Human Resources Committee on Feb. 1st, 2024

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Yes. You transferred right into my next question.

It's kind of ironic, isn't it? When you're really struggling or depressed, or struggling with your own problems, the thing that makes you feel the best is helping someone else, but you almost can't seem to get to that point, because you're struggling so much. It's this kind of vicious cycle of what you just touched on.

To your point, there's a great success story. I think it's really important to have this read into the record, because it's such a powerful story. I had a chance to meet this gentlemen who was living on the street. He said, “Michelle, a year ago, I was the most miserable human. I hated the world.” He was in a very compromised situation.

He has now been housed in one of the modular homes that Peterborough has put up. He was a kind of natural security guard for the people on the ground. Through working with you and your organization, Christian, he now is paid to do that and is a very respected, trusted person within that circle. I would just love you to tell the story of this gentleman.

[Christian Harvey]

Yes, it's amazing, because his story is one that we see over and over again. Again, the true experts in our communities around these issues are those who have to live it day in and day out.

One particular individual was one who was experiencing homelessness and was able, like you said, to access some of the modular homes. We recognized in him the ability to just connect with people and the respect that he had. It benefited us through the volunteer work, which we saw first, but then, through employing him, it made our organization stronger to have his expertise, his relational skills and his connection to the issue.

It's not a one-time thing. We've seen this over and over again with individuals. There was one individual who went through one of our programs, who was reintegrating out of prison. Through volunteering, he gained some confidence in his ability. He had lost a lot of that. Again, he is now employed with us and doing all kinds of work that is really benefiting everyone, which we are so grateful for.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

I love that you said it benefits you as well. It's a win-win situation.

It's a long-term win, especially when you look at the people who are most vulnerable and experiencing homelessness. Transitioning from that survival mode to getting housed and then also trying to reintegrate into, say, the workforce, or volunteering in general, is a very big challenge, but you have that ability to help people transition to that.

I love and value the model of peer support more than anything. Sometimes we put so much regard or value on labels or a professional, when it's often peer support, someone with lived experience, who can really help somebody walk through this. When you say “bad policy”, what else do you think you need corrected to help you?

[Christian Harvey]

We know this housing crisis is not going to be ended by shelters like ours. We are clearly a band-aid, right? It's a band-aid that's necessary.

We see it ourselves. People are in the river of poverty, and we're throwing life preservers to people to keep them alive, but we need policy around aggressively hitting how we are going to address the commodification of housing. That has led to huge issues of people being left out. We need to hit on these.

We need to look at how we decriminalize substance use, rather than thinking that by treating people as if they are criminals for substance use we're going to see change—we're not.

We need to look at how we address these root causes, like the access to housing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Harvey. Your time has concluded.

Mr. Van Bynen, you have six minutes.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Ms. MacKenzie for being able to attend. We went through a number of challenges in order to arrange her participation, including winter weather and getting the headset over to her in time, in addition to the time change that she's dealing with now.

I'd like to hear more about the hub that you mentioned. I'd like you to talk about that concept in the context of the main challenges that you see in maintaining a strong volunteer sector. Also, what strategies would you recommend to engage volunteers, particularly youth?

I need to remind you that I have only six minutes.

[Sharon MacKenzie]

Thank you, and thanks very much for all the calisthenics that you had to do to get me here today.

I think that for the whole volunteer idea and for increasing the number of people in Canada who want to volunteer, you have to start with the young people. One of the things that I see has happened over my tenure in this particular area is when intergenerational activities are introduced to the schools. It's an optional thing; people participate if they want. They come together with senior people. They get to know them, and that relationship creates a feeling within them that says, “I want to do this more. It's really fun, and I really like to do it.” I think that the whole intergenerational activity is really excellent.

How do we find out about that? If you type “intergenerational” into Google.... Most people don't know about some of these wonderful programs that you've already been interviewing and that I am aware of on the side of my desk. If we had a hub that was all things intergenerational—things like the presenters this morning—their activities and their websites could be launched through there as well, so that any new ideas are there if somebody from another centre in Canada comes to that site.

