Human Resources Committee on April 11th, 2017

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

If you were to join my former life with my current life, you would also make a connection between a policy that needs to be both equitable and effective in sending the right signals to our businesses and workers, as well as protecting the welfare of our most vulnerable Canadians. You've—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Do you not have an answer to the question?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

You've seen in recent months exactly what types of policies these can be. The CCB and the cut in middle-class taxes have been arranged through increases in the taxes that we're asking high-income Canadians to pay and decreases in the family benefits we were sending to millionaires—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Chair, the question was about the carbon tax. He's now talking about child care benefits.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

No, that—

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Speaking of the low-income cut-off line, which is what you've used to make your claims about reduced poverty for children, Statistics Canada officials testified here that cost increases for things like food, fuel, and electricity would necessarily increase the number of people below the low-income cut-off line.

How many additional Canadians will fall below the low-income cut-off line—that is, the poverty line—as a result of increased costs from your carbon tax?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I would frame the question differently. I would ask how many low-income Canadians will be lifted out of poverty because of the resources that provinces and territories will receive from taxing a bad thing, which is carbon pollution, and handing out support to families of lower middle-class and lower-income Canadians. How many of these Canadian families will be lifted out of poverty—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

—because provinces and territories will have more resources to do so?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Excuse me.

First, that's your time. Second, we have a point of order from Mark Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley—Aldergrove, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I do appreciate ministers being here to answer questions, but I think this meeting would run a lot more effectively and efficiently if they answered the questions. For a minister to not answer questions is a disservice to this committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I don't disagree with that at all. In conjunction with that, I'd also like all the committee members to be listening to the answers and not interrupting the ministers. We can all do better.

Mr. Ruimy, please.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to address Minister Hajdu first.

Minister, sometimes workers are in a job where there is little opportunity for wage growth and upward mobility. It may be a stable job, but it could be in an industry that is on the decline. There are workers who may wonder about it and say to themselves that if they had a little more support to get training, or to upgrade their skills, they would grab that opportunity.

Indeed, I am one who took advantage of that program about seven years ago. It was a self-employment program. Had that program not been available to me, I likely would not be sitting in this position today.

There are plenty of adults who want to be prepared to move on from one job to a better one. Could you go into detail about what the government is doing to help these adult learners?

[Patty Hajdu, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Superior North, ON]

Thank you very much for the question.

Like you, this is an issue that's near and dear to my heart, as I'm someone who got my first degree from a university at 28 years old as a single mother with two children in tow. It was a struggle. It was very difficult. I was lucky. I had some supports in terms of family and that kind of thing.

Nonetheless, it increased my earning potential dramatically. I went to a place where I was able to provide for my children in an equitable way in terms of their peers. In fact, both of them now have college diplomas. When we talk about breaking intergenerational poverty, this is key.

I'm excited about the measures we're taking to support adult learners and to support people who want their next job to be a better job. One of the things we want to do is to make sure that it's easier for them to get the financial support they need through improvements to Canada student loans and grants that will allow part-time students or people who have dependent children to receive a bit more financial security, so they can take that leap into the unknown and take on the additional stresses of being a student as an older person.

Also, we want to make sure that when people are on employment insurance, they have options that include education and retraining. That's why we'll be making changes to employment insurance so that people can receive EI payments while they go back to school. This is something that I think is very prudent for this government to do, because what it recognizes is that people need opportunities and support to invest in themselves, and when they invest in themselves, the dividends are immense.

[Dan Ruimy, Liberal, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you very much.

Minister Duclos, as you know, this committee has studied poverty across Canada in recent months and has heard about the need for the Canadian government to return to the table to play a leadership role in housing. It's definitely something that we heard about when the committee visited my riding of Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge earlier this year to learn from our experiences.

Investing in affordable housing is about making life better for Canadian families and helping them to succeed. For Canadian families, a safe, affordable home means building healthier lives, more opportunities for jobs, and helping our communities prosper. Could you please elaborate on the measures the government is taking in the field of housing and the fight against poverty? There are a lot of folks out there who hear the numbers—we hear the billions—but I don't know if they really understand how that applies to them.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I'm delighted to speak about this. I would like to indicate that not only are the resources, of course, important, but more important, I think, are two additional things.

