Human Resources Committee on June 1st, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with disabilities.

Pursuant to the orders of reference of April 11, 2020 and May 26, 2020, this committee is resuming its study of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pursuant to the motion adopted by the House on May 26, 2020, the committee may continue to sit virtually until Monday, September 21, 2020 to consider matters related to the COVID-19 pandemic and other matters.

Certain limitations on the virtual committee meetings held until now are now removed. As just mentioned, the committee is now able to consider other matters, and, in addition to receiving evidence, the committee may also consider motions, as we normally do. As stipulated in the latest order of reference from the House, all motions shall be decided by a recorded vote.

Today's meeting is taking place by video conference, and the proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. The webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, please click on the microphone to activate your mike.

Before I get started, and this is especially for the witnesses who intend to present in both official languages, please ensure that the language channel you are speaking on is turned on at the time you are speaking. If you switch from English to French, please also switch the channel from English to French. It helps with the translation.

I would now like to thank the witnesses for joining us today. With us today we have, from the Canadian Labour Congress, Hassan Yussuff, president, and Emily Norgang, economist, social and economic policy. From the Christian Labour Association of Canada, we have Wayne Prins, executive director.

Mr. Yussuff, please proceed with your opening remarks. You have 10 minutes, sir.

[Hassan Yussuff, President, Canadian Labour Congress]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. It’s a pleasure to join you, even though it's remotely.

The Canadian Labour Congress is the largest central labour body in the country. It brings together more than 50 national and international unions in Canada, as well as 12 provincial and territorial federations of labour and 100 labour councils across the country. The CLC speaks on issues of national importance for three million unionized men and women. It also advocates on behalf of all working people in this country.

Committee members have received a copy of the CLC brief on labour priorities for the economic recovery.

The coronavirus pandemic and economic shutdown have been devastating for millions of working people. As you know, low-income workers, especially women and vulnerable workers, have disproportionately lost jobs and earnings in the crisis.

I will speak to some priority areas for the CLC and Canada’s unions.

On unemployment benefits, first, I want to commend the government and public service workers for quickly designing and implementing the Canada emergency response benefit, known as CERB. The employment insurance program was not equipped to handle the extraordinary spike in jobless claims. A simple unemployment benefit that allowed automated claims processing was needed. The CERB has generally worked well, but both unions and employers have urged the federal government to allow supplemental unemployment benefit payments on top of the CERB.

SUB plans were negotiated by unions and employers in anticipation of layoffs. We therefore urge the federal government to extend the CERB beyond the 16 weeks. Many low-paid, part-time and casual workers, as well as the self-employed receiving CERB benefits, are ineligible for EI under existing rules. At the same time, the EI regular sickness benefits should be simplified and streamlined so that the claims processing can be fully automated. The eligibility threshold should therefore be lowered and a higher replacement rate introduced.

Turning to long-term care, the Canadian Armed Forces’ reports on long-term care homes in Ontario and Quebec show what unions have been saying for years: Many long-term care homes are in crisis. The needless cost of lives and shameful treatment of residents at many long-term care homes are unacceptable.

This situation was created by years of provincial budget cuts, increased private for-profit ownership of long-term care homes, and health care staff shortages due to low wages, few benefits, excessive workloads, unsafe working conditions and a lack of full-time hours. Of course, the provinces and territories are responsible for delivering health care services. However, Canada desperately needs high, uniform national standards for long-term care.

The CLC urges the federal government to work with the provinces and territories to remove private for-profit business from the long-term care sector. Long-term care must be brought fully into the public health system and regulated under the Canada Health Act. Residents must be guaranteed high-quality care, with proper staffing and health and safety protections for workers. As well, essential work done by long-term care employees must be properly valued. If we are going to address the staffing problems and shortcomings in residential care, workers need permanent increases in wages and benefits, and improvements in working conditions.

I again commend the federal government for allocating up to $3 billion to assist the provinces and territories in boosting wages for low-income essential workers. These wage increases must be made permanent, and, in my view, they should also apply to low-paid migrant workers ensuring the security of Canada’s food supply.

Canada’s public transit systems are also in crisis. Efficient, accessible and reliable public transit systems are essential to the economic recovery of working people. However, a 90% drop in ridership in some cities has meant a drastic drop in fares and billions in lost revenues. As transit authorities reduce services, thousands of transit workers have been laid off, with thousands more anticipated to be laid off.

Transit employees who are still on the job face serious health risks. Most transit vehicles and maintenance facilities have not been adequately retrofitted, and many workers lack sufficient personal protective equipment, or PPE.

