was then finance critic for the Liberal Party and is now President of the Treasury Board, was publicly supportive. Thomas Mulcair, then the leader of the NDP and currently the interim leader, was also supportive. So it is reasonable to assume that both the Conservatives and the NDP would be supportive of this measure if it were included in the 2017 budget.

The case for its inclusion is compelling. First, the forgone capital gains tax on these donations is only $50 million to $60 million a year, and the charitable donation tax credit is the same as for gifts of cash.

Second, because the donor must sell the asset to an arm's-length party, this ensures that he or she receives fair market value for the sale and addresses any concern about valuation abuse.

Third, introducing this measure addresses a current inequity in the Income Tax Act. It provides the same tax treatment for donations of private company shares and real estate that currently applies to gifts of other appreciated capital assets and listed securities.

Entrepreneurs who keep their company private would be treated the same as entrepreneurs who take their company public.

Finally, the vast majority of these donations would be incremental, and would not be a substitution for cash donations.

United Way Toronto and York Region is an excellent example of how the disadvantaged in our society would benefit from this measure. I'm pleased that my colleague Pedro is here from United Way Toronto and York Region and is participating as a witness this morning.

I'd like to share with you how United Way in Toronto has benefited from the removal of the capital gains tax on gifts of listed securities. From 1956 to 1996, the total gifts of listed securities to United Way of Toronto amounted to only $44,000—that's over 40 years. From 1997, when the capital gains tax was cut in half, to 2016, gifts of listed securities to United Way in Toronto totalled over $176 million, as a result of the removal of the capital gains tax on gifts of listed securities. United Way Toronto and York Region provides crucial funding for over 200 agencies in the GTA and the York region. This is a measure that can help significantly in skills and social development.

Now, as your committee's report will not be delivered to the House of Commons until after the 2017 budget, which is going to be tabled on March 22, communication of your support to Minister of Finance Bill Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at your earliest opportunity would be much appreciated.

That concludes my remarks. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, sir.

Now we're going to get started with questions. To start us off, we have MP Poilievre.

You have six minutes, sir.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Thank you very much, and thank you to the witnesses.

I'd like to begin with you, Mr. Johnson. Can you repeat the numbers on donations of listed securities to United Way prior to the change that allowed capital gains tax-free donations versus after? You listed an interesting fact. I think you said that $44,000 was donated over 40 years, and after the change it was something like $170 million.

[Donald Johnson]

It was $176 million.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

It was $44,000 over what period?

[Donald Johnson]

The $44,000 was over 40 years, from when United Way in Toronto was founded in 1956, until 1996. Over that 40 years, there was only $44,000 in gifts of stock. United Way was the only organization I could find that kept a record of gifts of stock prior to 1997.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

The $176 million is since when?