Human Resources Committee on March 23rd, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 23 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(5), the committee will commence consideration of the subject matter of supplementary estimates (C), 2020-21: vote 1c under Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and votes 1c, 5c, 10c and 15c under the Department of Employment and Social Development, referred to the committee on Tuesday, February 16, 2021.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), the committee will resume consideration of the main estimates 2021-22: vote 1 under Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, votes 1 and 5 under Canadian Accessibility Standards Development Organization, vote 1 under Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, and votes 1 and 5 under Department of Employment and Social Development, referred to the committee on Thursday, February 25, 2021.

I'd like to welcome our witnesses to begin our discussion with five minutes of opening remarks.

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

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Go ahead.

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

Before we begin, I want to outline how thoughtful your words were on behalf of the entire committee in the House of Commons when you tabled our earlier votes on estimates. I wanted to acknowledge that in front of everyone. Kudos to you, sir.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

That was an excellent point of order.

I would like to welcome our witnesses to begin our discussion with five minutes of opening remarks, followed by questions.

We're very pleased to have with us here today the Honourable Deb Schulte, the Minister of Seniors; and from the Department of Employment and Social Development, Annette Gibbons, associate deputy minister; Mark Perlman, chief financial officer and senior assistant deputy minister; Alexis Conrad, senior assistant deputy minister, income security and social development branch; Cliff Groen, senior assistant deputy minister, benefits and integrated services branch, Service Canada; and Stephanie Hébert, assistant deputy minister, program operations branch, Service Canada.

With that, Minister Schulte, welcome to the committee. The floor is all yours for your opening remarks. You have five minutes.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, Minister of Seniors]

Thank you very much, Chair. I really appreciate that.

What a very civilized committee to be starting off in such a kind way to each other. That's very nice.

I also noticed that you introduced the panel with me, the team with me here today, so I won't go through that in my introductory remarks.

Thank you for inviting me.

As Canada's Minister of Seniors, I am truly pleased to speak to the 2020-21 supplementary estimates (C) and the 2021-22 main estimates for Employment and Social Development Canada.

As you already mentioned, it's really a pleasure to be here with the team supporting me and my new associate deputy minister, Annette Gibbons, and of course you mentioned the chief financial officer, Mark Perlman, and Alexis Conrad, Cliff Groen and Stephanie Hébert.

Canadians have been dealing with the incredible challenges of the pandemic for over a year now. With millions of additional doses bound for Canada, vaccine efforts are continuing to ramp up across the country. The other side of the crisis is in sight, and I want to reassure the committee that looking out for seniors and vulnerable Canadians will remain a top priority for our government.

The supplementary estimates (C) for 2020-21 request an additional $225 million in voted authorities, offset by a decrease of $708 million in statutory authorities.

The main estimates for 2021-22 represent a total of $82.4 billion. This is a net increase of $13.8 billion, which is approximately 20%, over the 2020-21 main estimates of $68.6 billion.

This is primarily due to the three temporary recovery benefits our government delivered to millions of Canadians to protect their financial safety as their employment was affected by COVID-19.

Another factor is foreseeable increases in statutory items, such as old age security pension and guaranteed income supplement payments, that resulted from an expected increased number of beneficiaries due to the aging population.

The pandemic is hard on seniors.

Protecting seniors' health and maintaining their quality of life by keeping them connected to loved ones and their communities are key priorities shared by our government and Canadian families from coast to coast to coast. As elderly Canadians are most at risk for the virus, they stayed home to stay safe. The pandemic has forced them to take prolonged pauses from precious visits with loved ones, and this has resulted in loneliness and social isolation, which undermines their health. Seniors who are socially isolated tend to use more medication, fall more often and enter residential care sooner.

As part of the main estimates, the department is requesting $63 million in total funding for the new horizons for seniors program, an initiative that helps older Canadians maintain vital social ties to their communities. New horizons is more important now than ever before, as seniors face increased isolation while staying safe at home.

In 2020, the program funded over 2,000 community projects, helping to improve the lives of seniors across the country. New horizons brought seniors projects like fitness classes streamed online instead of being held in person; provided tablets and instruction on how to use them, enabling seniors to view church services and have virtual access to community events and their family activities; and supported services for seniors with special needs or disabilities to help them live independently. We also purchased personal protective equipment to provide safe services to seniors through new horizons for seniors.

Seniors deserve to be safe and respected, and to live in dignity. Our government remains committed to increasing old age security by 10% once a senior turns 75.

We will also work alongside the provinces and territories to set national standards for long-term care, and we'll continue to take action to help seniors age in their homes.

I'll be working with the Minister of Justice to establish new offences and penalties in the Criminal Code related to elder abuse and neglect.

The government will be accelerating the process of developing a national universal pharmacare program.

I thank you for giving me this opportunity.

There is no doubt that the financial resources requested today will enable us to continue our work to create a better future for seniors.

I'd be pleased to answer any questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We're now going to commence with questions, beginning with the Conservatives and Mrs. Falk, please, for six minutes.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for making yourself available to our committee.

I just wanted to make a note off the top. I noticed in your remarks the items that your government remains committed to doing, or is going to do in the future. I just want to note, from the last time you were at this committee, that I haven't seen much progress on these items. I think that would even be from the time of the fall economic statement, which is a little discouraging for me and I think seniors across Canada.

First, no doubt we've had this conversation before at committee on personal support workers, care workers. We know that they provide critical care and support for our seniors, and we know it's not an easy job. It's mentally, physically and emotionally taxing on each of them.

