Human Resources Committee on Dec. 10th, 2020

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister Qualtrough, I want to ask you about the disability tax credit. You know that this tax credit is non-refundable.

As minister, have you ever considered making the disability tax credit refundable?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you.

You are asking the question that I am asked most and have been asked most over the past five years by advocates and individuals with disabilities. The reality is that what has happened over time is that the Government of Canada disability policy has been driven through tax policy, and the DTC has really become a gatekeeper for a number of important federal government programs, but because it's non-refundable, low-income or no-income citizens with disabilities don't apply for it because there's no benefit from a tax point of view. Therefore, they don't have access to these other really important programs for which this is the gatekeeper.

We're going to change all of that. Part of our commitment in our disability inclusion plan is to modernize our approach and reconceive our eligibility requirement for these programs so the DTC doesn't perform that gatekeeping function. As we do that overhaul, we're going to look at the DTC itself and see what we need to do to modernize the tax elements of our disability delivery mechanisms as well.

I don't have a strict yes or no to that answer—it's a bit premature—but it is very much for discussion as we work on this modernization effort.

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

Thank you.

You know that the Standing Committee on Finance is also considering this matter. You raised the issue of tax fairness. This would be something to consider for people with disabilities.

I'm bringing up more of an economic issue related to the Canada Summer Jobs funding. Many members have noted that the funding for this program is based on last year's minimum wage. In the meantime, the minimum wage has increased. As a result, there's less money to fund the projects of organizations that submit an application.

Have you ever considered having the funding indexed to the minimum wage in the year when the projects take place, rather than to the previous year's minimum wage?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We're well past the time. Minister, if you answer briefly, that would be greatly appreciated.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you. I'll ask Mark to talk quickly about how monies are rolled over from one year to another.

Mark.

[Mark Perlman]

When it comes to operating budgets, we're able to roll over up to 5% of our consolidated revenue fund budgets that have not been spent, or up to $40 million in total of our employment insurance budget.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Next, we have Ms. Gazan, please, for two and a half minutes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CCPA Manitoba just came out with a study that said that if you want to reduce COVID rates, address poverty. In this case it was Manitoba, but we know there is a direct correlation between rates of poverty and rates of COVID, primarily within BIPOC communities who often live at higher rates of poverty, as you're well aware.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Yes.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I was really disappointed that the Prime Minister said recently that a guaranteed livable income is not a priority at this time even though we know that most Canadians are supportive of the idea of a guaranteed livable basic income. I think it is a very modest estimate that 3.5 million Canadians currently live below the poverty line.

I shared in the House today that in the last two months, four people living in shelters in Winnipeg have contracted trench fever, a rare, preventable disease of poverty often seen in refugee camps. This made international news. This is abhorrent.

Again, as I asked you the last time, particularly given the kind of money we spent on TMX, for example—which I think it was $17 billion—are you and the government open to supporting a guaranteed livable basic income, so that the millions of people who live below the poverty line, including many in the disabled community, could live with dignity and human rights?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

This is a really important conversation that we need to have. There is no reason why any Canadian should live in poverty.

I can assure you that when we look at targeted income supports, like the Canada disability benefit, reducing poverty levels is one of the primary goals. By targeting them to specific individuals and their specific lived realities, we are able to better tailor the supports to that group of individuals.

We have the CCB, which targets families; we have the OAS and GIS, which target seniors. By targeting working age Canadians with disabilities—ages 19 to 64—we will be lifting a significant number of Canadians with disabilities out of poverty. Again, the program parameters haven't been decided, but that is what's currently on my mind

I think it's a matter of a difference in approach, not a difference in desired outcome, where we are looking to target income supports at particular groups instead of a broad-based, one-size-fits-all approach that might not meet the needs of a specific group.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Ms. Gazan.

[Leah Gazan, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you so much, Minister, and Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Vis, please, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the time today.

Minister Qualtrough, it's great to have you back at committee.

Under the Employment Insurance Act, the government must set EI premium rates to generate just enough revenue to ensure that at the end of a seven-year period, EI revenues equal EI expenses. By law, every dollar paid out of EI must be recouped through EI premiums within seven years.

The government has not indicated, in its fall economic statement or elsewhere, whether it plans to address the projected shortfall of $52 billion through either higher premium rates, reduced benefits, or through payments from the consolidated revenue fund.

Would you be able to answer that question today? When can we expect the government's plan?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I'll give it my best, and then Mark can correct me if I'm wrong.

I believe we have confirmed to the Canada Employment Insurance Commission that we will be crediting the EI operating account for the costs related to the EI CERB, and that we will be reconciling this.

Mark, that's how I understand it, but can you please—

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

Through the consolidated revenue fund?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Yes.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

That's my understanding.

[Mark Perlman]

Yes, it's through the consolidated revenue fund, and the amounts are already shown in these estimates. It makes up part of the $88 billion that you see under the CERB statutory amount. The transaction has not taken place yet.

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

Would you guys clarify that with the Parliamentary Budget Officer, because he said in his update this morning that this hasn't been done yet. That would be very useful to his office.

Mr. Perlman, it's great to have you back again. I'd like to pick up where we left off on Tuesday.

You mentioned that ESDC has a very elaborate evaluation organization, formally called the evaluation directorate.

Have you found an example to share with the committee on where a division of ESDC is underperforming? I mention that, because I reviewed the 2018-19 and 2022-23 departmental evaluation plans, and they were really hard to follow. I say this because back in 2017, the evaluation directorate committed to modernizing its communication approach to increase awareness and the use of evaluation findings, kind of along my line of questioning at our last meeting.

Could you provide some concrete examples of how ESDC has implemented this approach from 2017? How are the findings of the evaluation directorate presented? What metrics are used?

[Graham Flack]

Mark, I can take that at the front end.

The evaluation directorate publishes all of our evaluations. As you will see in the evaluations, each of them has a management action plan associated with it. We evaluate not only our own programs and how they perform internally but also our external facing programs. For example, we do external evaluations as well of the pathways to education program that Minister Flaherty launched years ago.

There are adjustments across the board. The list would be virtually everything. There's something we take away from it where we improve performance coming out of the evaluation.

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

On the second part about following-up from the committed to modernizing its communication commitment in 2017, can you outline any specific steps that were taken?

[Graham Flack]

We publish all evaluations. We've attempted in the evaluations—but you'll be the judge of this—to make them more understandable, not just for our own managers, but in the case of many of these evaluations, they're quite ground-breaking in assessing the effectiveness of programs for parliamentarians. I encourage feedback on that if you don't think they're doing that, particularly for those externally facing programs, because that's our aim.