Human Resources Committee on Dec. 10th, 2020

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Given that the deadline is open until the end of December.... That that would seem to be a small percentage of additional certifications, given that there are more than six million adults in Canada who claim disability of one sort or another. I know that the severity of the disability may determine acceptance or not.

Would you expect that there may well be a rush in these final weeks before the end of the month?

[Graham Flack]

I think Minister Qualtrough, if she were here, would say that she would hope there are a great number of people who come forward and rush to do that. We have provided merely an estimate, but obviously if additional people beyond that estimate come forward and qualify, they would be entitled to the benefit. There have been advocacy campaigns through disability organizations to encourage people to apply.

I just wanted to underscore that it's merely an estimate. If more come in, then they will be entitled to the payment.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Would the statutory authorities cover that many more? Again, it's a hypothetical number.

[Graham Flack]

Mark, I believe the answer is yes?

[Mark Perlman]

Yes, hypothetically, the statutory authorities would cover that.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Okay, thank you.

I'd like to go now to the $912 million that were contracted to the WE real estate holding foundation until the cancellation because of the WE scandal. I see that there's no shrinkage in that amount of money. Has the government been indemnified for all of the expenses associated with starting up the WE contract before the scandal led to its cancellation?

[Graham Flack]

The WE Charity Foundation returned all of the monies that had been advanced to it. What you're seeing in the estimates is a closing out of that amount. We had initially booked the amount you cited in the estimates and as that is not going to be spent, this amount in the estimates is closing that out to show there is not an intention to spend that money.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

No re-profiling is intended?

[Graham Flack]

No. We are removing that item from the request. As these estimates would be approved, we would eliminate that amount we had originally asked for.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you.

Coming back to the temporary foreign workers and the additional $4 million, what specifically is that $4 million targeting?

[Graham Flack]

Employers are required to do labour market assessments in order to get their certificates. They pay fees for those labour market assessments. As you can imagine, there were individuals who had paid for the labour market assessment, but now because of the crisis they determined that they no longer needed those workers.

With the $4 million, the government is providing a relief from the need to pay those fees. We are reimbursing the fees that those individuals paid for the labour market assessments.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

We're moving into a new calendar year, a new crop year, with planting and harvesting and so forth. What are the provisions for rollover into the next season with regard to, again, previous contracts and previous obligations?

[Graham Flack]

Happily, we have Elisha online. He runs the temporary foreign worker program.

Elisha, can I throw it to you?

[Elisha Ram, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Skills and Employment Branch, Department of Employment and Social Development]

Certainly.

We've taken a number of steps to ensure that employers and workers have some certainty in a very uncertain time. That includes extending the duration of labour market impact assessments that the deputy just referred to. Those have been extended from six months to nine months in cases of seasonal workers.

We have also removed some of the recruitment requirements that employers have to undertake in order to be able to receive those labour market impact assessments, given that we recognize that it's very, very difficult to recruit Canadians for certain jobs in the agriculture sector particularly. Employers who don't have active LMIAs will still have to apply for them, but those who have active LMIAs that they've not used will be able to take advantage of those for longer than they normally would.

[Peter Kent, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Ram, and thank you, Mr. Kent.

Next is Mr. Turnbull for five minutes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses. It's great to have you here again.

I want to ask a question about the national autism strategy. My constituents in Whitby are very excited at the prospect of the development of a long-overdue national autism strategy. I know that your department is working alongside the health ministry. The consultations, I believe, are ongoing.

I've met with several constituents and hosted two consultations sessions on this. It's critically important to people in the Durham region. I want to give a specific shout-out to a group called the “Durham Crew”, which is an incredible group of advocates on this issue in Durham region.

Could you provide me with an update on the timeline for the national autism strategy and any progress to date?

[Graham Flack]

I don't have an update on the specifics. It's obviously the minister's prerogative to determine when ultimately it would be announced. As you indicated, she has been working with the Minister of Health on this, who is the lead on the strategy.

I don't have specific details to offer, but maybe I could take that back and then get back to the committee on what has been made public about the timelines on this.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

That would be great, Mr. Flack. I would appreciate that very much. I know that my constituents would love to continue to be consulted on and participate in the development of that strategy.

I'll move on to another exciting announcement that came in the throne speech. That was the disability inclusion plan. Many of my constituents have written to me about those supports being so important, especially since COVID-19 has laid bare so many inequities that exist in our current system for people with disabilities. Could you outline the department's progress on this plan and what steps have been taken to date?

[Graham Flack]

I appreciate that the committee has benefited from the speed with which the department has been able to deliver some of these benefits. I would just caution that this pace for every new measure that was announced in the Speech from the Throne, which is quite expansive in terms of what the department is looking for, isn't sustainable. What I can say is that, as would not surprise you, Minister Qualtrough has made it clear that this is her most personally important priority and is pushing us very hard on that.

That includes work we have done around what an actual benefit would look like, looking at the OAS and GIS system, at the model for that and the legislation around that. It includes mapping the federal-provincial dynamics. This will be a very tricky area. As you would know, provincial governments all take very, very different approaches. Some have specific disability benefits and others really leave it more to their welfare system. That will be a very tricky issue in terms of how to knit those areas together.

The second piece that you are starting to see some early movement on, and announced in terms of employment, is that the minister is determined that not only the existing employment programs we have in the department, including the youth employment programs and Canada summer jobs, will put a real focus on disability. For example, in the new ISET money that was announced in the fall economic statement, in indigenous communities up to 30% of individuals on those training programs are people with disabilities. It will have a real focus.

The last piece of the three in the Speech from the Throne was changing the way we determine the benefits. I will say candidly that that this is the trickiest piece, it's probably easiest to say, and the piece that will take us the longest.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I recognize there's a lot of hard work ahead on this, and that everyone has been working flat out. I totally understand that this is going to take some time, but I appreciate the updates nonetheless.

For the Canada summer jobs program, there were new flexibilities introduced in the last round for COVID-19. A lot of those were well-received.

Could you tell us if any of those flexibilities are being considered for future iterations of the CSJ program?

[Graham Flack]

The minister's intention, with the announcement in the fall economic update,—and, Benoît, you may want to come in on this—is not only to increase the number of jobs from 80,000 to 120,000 for the coming year, in recognition of the fact that we fear the scarring from the crisis may be strongest among youth, and there will be the strongest need to do that but, indeed, to also maintain the flexibilities that many on this committee have asked to be put in place to maintain those going forward.

Benoît, was there anything else out of the economic statement that I missed?

[Benoît Robidoux]

You are quite accurate in the sense that the statement mentioned that we planned this year to use the flexibility we used last year to make sure that.... One of the goals is to ensure—as was amended last year in the program—that we meet our target of increasing the number of jobs and opportunities for our youth.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Turnbull, and the witnesses.

I'm sorry, Ms. Chabot, but we need to take the last 15 minutes to discuss committee business.

To all of the witnesses, thank you so much for being with us, and for your outstanding work during the pandemic. I do hope you get a chance to breathe over the next little while, and that we see you back raring to go in the new year. Again, thanks for your patient and professional approach.

We are now going to move to—

[Jamie Schmale, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Chair, before you adjourn—