We know that this pandemic has underscored the workforce shortage of skilled personal support workers, and in looking to address the workforce shortage, we cannot lose sight of the skills that are needed to deliver quality care to our seniors. We do know, with an aging population and seniors' needs growing and becoming increasingly complex, that the need for PSWs with the right skill set and training is only going to grow.

Therefore, the professionalization of these workers would improve the standard of care for our seniors, among other benefits, and this is a priority for support workers. I know it has come up in my conversations quite regularly with the Canadian Support Workers Association. When Minister Qualtrough was at our committee the previous week, she had indicated that you were in conversations with the sector to create standardized credentials.

I'm just wondering if you can clarify if discussions to standardize personal support worker credentials are ongoing, and if it is the intent to develop nationally recognized credentials.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you very much for your question and for your interest in a very important issue, which is personal support workers.

As we have seen in long-term care, the lack of workers was a serious issue that caused challenges in that sector. It's also an issue in our home care. We obviously want to support seniors wherever they live: at home, long-term care, or other facilities. Personal support workers are extremely important to do that.

As you know, in the early days of the pandemic we provided $3 billion to the provinces and territories to help improve the funding and the pay of essential workers, including personal support workers. That, I understand from my colleagues and through conversations, was very helpful in helping them to keep and attract people in those roles. However, it hasn't been enough.

We have been supporting the long-term care sector with our Red Cross helping to train and get people into those facilities to help when they're in crisis. More importantly, we need more.

That is why Minister Qualtrough has been working diligently with the sector to develop an intern training program. We are going to support the creation of 4,000 interns whom we can rapidly train through online training and then place them in long-term care facilities so they can get in there and help.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I think this was the program we had discussed previously, when you were at committee.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

It was.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I'm wondering if there are current conversations and discussions happening to standardize personal support workers across Canada. That's specifically what I'm interested in.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

My understanding is that conversations have been undertaken with the department, and also with my colleague in that sector. The training is supposed to be starting this spring with—

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

But that's training for the interns.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

Interns.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Right, but I'm talking about standardization of the profession. It is something that the Canadian Support Workers Association has been asking for and saying that would help with delivering a standard of care, if there was a standardization.

To talk about that, does the government, with the development of national standards for long-term care, see the need for professionalization of PSWs? Is that being talked about at the table?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

What I am quite aware of is that we do not value our personal support workers adequately enough to pay them enough and provide the supports that they need to see this as a profession and get the benefits that they need.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Standardization is something that would help with that.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

There's no question that we're looking for all of the ways that we can help support the sector in providing support to PSWs and keeping them in this profession. Obviously, if we don't provide incentives with adequate pay and benefits then people won't stay in this profession. They need to be treated properly for the work they're doing.

[Rosemarie Falk, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Absolutely. I hope that's something that the government is talking about with their provincial and stakeholder counterparts. It is something that will help the quality of care delivery in long-term care facilities.

Thank you, Minister.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mrs. Falk.

Thank you, Minister.

Next, we're going to go to Mr. Long, please, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon to my colleagues.

Thank you, Minister Schulte, for coming before us again.

I will say, as I said to Minister Qualtrough, Minister Hussen and Minister Tassi, that the committee really appreciates your openness and availability to this committee. It's very meaningful and evident. Thanks for the work you're doing on the file.

I do have some questions for you, Minister. We'll start with old age security.

There have been some who have conflated the special financial supports provided during the pandemic, which were significant, with the regular quarterly indexation of the program. Can you help put this in context so that people at home know what exactly has been done and what extraordinary measures we have taken to maintain the economic well-being of families and seniors, in particular?

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

Thank you very much for that question. It gives me the opportunity to share that 6.7 million Canadians received the one-time payment for seniors as part of our government's commitment to support seniors during the pandemic.

Seniors who were eligible for OAS received $300, and those who were eligible for the guaranteed income supplement received an additional $200. That meant, if you include that with the GST top-up, that a low-income couple would have received over $1,500 of tax-free support to help them through additional pandemic costs.

I just want you to know that the department was working to make sure that all those who were eligible as of June 2020 would have received this one-time payment. They were continuing to work on applications that came through between that time and September to make sure that anybody who was eligible received the payment. It was a tremendous support for seniors during a challenging time.

That was just one piece of the support that we are providing for seniors. The other aspect was to make sure that they had the community supports in place, because sometimes it wasn't about money; it was about getting the help they needed. If they were stuck in their home, they needed services and supports to be able to get around. That's why we provided an additional $20 million to the new horizons for seniors program. We provided an ability for organizations to pivot their programs to help seniors in a different way than what they had proposed in the prior year's application [Technical difficulty—Editor].

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

Minister, I don't know if you can hear me, but we just lost your last sentence. Maybe you can jiggle your computer and go back a couple of sentences, hopefully.

[Deb Schulte, Liberal, King—Vaughan, ON]

I was just talking about the additional millions that we gave to community organizations to help support seniors.

That was $350 million in total, if you looked at the money we provided to food banks, emergency community support, United Way and new horizons. A tremendous amount of support went out. I really have to applaud all the organizations that stepped up to provide these vital services to support seniors while they were staying safe at home.

This is the important work that we were doing to support seniors beyond the financial support, but there is also an element that was being conflated. That was the indexation of pensions that we do here in Canada [Technical difficulty—Editor].