Human Resources Committee on Oct. 26th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Blaney, you have three minutes.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Thank you.

Catherine, I'd like to go to you.

In the research project measuring the co-operative differences, you demonstrated the advantages of third sector, or non-profit and co-op housing for the senior population. Can you quickly tell this committee what those advantages are, and how the federal government can grow this sector of the economy?

[Dr. Catherine Leviten-Reid]

One of the advantages is that there is a built-in mechanism for resident participation, particularly in the housing co-op model, either through a tenants-governed co-operative or a multi-stakeholder co-operative, where you have tenants on the board, but you might have a representative from the local health care clinic on the board as well. In any case, that's part of the DNA of a housing co-op. With a non-profit, you might or might not have tenant involvement, depending on how they structure their board. That's one advantage.

The second advantage is the community orientation of the housing provider. This is a different research project, based on the same data, where we looked at developers based on incorporation status. It was the developer that was incorporated as a for-profit that emphasized cost most strongly and did not have common space in the development. Of course, if something should happen to these rental housing projects, the assets of the co-op and the non-profit belong to the community. They don't belong to a private owner.

I would see those as the advantages.

What can you do? I know in the past you've had privileged partnerships with the co-op and non-profit sectors. I'm not sure that I'm prepared to say that should be done again, because so much of our rental housing is provided through private market rentals. They really are an important stakeholder. It's still, though, building the capacity of the non-profit and co-operative sectors. Again, these were the developers who were doing this for the first time. These were the developers who were learning as they were going, making phone calls to other organizations they knew of to learn about housing. So providing that technical assistance to these groups is a really important role you can play.

[Rachel Blaney, NDP, North Island—Powell River, BC]

Ms. Wright, quickly, I know that accessing your services is getting harder for seniors. I also know that speech and hearing issues can be mistaken for dementia and often people are wrongly diagnosed. Could you tell us a little about the impact of that?

[Dr. Meredith Wright]

Chantal, do you want to answer first about the hearing issues?

[Dr. Chantal Kealey]

In terms of hearing loss and dementia, as Meredith stated earlier, people with hearing loss are at greater risk for dementia. There is a lot of evidence showing this association. We, at this time, cannot determine any causal link. It's very important that we understand that there is no cause and effect as of yet, just a strong correlation.

In terms of that, it's really that people with hearing loss are expending a lot of their efforts and energies to listen, and listen meaningfully, especially in noisy environments. They're doing these tasks that take a lot of cognitive load at the detriment of other tasks, such as working memory. They're essentially consistently channelling their efforts to listen, to effortful listening, and it's showing that there could be some changes in brain connectivity where these other pathways are being weakened. There is that association.

[Dr. Meredith Wright]

Can I add a bit about speech?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Be very brief, please.

[Dr. Meredith Wright]

Also, there are a number of communication disorders related to, say, Parkinson's disease and stroke. When a patient has communication disorders associated with those diseases, their intelligence usually is not impacted, but it might be perceived by caregivers or service providers that they are less intelligent than they actually are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

That brings us to the conclusion of two rounds of questioning. So far in this study we've left it to the desire of the committee as to whether we would do a third or a modified third round. We could very easily have one question from each party, with as many minutes, even six minutes, for each if people have the desire to do that.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

We would certainly welcome that proposal. We have a great member here with us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

To that point, I will go to you, Mr. Blaney, just for protocol purposes, and if you'd like to share your time, you can do so.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis, QC]

If possible, I'd like to share my time with your former colleague.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Perfect.

Will we do that? I'm seeing nods.

Ms. Vecchio, welcome back to the committee. We've missed you.

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

Thank you very much. I'm really glad to be here. I am working within our communities as the shadow minister for families, children and social development. It is such an important part of these discussions as we're moving forward with the housing strategy.

Chantal, I've seen you at work. I saw you speak to my father to look for that brain connectivity. As you know, with a hearing loss, we have to be very aware of those things and what can carry forward.

Are there any federal programs or is there anything we can do more, in effect, to educate seniors about their overall health when it comes to hearing, speech pathology, and dementia? Is there something that we can do at the federal level that we can help promote through public health?

[Dr. Chantal Kealey]

I think public awareness is a very important factor. When we think of early detection and intervention, we often think of children or babies, but we also need to be looking at our healthy adults and ensuring they understand the importance of early identification and intervention of hearing loss.