In our view, the federal government should collaborate with the provincial and territorial governments to develop a federal relief package for public transit systems and intercity bus service networks, and provide capital expenditures dedicated to retrofitting transit vehicles and purchasing PPE for transit workers.

Ensuring workplace health and safety is vital for returning to work. Paid sick leave for workers is essential in combatting COVID-19. I want to commend, of course, the government, and the NDP in particular, for putting this on the agenda.

It is important that employers consult with workers, their unions, and health and safety representatives about how to make sure these safety plans and COVID-19 controls will work. Workers must be engaged through their health and safety committees in assessing workplace hazards related to COVID-19 and developing a response. This is an important part of good health and safety practices and must be included in workplace COVID-19 safety planning. We also need to expand support for workers dealing with mental health challenges arising from health risks, loss of loved ones, isolation, financial stress, and depression and anxiety.

On pharmacare, before the pandemic, about 10% of Canadians, or 3.7 million, could not afford the medications they needed. Now more Canadians cannot afford their medications, and millions of workers have lost their jobs and no longer have workplace drug coverage. During the pandemic, seniors on fixed incomes are struggling to pay for their medications, as they can only get refills month by month, as opposed to every three months, as it was prior to the pandemic.

We therefore urge the government to accelerate the implementation of universal public pharmacare as outlined in the Hoskins report. In conjunction with the provinces, the government should of course move to immediately provide everyone in Canada with access to a list of essential medications, covering approximately half of all prescriptions. This is consistent with the recommendations of the Hoskins report but represents an acceleration of the proposed timelines.

Turning to pension and retirement security, layoffs and lost earnings will have a lasting impact on the retirement security of many working Canadians. In March, the government reduced the minimum amount that must be withdrawn from registered retirement income funds for 2020. In May, the government also announced one-time financial assistance for seniors eligible for old age security and the guaranteed income supplement. The government also suspended insolvency funding for federally regulated pension plans. We welcome these steps.

The CLC is also urging the government to work with provincial counterparts to amend the Canada pension plan. This will also be needed to safeguard the CPP retirement benefits of contributors whose earnings have been affected by the economic shutdown and unemployment crisis. In our view, this should take the form of amending the CPP’s drop-out and drop-in provisions, which partially protect the retirement benefit entitlement of contributors against a period of low or zero earnings.

In the absence of such extraordinary measures, the CPP retirement benefit of hundreds of thousands of Canadians will be permanently reduced, with potential lifetime losses to individuals in the thousands of dollars. Also, if insolvencies begin to rise, we would like to see, of course, the federal government protect pensions by taking over the administration of stranded pension plans.

Finally, on the green economy, just transition and infrastructure investments, in our view, this crisis presents a unique opportunity to kick-start economic growth and create thousands of good jobs for women and men by investing in social infrastructure like day cares, schools, libraries and hospitals, as well as green infrastructure and related projects, such as renewable energy, home and building retrofits, and public transit.

Governments can further ensure that projects benefit local communities, women, indigenous peoples and marginalized groups by mandating community benefit agreements on federally funded infrastructure projects. These investments would not only help us meet our climate targets, but also generate thousands of decent jobs across the country.

To assist in the process, the government should fully engage unions and working people in the government’s economic advisory committee providing guidance on recovery planning.

Committee members, that concludes my opening remarks. Thank you very kindly for your attention. I'll take any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Mr. Yussuff.

Next, we have Wayne Prins, executive director of the Christian Labour Association of Canada. You have 10 minutes, Mr. Prins.

[Wayne Prins, Executive Director, Christian Labour Association of Canada]

Thank you.

Good day, everyone. I really appreciate the opportunity to meet with you today.

CLAC is a national union founded on the belief that people, businesses and work communities flourish when workplaces are based on co-operation and mutual respect. We believe that co-operation and partnership between labour and management create more positive work communities and better outcomes for everyone.

CLAC was established in 1952 and is today one of the largest independent multisectoral unions in Canada, with over 60,000 members working in a wide range of sectors and industries, including construction, health care, retail, transportation, manufacturing, food processing and others. Internationally, CLAC is an affiliated member of the World Organisation of Workers, for which I currently serve as president. The World Organisation of Workers collectively represents 1.5 million workers throughout much of the world.

We remain independent of traditional labour bodies in Canada, such as the Canadian Labour Congress, which you have already heard from. We have a great deal of respect for the traditional labour establishment, and in many instances we have come to work in collaboration with their affiliated members on ground-level initiatives. That we are not a member of the labour establishment speaks primarily to a different perspective regarding the nature and role of a union in a workplace, as well as worker choice and union accountability. However, in many respects, the day-to-day work of our unions is similar, and certainly we face the same challenges in today's environment.

