Evidence of meeting #43 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was men.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Raquel Dancho Conservative Kildonan—St. Paul, MB
I appreciate that. When I went off to university many years ago, the gift my father gave me as a parting gift was a tool box. I actually used it quite a bit. My grandfather had taught me many things when he was around, so I really appreciate the generational knowledge that you're also providing. I can imagine that there are many opportunities with the shed model to bring in younger and perhaps troubled men to have that knowledge and the transfer from senior men.
I want to thank you for what you're doing, and I hope that your organization can fully recover when we come out of this pandemic. Thank you, Mr. Mackie.
Liberal
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
Thanks very much.
Madame Guerin, I was curious about your observations vis-à-vis accessible housing and isolation. Obviously during COVID, when people were asked to stay home, people without accessible housing, and particularly seniors, may be able to navigate the stairs once or twice a day very carefully, but if they forget their glasses or need something from downstairs or upstairs, accessibility becomes a limiting factor if we don't build accessible housing.
Are the programs sufficient in delivering accessible housing in Quebec right now?
Coordinator, Conseil régional de développement social des Laurentides
I would say that the programs aren't enough. Certainly more programs are needed to build additional accessible housing for seniors.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
One of the characteristics of the national housing strategy, which is the federal funding that flows through Quebec City to the province, is a federal requirement that 25% of all new affordable housing be built to a universal design to allow for people with disabilities and also to allow people to age in place. Is that a program you would support? Would you support a federal standard at the provincial level for 25% of all new social housing to be built to that standard?
Coordinator, Conseil régional de développement social des Laurentides
It's hard for me to comment on that percentage. I'm not sure that it would be enough. We know that we'll need to deal with an aging population in Quebec and in Canada. More and more seniors will be part of our community. I think that we must anticipate the situation, to avoid ending up in a difficult situation in the coming years. We know that, in 20 or 30 years, the number of seniors in our population will grow dramatically. I think that we must anticipate this growth and plan now for new accessible housing for these people, which includes the services that they'll need.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
You would support the federal position, which is that accessible housing should be mandated to be part of any new public housing program. Otherwise, it gets built without those—
Coordinator, Conseil régional de développement social des Laurentides
Certainly.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
That's one of the areas where federal requirements can help advance the needs of the people of Quebec without necessarily being agreed to or not agreed to by the Province of Quebec.
Coordinator, Conseil régional de développement social des Laurentides
Yes.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
In terms of how affordable housing is delivered, one of the other components of the national housing strategy is rent support. We know that as people age in place, and particularly as people with disabilities age in place, there are additional costs attached. You spoke about basic income before, but there are additional costs that model around the person's life as opposed to just simply turning 65 and getting a cheque. Disability, as well as age and as well as gender, are all intersectional realities that create different costs of living for different people.
Is it a single system of paying everyone the same, or do we need to pick up and pay for the exceptionalities that differentiate one particular age population as opposed to another? In other words, do we need to fit the programs around people, or do we need to fit people into the programs? As we see COVID take root, how critical is it to make sure that we attend to the individual needs of people and not just treat them as over 65, and that's that?
Coordinator, Conseil régional de développement social des Laurentides
The danger of focusing only on individual needs is that social inequality will surely increase. If we focus only on specific issues, we'll certainly leave out certain categories of the population. These people won't be able to benefit from some programs, given the strict and limited eligibility criteria.
It would be worthwhile to provide an equal guaranteed income for everyone, with the possibility of additional subsidies for specific issues, such as a disability.
Ultimately, I think that it would be better to standardize the basic amounts to create a more inclusive society with much less social inequality.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Vaughan.
Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Guerin, I'll ask you an open‑ended question and give you time to answer it.
I really liked your reference to human rights in your testimony, which included issues relating to isolation, mental health, psychology, affordable housing, dignity, poverty and equality.
You said that our analysis grid should be based on human rights. Could you elaborate on that, please?
Coordinator, Conseil régional de développement social des Laurentides
I think that everyone should have the same rights at every stage of their lives. I'll shift the focus a little from seniors to the ability of young people to stay in school during the pandemic. It became apparent very quickly that the most vulnerable people didn't have access to computers for remote learning. From the outset, we saw how social inequality could exist from a very young age.
It's important to further include people living in special situations in the process of reflecting on the programs that we want to implement. These programs must be developed with input from the people concerned. That way, we'll be much better able to meet their needs and find strategies and answers that reflect the real needs of the public. The first step is to further include the people concerned in the reflection process. This applies as much to seniors as to young people, to victims of domestic violence or to people who are homeless. We must include them in our reflection process in order to build programs that truly meet the real needs of the community.
Everyone should have the same rights. Everyone should have access to safe housing in good condition. Everyone should have access to healthy food, not just food from food banks that isn't always fresh or of good quality. Many seniors use food banks because they can't afford to go to the grocery store.
All these things must be taken into account and considered when developing future programs in order to build a fairer and more inclusive Quebec and Canada.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Ms. Guerin.
Finally, the last person to pose questions today will be Ms. Gazan, please, for two and a half minutes.
Go ahead, Ms. Gazan.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Mackie.
You spoke a lot about the conditions of social isolation and the impacts of social isolation during the pandemic. How does your organization assist with combatting the social isolation of seniors?
Chair, Canadian Men's Sheds Association
I think you've made an assumption here that we have a top-down organization. We do not. We have a bottom-up grassroots organization. Each Men's Shed, wherever it is, has been looking after their own within their community. Whether it's in Neepawa or in Altona, these men quite often are keeping in touch by Zoom or talking to each other on the phone. We have encouraged that. Because we're not top-down, we do not impose programs on anyone. It's up to the individual shed, and many of them have done a great job on that.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
One of the things we've discussed a lot in committee is the importance of technology, especially during the pandemic, when people can't meet in person. Would it be helpful to get support for participants so they can participate should they have, for example, issues with accessing the Internet or computers?
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Excuse me for one minute, colleagues.
The bells are ringing in the House. Therefore, we require unanimous consent to continue. Ms. Gazan actually only has about another minute to go, so I don't think it's much of an imposition. Are we okay just to finish up this round, and then we'll adjourn?
We are. Thank you.
Ms. Gazan, go ahead.
Chair, Canadian Men's Sheds Association
That's an excellent idea. Again, I can hardly wait for COVID to be over, allowing us to meet again, and to bring in technical people and show people how to do some of these things.
I personally teach Zooming. Whenever I can, when I get hold of someone, I first of all telephone them and then I set them up to download Zoom onto their machine. I have them do that. Then the next thing I do is set up an individual Zoom meeting with that particular man. Then they gain confidence. Many times the technical aspects of computers are simply outside the confidence of older men, who sometimes feel they should know it all and are therefore not going to ask questions. Any way that we can expand their confidence in using computers, etc., would be a help.