Evidence of meeting #19 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was families.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:45 p.m.
As an Individual
You're very welcome.
Thank you so much again for the award. Take care, everyone.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Take care.
Committee members, we may take some time for committee business. If it's okay with the committee, we'll remain in public so we don't have to Zoom in and out. For those members who are here virtually, just stay with the link you're in. If that's agreeable to the committee, we will stay in public.
On this particular part, we have a couple of items of committee business that we'd like to deal with.
First, what's your direction on setting the award for the coming year, for the coming award? That is part of what we have to establish. What we need is the deadline for submitting an application, recognizing that usually this is circulated earlier in the year.
Madam Clerk, can you speak to this?
4:45 p.m.
The Clerk of the Committee Ms. Danielle Widmer
I'm just going to add a quick insert about this.
Normally we give applicants about five weeks from the date we actually publicize it to submit an application. Just looking at the time frame and understanding that many of the applicants, like Tara Collins, are often in education, in school and post-secondary education, in looking at the time, you have from September until April.
Ideally, we'd like to circulate this and give enough time to get everyone involved. So maybe a deadline of September might be agreeable. That way, we would capture people who come back to school in September, and they could submit an application then.
Maybe some time at the end of September if the members are agreeable...? That way, they take a look at it when they come back, translate everything and circulate it to the members, if that would that be agreeable.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Okay. We've set the amount at $6,700 and we've set the deadline.
The one part you had circulated was, as I recall, that at one time we were considering doing a video from the Centennial Flame. The advice was that we cannot do that, so you have in your package a recommendation on how we promote the award.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
Chair, I think that even as MPs we can promote this through our own social media networks, and not just as a one-off. I think we can really spread that web, if you will, if we really promote it ourselves.
4:50 p.m.
The Clerk
I'm just going to quickly—
Go ahead, Mr. Ruff.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I was just wondering what the recommendation was. What was the logic behind not doing the video?
4:50 p.m.
The Clerk
One of the challenges with the video is the timing of the video: to make sure the video comes out quickly enough. It's also a matter of our usually doing low-cost options, to make sure that the funding for the award goes to the applicants themselves, and not to the video production. It's also a matter of accessibility, the accessibility of the video, to make sure for people who have hearing or visual impairments that are also accommodated in the video. Hence, it might be quite resource-consuming to do a video.
When we talked to the communications people, lots of the options.... As Mr. Van Bynen said, having the applicants' documents get posted on the website could be an option to better publicize it. For mass emails, we're looking more at a strategy for emailing individuals: creating lists for universities, cultural groups and visible minority groups to make sure we get them to the groups themselves, and then have a staggered approach. Quite often in the past, we just did one email. We're looking more at a staggered approach, so the moment the news release comes out, we can do multiple emails throughout the months of May and June, and do a second bombardment of communications in September when people come back.
On top of that, we can also do news releases and infographics. Infographics will allow us to have have text-based materials, which we can also share with the members to put in their constituency emails and mailouts. We're looking more at more print-based option that would probably be more accessible than video. It's also a matter that maybe not everyone would be comfortable appearing in a video and being on the website forever too. We're really looking more at text-based approaches, visual approaches, and that's where we're leaning for communications.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Long Liberal Saint John—Rothesay, NB
I'll bet you, Alex, that 80% of HUMA members last time didn't even have it in their householders. I think we can get it out there a lot more effectively, too, me included.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
Alex Ruff Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Just to build on that, really, the issue is doing the video as a House of Commons sponsored sort of paid-for thing. That's the issue. I get all that for the hoops that we have to jump through, but there's nothing stopping us as MPs. We we could all literally walk over there ourselves and shoot our own video if we want to, just based on our own resources.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
4:50 p.m.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I think these are good avenues for communication strategies. Where I agree with you is that most of the money should go to the stock market and not to promoting the stock market. Costly strategies should be avoided.
We listened to the winner. She started by mentioning university websites. A list of available scholarships should be published. In their ridings, committee members can publicize the scholarship, but their involvement is limited. We have to reach out to groups of people with disabilities. It’s a scholarship for them; we need to find a way to make them aware of it.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Madame Chabot.
Before we go to that, I want to get some clearance from the committee. Is everybody staying here? Does anybody need time to return to the chamber to vote in person? If everybody is staying here, we can vote virtually.
Okay. We have agreement to stay. We'll suspend for a few minutes whenever members need to vote.
4:55 p.m.
Bloc
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Yes.
Some members have to leave, so we will be adjourning around 5 or 5:40.
We have Madame Zarrillo.
April 28th, 2022 / 4:55 p.m.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have a motion that I would like to move to the table. I'm not sure if we'll have time for a discussion on it today.
I sent a notice of motion a couple of weeks back. Just let me know when it's a good time for me to move that to the table.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
If it's had the necessary timeline....
Has it been 48 hours? Yes.
Madam Zarrillo, you have the floor, if you want to move it.
4:55 p.m.
NDP
Bonita Zarrillo NDP Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I circulated a few weeks ago, on March 31, a notice of motion that asks the following:
That the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities call upon the government codify all people who receive provincial support for their disability as People with Disabilities in order to facilitate the ease of payment of a future benefit for a disabled person, and that the government table a comprehensive response thereto.
Mr. Chair, this is related to some of the testimony we heard from the ministry that, at this point in time, there is not an easy way to identify in any kind of federal database those persons who receive provincial disability support.
Thank you.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Madam Zarrillo.
Before we go to that, there is an agreement amongst the party whips that we will suspend 10 minutes before the vote. I will suspend now until the vote is concluded, and then we will resume.