Human Resources Committee on March 24th, 2022

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

We'll stay as long as everyone gets in their round or the minister's available, either-or. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Okay. Good. The minister's available.

We'll now move to Mr. Collins for five minutes.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Welcome, Minister. Thanks for your attendance here today.

Mr. Chairman, please note that I'm going to be sharing my time with my friend and colleague Mr. Coteau.

The first question I have, Minister, is around the foreign credential recognition program that you highlighted in your opening.

Over the years, I've met dozens of residents in my riding of Hamilton East—Stoney Creek who are health care workers, engineers, accountants and other professionals and who are anxious to share their expertise with us as part of our Canadian economy and to contribute with the training they've received from wherever they've come from in the world.

I know that you made an announcement yesterday. I was hoping that you could elaborate on the announcement and share with us the progress that we've made—and you've made—with the foreign credential recognition program, and what we might expect to see in 2022.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you.

I think we cannot underestimate the importance of newcomers to Canada's workforce and of making sure that we are actually using their skills and talents and helping them get into the workforce as quickly as possible in their area of expertise. We're experiencing a shortage of available workers, and this is a labour tool that is ripe for us to use.

What the foreign credentials recognition program does is fund provincial and territorial regulatory bodies to enhance foreign credential recognition, so part of the funding goes to work to untangle some of the credential recognition challenges that individuals face. We also fund organizations that help newcomers navigate these complicated processes, and we fund organizations and employers to provide first Canadian work experiences in somebody's area of expertise or education.

Those are the three prongs of attack of this program: try to streamline the processes, support organizations that are helping individuals access or get through these processes, and actually give that first work experience. The announcements we made yesterday for these nine organizations did a combination of this in working with a national group of nurses to help navigate and streamline nursing regulations in Ontario; in supporting employers who want to hire newcomers and provide them that first Canadian experience; and in supporting local organizations that work with newcomers in broader wraparound service provisions, as one of the things they do, to help them navigate and get their credentials recognized.

I think we're going to see exciting things. We've increased the budget significantly for this program, and I think it is a key prong of our approach to addressing labour shortages.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I'll cede my time to Mr. Coteau at this point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Go ahead, Mr. Coteau.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'm going to pass this on to the member for Kitchener Centre.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Mr. Morrice, you have two minutes.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Coteau.

Thank you, Chair.

I want to start by acknowledging that I'm now the third member, from a third political party, who is raising the subject of the Canada disability benefit this afternoon. Really, I'm following Mr. Long and Ms. Zarrillo in amplifying the calls of Disability Without Poverty and so many others across the country who've been putting in the work on this for years and years, including on the principles referred to earlier. As the minister knows well, those principles are on the Disability Without Poverty website with respect to implementing the Canada disability benefit.

I'd like to go further yet in recognizing how important this is, as was referred to earlier in this conversation. It was referred to in question period yesterday and in my conversation with the parliamentary secretary the day before.

I understand that the minister is not able to share a timeline for “when”, so in light of that, I wonder, knowing, Minister Qualtrough, of your support for the Canada disability benefit, if you could speak about the specific steps that have been taken over the last few months to move closer to making progress in the legislative agenda, and if you could speak to the specific progress being made in order to fast-track the reintroduction of the Canada disability benefit.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Morrice. Thank you for your relentless pursuit of this. I'm appreciative.

We tabled the legislation last June. It died on the Order Paper. It was a clear, foundational part of the Liberal Party platform in the last election. It is in my mandate letter, and the Prime Minister, all of our colleagues in cabinet and I are committed to introducing this legislation. I can tell you that, as we've worked to move forward on many aspects of the disability file, this has been the unwavering cornerstone of the work we're trying to do.

As you may have heard me say, it would be the flip side of the investments we make in employment. Ideally, the more people we get working, the better. Until we remove the barriers that we've put up as a society and until we recognize that we created this situation, we need to make sure people aren't living in poverty.

That's as much detail as I can think of, but I can assure you that it's a top priority for our government. It is simply a matter of when, not if. It will happen.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Morrice.

Now we'll go to Madame Chabot.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, between now and June 2022, what measures are you planning to take that will, from what I understand, mark the beginning of a systemic reform of the employment insurance scheme?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify my position.