First is the renewed leadership, and I would say this is in fact the most effective demonstration of federal housing leadership in four decades. This is going to be significantly impacting the welfare and the well-being of our families, businesses, and communities. In addition to that, there are the incredible opportunities this will generate for other partners to collaborate with the federal government. Of course, included in here are provinces and territories, but also municipalities and cities, which have been so voiceful and so effective in the last year in signalling how important investments in housing on the part of the federal government are to them, to their communities, to their businesses, and to their families. In addition to cities and municipalities, there are the social and the private sectors, the importance of which we often underestimate when it comes to housing investments. This is going to lead over time—because it's going to take some time—to renewed collaboration and renewed leadership in the field of housing.

Let me mention very briefly some of the lines along which those investments will manifest themselves.

There will be renewed partnership between the federal government and provinces and territories in the long term, which PTs have asked for. A new $5-billion national housing fund will help address critical housing issues in collaboration with other departments in this government in order to support, for instance, seniors, handicapped families, or Canadians living in circumstances of family violence. It will also be used to support the other types of infrastructure investments that we're making in transit, in green infrastructure, in transport corridors, in targeted housing support for indigenous people, and people living in the north. There will be renewed and expanded investments to combat and prevent homelessness—and here the word “partnership” is again extremely important—using surplus federal land and buildings for the development of affordable housing.

Finally, there will be important investments in CMHC's role to become and to stay a leader in the field of housing over time in Canada. We know how important it is to have proper data and proper understanding of how housing matters for families and communities. We know this in the context of current significant pressures in some of our regions in Canada. We want CMHC to play a better role when it comes to informing and supporting the development of our communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you, Minister.

We have time for a very brief question, if that's okay, from Madam Sansoucy, please.

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

You say that I have time for a brief question, but how much time exactly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Pardon me?

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

How much time?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I would keep it under three minutes, please.

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

Okay.

I will quickly thank the three ministers and their teams for their preparation and today's presentations.

Mr. Duclos, last time you appeared before this committee, we talked about the importance of defining poverty before we begin to address it. Since then, I have participated in a number of debates in the House. I think that we will also need a definition of the middle class because it is interpreted in many ways. The middle class has a very elastic definition.

Our committee travelled across Canada for its study on poverty. Nearly all representatives of organizations and municipalities we met with said that it was important for the various levels of government to work together. I believe that this leadership can come only from the federal government. We were told that it was not only a matter of investment, but that we also had to know how to achieve the goal.

You were right to highlight the impact of the Canada child benefit. You said that child poverty has decreased by 40%. Having worked with troubled youth, I can tell you that, when I hear “poor children”, I understand it as “poor parents”. Those two things go hand in hand. We should also look into that issue.

Since I am the critic for this particular issue, my colleagues tell me about many situations where the Canada child benefit is taken away from families when their child, for example, goes into foster care for a week. It takes them three months to recover those benefits. Another example is a family missing a document for one child and losing the benefits for all of its five children. Other families may have to provide evidence that their children exist. I hear about many similar situations at my office.

I have one last comment to make before I ask a question. You talked about the guaranteed income supplement. I hope you still plan to ensure that the supplement will one day be automatically provided to those who need it. That is necessary.

You also talked about investing in the infrastructure of our communities. I represent a riding whose largest community has 56,000 constituents. Are you considering allocating funding to the smaller communities because they have fewer resources than the larger cities? When a program is established, there are often only two people who work in those small communities, and they are not aware of community grants. By the time they start filling out documents, big cities have long ago submitted their projects.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

I'm afraid you took up a little more than your three minutes, but I will allow for an answer as lon as it's brief.

Minister Duclos, please....

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you very much. It would have been my pleasure to answer you at great length.

I want to thank you for everything you have done to prepare for the committee's work on poverty.

Your information on the way benefits help our families is precious. I invite you to share it with the members of my team, so that the department can do the work it has to do and ensure that the benefits provided by the Canadian government are easily accessible to the families who need them.

As for the questions on assistance for small communities, you will see in the government's infrastructure program an amount of $2 billion specifically dedicated to smaller communities. As you rightly said, for all sorts of reasons, it is more difficult for those communities to get the resources they need from the Canadian government, and this money should help them.

You talked about the definition of poverty and the middle class. I hear your suggestions. I know that you are working very hard on defining poverty in your work. It's very important because, to have credibility across government, we need to know what poverty trends mean and what policies would help reduce poverty over time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

I apologize, Ministers, but unfortunately we do have to get to our seats momentarily to vote.

The committee will be back whether the ministers will be able to join us or not. I would suspect probably not, considering your other commitments, but I imagine the other department heads will be here.

If you can come back, that would be great, but we do have to suspend for votes. We will be back.