I'd like to commend all parties for coming together and supporting a quick and effective response to the COVID-19 crisis. Key among the programs are the emergency response benefit and the emergency wage subsidy. The emergency response benefit has been extraordinarily successful in helping millions of Canadians through the worst of this crisis, and the emergency wage subsidy, particularly significant because it is a 75% subsidy, has literally saved thousands of Canadian businesses and kept millions of Canadians gainfully employed. While these programs will need some adjustments going forward, they will remain critically important for months to come, supporting workers and employers as we rebuild the economy.

I want to speak to a national crisis that, in the midst of this COVID-19 crisis, has taken centre stage in the Canadian conscience.

CLAC represents nearly 10,000 members working on the front lines of health care and long-term care in Ontario, Alberta and B.C. Grace Manor of Holland Christian Homes, which was one of the homes mentioned in the national media last week, is represented by CLAC. These workers are caring for our nation's seniors with amazing dedication and commitment. If you've spent time with them, you know how they love the residents and work desperately hard to care for them in such a way that keeps them comfortable and preserves their dignity.

They work in an environment that is exceedingly challenging and for money that often falls short of a living wage. The workers use every possible minute of their shift to provide hands-on care for the residents, yet the system drowns them in needless paperwork and documentation, which takes time away from the residents. The expectations and burdens of care have been steadily increasing, yet the rate of funding has steadily declined. As a result, the working conditions are so challenging that finding qualified staff is very difficult. Worker shortages are common and caregiver burnout is on the rise.

All of this betrays an appalling indifference as a society to the care of our seniors. The sector has been neglected by governments across the country for decades. In fact, CLAC, along with others, has been ringing alarm bells on this issue for over 30 years. I understand that this sector is primarily in provincial jurisdiction, but we now understand the issue as a national crisis. There's a moral imperative for all stakeholders to get together and find solutions to the crisis now. The federal government can play a helpful role in this, starting with establishing a national standard of care for our seniors. This could be achieved by a nationally orchestrated study of best practices that have resulted in superior outcomes.

With all that has been said recently, I want to take this opportunity to honour the service of the workers in this sector. We are not upset that the military released its report on the homes in Ontario. In fact, it may finally be the catalyst for meaningful change. However, for us, it is deeply distressing to see the front-line workers in long-term care shouldering the weight of public outrage when, in fact, the guilt belongs elsewhere. The workers remain the heros in this equation, and the burden is on the rest of us, starting with our political leaders, to fix it.

Lastly, I want to talk about the construction industry and work in the skilled trades. CLAC represents over 40,000 skilled tradespeople working in construction and skilled trades. Notably, CLAC represents about half of the construction and contracted maintenance workforce in Alberta's oil sands, as well as about half of the workforce building the clean energy megaproject in northern B.C., called the Site C dam. We will build much of the LNG Canada project in Kitimat, and when the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion project ramps up to full activity later this year, over 60% of that workforce will be CLAC members.

We are very proud to be building much of the infrastructure in our natural resource sector, which ultimately propels the entire Canadian economy.

Through this crisis, construction activity has been an economic lifeline for many Canadians. While the majority of the economy has been shut down, governments across the country declared much of construction work essential. This affirms what we in the industry talk about as parity of esteem, which is that education in the skilled trades is as noble as any other form of education, and work in the skilled trades is as important as any other in the country.

It's important to understand that the construction workforce in Canada is comprised of three main groups: the traditional building trade unions, CLAC and other alternative unions, and the non-union or open shop. Each of these groups enjoys a significant share of the market in Canada, and just as Canadians are well served by the competition among political parties, we are also well served by the competition among the players in the construction landscape.

I say all of that because there is an important link to what comes next in the economic recovery from COVID-19. As we saw just this morning with the Prime Minister's announcement regarding municipalities, a key response to stimulate economic growth and activity will be major investments in public infrastructure.

The federal government alone will spend billions of dollars on construction projects, and so will your provincial and municipal counterparts. In many cases, particularly on large projects, funding will come from multiple levels of government. In all cases, it is incumbent upon governments to ensure that this money is spent both efficiently and in such a way that it's used to the greatest benefit of the community in which it is spent. This idea has given rise to the use of community benefit agreements, a contractual tool used to ensure that these benefits are realized.

CLAC, of course, endorses the use of community benefit agreements when they are used properly. By “properly” I mean that they identify the desired community benefits and then set in place the conditions and resources necessary to achieve them without losing the benefits of fair and open competition for the work among all players in the construction industry.

