Human Resources Committee on May 4th, 2020

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to our witnesses and to all of my colleagues.

First and foremost, I want to reject the assertion of my colleague who just asked questions regarding how we as the federal government aren't stepping up. I absolutely reject that. We are stepping up. The last time I checked we had Canadian Forces in Quebec. We had Canadian Forces in Ontario. This is not a partisan issue, not one bit. This challenge, with respect to seniors, has been unfolding really over decades. I just want to put that on the table. We all know the challenges that seniors homes are facing.

Ms. Gillis, to your point that 79% of all deaths in Canada are related to long-term facilities, we know we have a major challenge here.

This is my question for you, Ms. Gillis. Seniors are significantly less likely to have access to critical social supports including always having people they can depend on in times of need. Social supports are critical during the COVID-19 crisis as seniors need to self-isolate and are relying on family, friends and neighbours to deliver groceries, medications and other essential items.

Please tell us what the federal government needs to do in the short term and the long term to ensure that low-income seniors are getting the support they need during this period.

[Margaret Gillis]

From my perspective, which is as a human rights advocate, having access to the fundamentals of living is a basic right.

We do have old age security and other programs in place. I think what's going to come out of the pandemic, however, are some of the things Dr. Rabheru mentioned with regard to the impact of social isolation and the ability of older people to get access to a lot of the things you just mentioned, such as groceries, when they are socially isolated. Those are some of the lessons that are going to be learned from the pandemic, and we're going to have to look at those and at whether we have those things in place.

[Wayne Long, Liberal, Saint John—Rothesay, NB]

Thank you.

I'd like to share the rest of my time with MP Vaughan.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

MP Vaughan, go ahead, please.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Thanks very much.

I have just a quick follow-up to your questions around seniors. The issue of private care versus public care has been at the heart of many of the challenges we've faced. I'm curious as to what you think about letting more and more private care into the space and having less and less regulation of private care.

[Margaret Gillis]

That's one of the problems we are facing right now, and it's one of the pieces that we're really going to have to examine as we go forward.

Once we start to get all of the evidence together about where these real human rights abuses took place and what happened there, that's going to be part of how we respond to this. We are getting to the point where we're kind of in the middle of it. We need to be gathering that data right now and then we'll be able to respond to that.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

I just want to read a quick comment and get your reaction to it. There was a health minister who once said:

Unlike some of our predecessors in Ottawa, who often tried to impose rigid bureaucratic healthcare conformity on the provinces, we have respected their constitutional jurisdiction over healthcare and encouraged their innovations.

This was Stephen Harper's last health minister.

Is that perspective part of what's led to some of this catastrophic failure, the fact that the federal government should step away and only respect provincial jurisdiction and hide behind the Constitution?

[Margaret Gillis]

I'm not a big fan of hiding behind the Constitution, and I think this is a time when we all have to work together. That was part of my opening comments.

It's very important for the provinces to work with the federal government to look at this.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

So you would accept a federal role that might step on provincial jurisdiction but make it safer for seniors?

[Margaret Gillis]

I probably wouldn't say “step on”, but, yes, I would agree.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

Okay.

I have a final question for Mr. Forth—

[Margaret Gillis]

Think of Jordan's principle, where we had to protect children after running into the same issues of the differences between provinces and territories and fighting between the federal government and the provinces.

[Adam Vaughan, Liberal, Spadina—Fort York, ON]

I have limited time, so I have one question for Mr. Forth from F.A.R.M.S. Canada.

It's on the notion that anybody who comes from one of the countries we draw foreign workers from for our farm sector is a skilled worker. There has been a position advanced by some in Parliament that effectively you could just put students in the farm fields and the crops would be planted and harvested. Would you classify the workers you choose from Trinidad, Jamaica, the eastern Carribean or Mexico as skilled workers?

[Ken Forth]

I would. You're absolutely right, but we don't choose them. The ministries of labour in those countries choose them, and usually they have to be farm oriented in one way or another.

They talk about putting in students, and lots of us hire lots of students, but our year starts on April 1, if we're outside growers, and it ends on November 15. I think school is on during most of that period, and we would be desperate without this program.

These guys actually like doing what they do. They really do. They do it at home and they do it here. They earn a lot here and they take it home. To think that they're abused—my gosh. They're a part of my family and always have been for 50 years. I've had people working here for over 35 years straight before they retired. They really are skilled workers because they like to do what they do. What they do is not tough work. On our farm there's no heavy lifting. There's none of that stuff. They just love to produce this stuff, and it works really, really well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Forth.

Thank you, Mr. Vaughan. That's your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, on behalf of seniors, I would like to thank the representatives of the three organizations for their presentations.

I would like to come back to the testimony from the International Longevity Centre Canada about our seniors. Given what we are experiencing in the current COVID-19 crisis in each of our provinces, I think everyone is saying that now is the time to take stock and act swiftly regarding seniors' living conditions. Already, before the crisis...

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Ms. Chabot, but the interpreters would like you to speak a little closer to the microphone, please.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Okay.

This subject raises all kinds of considerations. Will we be dealing with misconduct or abuse? I also feel that this situation has never happened before and it needs to be addressed.

Coming back to seniors' rights, you spoke less about their financial insecurity, which has become particularly more evident with the COVID-19 pandemic. The Bloc Québécois has made demands in this regard. What is your opinion on the issue?

[Margaret Gillis]

I'm sorry. Your question is whether I am concerned about the financial precariousness of older people. Is that correct?

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Yes.

[Margaret Gillis]

Of course we are. I think we're also very worried about older people and their access to funds, and the financial impact of COVID-19 on them. I think that's another area that we'll have to be watching to make sure that funding gets through to older people.

Generally, we know that older women tend to be the ones who live in poverty in our country, and older women represent the large majority of older people, so we are always supportive of ways in which that's being watched and taken care of.

Thank you for your question.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I do not really agree that certain areas of jurisdiction could be assigned to Ottawa. We must always remember that health and social services fall under provincial jurisdiction. Each province will have to take its own stock of this issue. Another major factor is the health transfer, which gives the provinces the ability to act.

Now I'd like to address Mr. Dalley of the Migrant Workers Centre. Thank you for your presentation. The whole issue of migrant workers is a topical one: we need migrant workers, but we do not have all the workers we should be able to rely on now, especially in the farming sector. How many foreign workers do you feel should theoretically have come back this year, and how could we have facilitated their return?

[Juliana Dalley]

As I understand the question, you're wondering how many workers come and how the process can be better facilitated. To my knowledge, tens of thousands of agricultural workers come to Canada each year, across Canada. In terms of the precise process, there are numerous programs that people can arrive under. I believe the largest proportion come under the seasonal agricultural worker program that we heard about from Mr. Forth. These workers come for a short period of time, usually up to eight months per year, and then they return to their home countries at the end of the season.

As Mr. Forth said, many of these workers have been coming to Canada for many, many years. I do appreciate that some of them may not have experienced abuse, and that is great, but some have—

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

I will clarify my question.

This year in Quebec, barely half of the 15,000 foreign workers usually employed in agriculture were able to come to work here. Beyond the border issue, how could we have made it easier to welcome them?