Right now, it takes people about seven to 10 years to seek help from the time they first notice a hearing impairment, and there's a lot of damage that can be done in that time. What is important is the earlier you do suspect a hearing loss you should be going for help, and we need to be educating the public about that. Certainly, with senior-related hearing loss, the typical intervention would be hearing aids, but that's not the only intervention that's out there as an option. In terms of wearing hearing aids, the earlier you start that, the more acclimated you become, the more your brain then relearns to hear all these sounds you haven't heard.

We find that with the elderly, hearing aid acceptance goes down tremendously when they can't manipulate the hearing aids. When you start a little earlier, you become a little more accustomed to all of that. It doesn't mean you're not going to have dexterity issues when you get a little older, but when dexterity and vision start to be compromised, it becomes even more difficult. If an 80-year-old is starting to wear hearing aids for the first time, it's much more difficult. They've lost a significant amount of time of auditory input, and that deprivation is what also leads people to withdraw and to become isolated. Hearing aids have been shown to correlate to less feelings of loneliness, but also lower scores on depression scales.

I think public awareness is very important.

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

Absolutely.

Meredith, do you have anything to add to that?

[Dr. Meredith Wright]

Also, I think the federal government can be a leader in ensuring communicative access for people with hearing and communication disorders through the new federal legislation around accessibility, and also be a leader, say, within Service Canada and the other government departments to enable people with communication and hearing disorders to access those services.

As well, the federal government has new funding for home care and community care. Performance indicators, including how much money you've spent on speech language pathology and audiology services, would give us an idea, province by province, of how much is being spent—like a report card—so we know where the funding is going and whether it is potentially going to people with communication and hearing issues.

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

Thank you very much.

I'm sorry I missed the first hour, but I recognize that we're talking about the guaranteed income supplement, Canada pension plan, and old age security processing times. The reason I want to share with that is I had worked for 11 years in a constituency office focusing on the needs of seniors.

My staff has brought forward to me some changes and maybe you can tell me if this is what you're seeing in your province compared to what I'm seeing in southwestern Ontario. We've seen that the Canada pension plan has gone to up to 20 weeks for processing. We used to look at between six and eight weeks, and it was up to about 2015 that we saw those. CPP survivors' benefits are going up to 24 weeks so we're talking about a half a year for processing on this. CPP death benefits are also going up to 24 weeks. The funeral homes are expecting their money. Usually I saw about a two-month turnaround time; now we're talking about a six-month turnaround time. CPP disability is four to six months, which is typically average with your hiccups happening.

One of the biggest things I'm seeing is with the guaranteed income supplement. Our most vulnerable seniors are at huge risk. These are the people who are having the guaranteed income supplement because that's what's paying for their food, that's what's paying for their housing, that's what's paying for everything.

Have you seen the same increased time frames that I have seen?

[Anne Repetowski]

We're actually seeing the CPP at a little less time than you. We're generally seeing it at 20 weeks, not 24. For old age security and the guaranteed income supplement; delayed old age security; complex old age security because you're not in Canada for the full amount of time; survivor's allowance; involuntary separation, when one goes to designated supportive living and one stays home...eight and three-quarters of a year, if you're lucky.

It is so stressful. That's why we're seeing so much more stress and anxiety in seniors. I had a person in the hospital for 12 days two weeks ago. His anxiety got so huge because he was worried that he was not going to be able to pay the rent in November when his.... He was actually under 65. He just turned 65 today. He was worried he couldn't pay the rent, because he's been on assured income support and now he will be.... We have the CPP in place. We actually did a “dire need” to old age security and we found out yesterday that it's been approved. He will have the money in November.

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

That's excellent. I'm glad for him.

[Anne Repetowski]

But he spent 11 days in the hospital because his anxiety was so huge.

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

We too worked on those dire needs assessments all the time. Someone shouldn't have to walk into their MP's office to get their old age security. That is such a common issue. I had dealt with it for years, but I am seeing it.

My assistant, Cathy Hayward, has been working on Service Canada files for nine years, so I went back to her for some of the historical data as well. We used to take everything and look at that, so it's really, really important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bryan May]

Thank you.

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

Are you making me stop?