Sometimes community benefit agreements are used to limit access to the work to only one group of labour. For example, the Government of British Columbia has entered a community benefit agreement with the B.C. building trade unions. This means that on designated projects paid for by all citizens of B.C., only members of the building trade unions are permitted to perform the work. The City of Toronto has done the same thing with the Ontario building trades.

Evidence suggests that where community benefit agreements are used in this restrictive way, the cost of public projects increases by 20% to 25%. Imagine 20% to 25% on the billions of dollars of infrastructure money that will be spent across this country over the next decade. This is a critically important issue. Fair and open tendering of public infrastructure, whether under the auspices of a community benefit agreement or not, is the best approach and the approach the federal government should demand of every infrastructure dollar spent on behalf of Canadians.

I will leave my opening comments at that, and I look forward to answering questions from the committee.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Mr. Prins.

Now we are going to questions, starting with Mr. Vis, please, for six minutes.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you, Chair. I'll be splitting my time today with MP Jansen.

Mr. Prins, I will outline to the committee that my mother was a shop steward, a low-paid shop steward, at Bethesda Christian Association for probably over 20 years. Thank you for appearing today.

Like many other Canadians, I'm very concerned about what I have been hearing about the long-term care facilities, in Ontario and Quebec specifically. Do you believe not-for-profit private care faces the same funding challenges that for-profit private care has?

[Wayne Prins]

Yes. Generally, the funding problem is across the board. Certainly there are different nuances, and if you look at the industry as a whole, there is a wide range of not-for-profit and for-profit in public facilities. I'm not aware of any evidence that shows any direct correlation between outcomes and what type of home it is. The issues, particularly the problematic type of experiences we're hearing more about recently, have more to do with across-the-board funding shortages, where there has been a general neglect and simply not providing the funding necessary to any of the homes to keep that level of standards where it should be.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you. That's very important testimony for this committee.

Can you briefly touch upon the plight of hotel workers right now? I know in British Columbia many of them might be on the wage subsidy right now, but when the international events at the convention centre in Vancouver dry up in the fall, what's facing these workers?

[Wayne Prins]

To refer to it as a “plight” is absolutely accurate. Workers across the country will experience different rates of return to some type of normal, but workers in the hospitality sector, particularly the hotel workers, are going to be suffering from low levels of activity in that sector for many months. What's going to be necessary there are prolonged considerations for the assistance programs from government, for wage subsidies, but also other forms of assistance, so that these people can pay their bills. In many cases, they're simply not going to be returning to work for a long time yet.

When you think about even our own activities, my activities and those of everyone on the median today, and the number of days we are not spending in hotels where we normally would, there's a direct correlation between our activities and the activity that causes work in that sector. Some of us might start to spend time in hotels in the next month or two, but more than likely we won't return to a normal rate of activity for many months. For as many months as we're delayed, that's how long these workers are going to need support.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Okay.

Could I get one very quick response? Going back to long-term care facilities in Quebec and Ontario specifically, and the lack of funding that you and the other witness outlined, is there not enough oversight of these facilities going on right now at the provincial level of government?

[Wayne Prins]

It's hard to say there isn't enough oversight. There had been a relaxation of some of the enforcement.

People are asking questions right now about how it could possibly have come to this. There are issues with regulation and there are issues with oversight, but most of the problems we are seeing manifested in residents' experience are simply rooted in a lack of funding to allow staff to have the time and resources necessary to care for residents the way they should be and the way they want to be.

[Brad Vis, Conservative, Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Thank you.

I'll be turning the remainder of my time to MP Jansen now.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Prins, I thought Mr. Yussuff's suggestion of making everything public was a bit of oversimplification of the challenges that long-term care facilities are facing. I know here in my area we have a for-profit long-term care facility that's run like a cruise ship. It's fantastic. They actually had to disallow health workers from their health region from coming in because they had only two sets of gloves and two masks to use for the week.

Minister Tassi's [Technical difficulty—Editor] answer if this was acceptable. Do you think that's acceptable?

[Wayne Prins]

Sorry, could you clarify?

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

They don't have enough PPE, yet they're sent into home care.

[Wayne Prins]

No, it's absolutely not acceptable. Of all the issues we're facing in that sector, PPE is a critical one. You can only imagine the distress of these workers going right to the front lines, in direct contact with contagion, with an inadequate supply of PPE. It's unimaginable.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

Would you consider it an oversimplification to suggest that if you make it all public, that would actually solve the problem?

It doesn't appear that this is a single problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Give a short answer, please, Mr. Prins.