We are going to put forth a vision and a pathway for employment insurance. We're going to release what we heard in the findings of our initial round of discussions on access to EI. Of course, we are committed to increasing the weeks of sickness benefit to 26. That will happen this fall. We will be making decisions. They will be heavily informed by what we heard on the ground during our consultations around the temporary measures that are set to expire at the end of September.

I can assure you—again, perhaps an implementation will be phased, and these conversations are not happening all at once—that the vision that we put forth for an EI system remains the guiding principle. This will not be piecemeal.

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

Have you finished your answer, Minister?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Yes, I'm finished.

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

Minister, my next question deals with the temporary foreign workers program.

I am well aware of the new agreements, particularly the ones signed with Quebec, but nonetheless, the situation for food producers, in the food and beverage processing sectors, as in many others, is that they are still facing delays this year. Numerous companies and employers are enduring delays associated with the processing of LMIA applications, which is the start of the process.

What are you going to do to solve the problem of delays?

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I can assure you that we have been addressing the backlog of LMIAs and delays. I know Lori is on the line. She can speak to where we are, but we meet weekly to see how things are going on a regional basis and ensure that those delays are being addressed.

I think we have good news, Lori, don't we? I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think we're well on the way if not caught up.

[Lori MacDonald]

We are in a good place, Minister. We've fixed our technology challenges. We've taken a significant decrease in the cases in Quebec. On agricultural LMIAs, we're averaging 25 days to get those LMIAs through. We're seeing a significant change, and our inventory has been reduced dramatically. I'm working very closely with our Quebec counterparts to address the issues that remain.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Now, we have Madame Zarrillo for two and a half minutes.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm getting my two and a half minutes. That's amazing.

My last question is going to be again on disability, but intersectionally on first nations, Inuit and Métis who live with disabilities. I'm wondering if there's anything in the main estimates that you could share with us or even any additions in the main estimates that deal with support for first nations, Inuit and Métis living with disabilities.

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

I'm sorry, I can't point to the exact line, but one of the things we're working on, on a distinctions basis, is the Accessible Canada Act, and its application within indigenous communities and on reserve. There was a conscious decision made on the advice of indigenous leaders to work in a parallel track on the application of the Accessible Canada Act, and that work is being done.

We've also built into a number of our programs a more distinctions-based specific stream, I would say, for indigenous persons with disabilities. I apologize, I want to make sure I get my language correct. I'm thinking of ISED. I'm thinking of our Canada summer job program. I'm thinking of a couple of others whose names escape me. In fact, the disability community is on the cutting edge of intersectionality. As we look at a range of issues that we might call disability issues, we recognize very quickly that it's not necessarily just the case.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I'm going to ask about the disability tax credit for type 1 diabetes. I know there are other things, other places, for the disability tax credit that have this time allocation as a barrier to access. So for diabetes, the 14 hours a week application and appointments don't apply.

I'm just wondering if there's any movement on removing that time barrier, just again, to modernize the disability tax credit

[Carla Qualtrough, Liberal, Delta, BC]

Absolutely. We appreciate...What's happened, and I've said this to this committee before, is that the disability policy has been really driven or has been a function of tax policy in this country.

My mandate letter commitment to take a modern approach to disability, and to have a common definition of disability, is an exact response to the issues like this, where functional impairments aren't captured by the current approach to disability in a program. I'm committed to fundamentally changing our approach to disability, so that we understand how, as opposed to a diagnosis, your day-to-day functioning is impaired by your disability, or whatever medical or physical impairment you have.

So absolutely, there's no outcome on that particular type 1 diabetes, and the 14 hours a week, I believe it is. It's actually one of the driving factors to reconceive, and have a modern approach to disability with a common definition across the Government of Canada. Lucky for us, we already have one in the Accessible Canada Act, so type 1 diabetes would fall under that. We're really excited about completely flipping this on its head.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Zarillo. That concludes our time.

Thank you, Minister, and departmental officials for appearing before the committee on this important topic.

Thank you, committee members. We will now adjourn the meeting for the vote.

The meeting is adjourned.