[Wayne Prins]

Of course, that's an oversimplification. There are plenty of non-public facilities that do an outstanding job. If you even think about the ways these homes are structured, many of them are affiliated with a cultural or faith-based background. When we even think about where we want to spend our last days, that's....

The sector is well served by a diversity of options; the issue lies elsewhere.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Prins.

Thank you, Mrs. Jansen.

Next we'll go to Mr. Turnbull for six minutes, please.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Mr Chair.

Thanks to both our witnesses for appearing today. I really appreciate you and your leadership.

Mr. Yussuff, I'm going to start with you. I have a few questions for you, and then we'll see if we can get over to Mr. Prins as well.

Mr. Yussuff, I want to thank you for your leadership, but I also want to reference a really important document that the Canadian Labour Congress produced around May 13 of this year, which outlined labour's vision for economic recovery.

I think that document references the need for applying a gender and racial lens to our economic recovery. It talks specifically about being focused on an inclusive recovery process and a real commitment to reducing inequality across Canada as we reopen and eventually recover in a responsible and fulsome fashion.

Can you elaborate on these priorities? I'm particularly interested in whether you think that community benefit agreements are a part of that, but I would also welcome any of your general comments about how we can further address or reduce inequality.

[Hassan Yussuff]

Thank you very much for your question.

In our view, based on the evidence we have seen on public projects and public investment, there's no question that community benefits have been an incredible driver for dealing with income inequality, but equally in dealing with the diversity of those who sometimes may not have the opportunity to become part of that sector.

It's not only for the workers who might get an apprenticeship, or a woman who might get an apprenticeship, but it's also for those small businesses that are trying to leverage an opportunity to access the business at the same time as these projects are operating.

The reality, of course, is that community benefits have been an enormous driver in dealing with inequality, providing access to many workers who would not have an opportunity—especially young people, women and aboriginal people—to get an apprenticeship program and, given the duration of these projects, not only to start an apprenticeship program, but also to complete the program in the process of those investments.

I think it's critical. These are government investments and, to a large extent, we have seen, with the evidence that we've been able to look at, that workers in those communities can benefit enormously from community benefits being attached to those projects. Equally, in the places where money is invested—and this is taxpayers' money—we have seen new opportunities for people who quite often have not had that option before. It is critical to maintain a way to measure how that benefit has significantly impacted and benefited the community at large, but equally who has benefited in the community specifically.

Racialized workers, aboriginal workers and women workers are the ones to target, the ones the help should go to. It's important to get both the employer and the project management to document how the community benefit has shown progress in bringing into the sector groups that may not have had the opportunity prior to that.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you for that.

That's wonderful, and I really support the community benefit agreements.

The report I was just referring to, “Labour's Vision for Economic Recovery”, also highlights the importance of child care and even goes as far as recommending a child care secretariat.

Could you expand on this point to help us understand why, from your perspective, labour organizations you represent want a broad and well-funded quality child care? Why is this so important to Canada's economic recovery?

[Hassan Yussuff]

I started out by saying that certain groups of course have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic so far. We know for a fact that women are bearing most of the burden of the child-rearing responsibility. Those who have been in the workforce and who have been locked down for this entire period, of course, are struggling with that reality.

We believe that if we really want to reboot the economy, this is going to be a critical component of that rebooting. We need to make sure that parents are able to put their kids in proper care as they go back to work. If there's an absence of that, they're not going to go back to work. As I speak to you today, women are more than half of the workforce, but, equally so, families in general rely upon child care to ensure that they can all go to work. If we don't have an adequate child care component in the reopening of the economy, I think we're going to see a disproportionate re-engagement of those who are not going to get there.

We believe the child care sector is a critical part. We also know from history, in terms of the Quebec child care system, that the system actually pays for itself over time by that investment. We need to work with the provinces and with municipal governments to ensure that, as we are reopening the economy, child care is going to be a critical component. We believe the business community supports this idea.

As a matter of fact, with Goldy Hyder and the Business Council, we co-authored an article you'll see published sometime this week, calling on the federal government to work with provinces and territories, but also with municipal governments, and take steps to ensure that child care will be a critical component as we reboot the economy and, critical to that, to recognize the disproportionate responsibility that women are taking on in this recovery period. We don't want to burden them further by not having child care, and we want to make sure the funding and support are there for them going forward.

I want to thank the government for whatever they're doing. We're going to continue to push to make sure this happens as we enter into the recovery.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Yussuff and Mr. Turnbull.

Mr. Yussuff, we're now going to go to Madam Chabot, but I have a note that the interpreters are having a bit of a hard time picking you up. Could you hold your mike a bit closer? It will make it easier for interpretation.