It has to be supported by government. Generations United in the States is a particularly good example. It is funded and secure, and it's a national entity for intergenerational activity. It does webinars, but it allows awareness and access to all people within the country. If you want to find out about something intergenerational in the States, you type in “intergenerational” and up comes Generations United. It's been around for a really long time, and you can go there and get assistance and help and ideas for all sorts of things that you can do in various fields.

What I've seen is that the involvement of kids and young people—especially young people, because that's an investment in your future—with older adults is so rich. A lot of the things that the two presenters this morning talked about—sharing of knowledge, feeling purposeful, having that unity in community and that kind of thing—come from that.

If our young people can come out of high school saying, “Wow, I really enjoyed being part of the community in that way,” then I think you've really trained people to become volunteers, rather than having to go out to try to get them to participate.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

The Province of Ontario requires students to have a minimum number of volunteer hours. Are you aware of any other programs across the country that require that? Is that something that you'd recommend?

[Sharon MacKenzie]

That came out, and it was wonderful. That came out quite a few years ago, right across the country, and then provinces started opting out. Then, within provinces, schools have opted out, and now, in B.C., it's translated into work experience.

My whole issue with that is that it's required. As a teacher, I was getting kids who were, on June 1, calling me up and saying, “Ms. MacKenzie, can I come to your class for eight hours? I'm short eight hours of my volunteering time.” I'd say, “Well, I didn't know that you wanted to be a teacher,” and they'd say, “Well, I don't; I just need the time.” That's not a way to engender volunteerism of the heart, so that it will go on and be sustainable. That's like getting the recommendation done and checking it off the list.

I think it's a great opportunity to start that discussion, but the bottom line is that I think you have to have those relationships between younger and older people in the community. That is what's going to bring people back to wanting to be volunteers.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Are there any strategies that you'd recommend that would engage youth in volunteer programs?

[Sharon MacKenzie]

Do you know something? It could be anything. One of the mottos of our society is to not do something different but to just do what you're doing differently. It's a mindset. That's why I have those silly glasses that I was showing you at the beginning. It's taking a different view on things.

You could take a book club, for example. Senior people are reading books; kids are reading books. Have them all read the same book and come together and have a discussion. Make that interaction. Another example could be art.

You can do it through anything, so the strategy is really looking at things and coming together. It's not adding on to your workload but taking the two generations and bringing them together to do together what they are already doing. It really is just a shift in the way we do things. As a result, it's not expensive, and it really doesn't make extra work for anyone. In fact, it actually lessens the workload for a lot of people, because they are so engaged with each other.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Finally, what do you recommend that the federal government could do to better support the volunteer sector and the organizations on a national basis?

[Sharon MacKenzie]

Again, I'm looking at it through the intergenerational perspective, so I really think that if the federal government would support us, support the people who are involved in the intergenerational activities and bring awareness.... I mean, we're a huge country, yet probably half of the people in Ontario don't even know anything about these programs that we've talked about already this morning, and that's a pity.

We really should have a lot more awareness of how important it is to bring those two ends of society together. They have so much going for them that is similar. They both are outside the workforce. They both have time that they can dedicate to coming together, and that's not something that's available to a lot of people who are in the busy work world or raising families right now in Canada.

[Tony Van Bynen, Liberal, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. MacKenzie, and thank you, Mr. Van Bynen.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd also like to thank all the witnesses.

As parliamentarians, the biggest takeaway for us from this study will be recognition of all the work that your mostly non-profit organizations do in the community sector and your focus on intergenerational volunteerism. Committee members have heard from organizations that have each shared their own experiences.

There's no doubt in our minds that your contribution to society and that of volunteering are a great asset. Thank you for your testimony and for sharing your truly rich experiences with us.

The committee will have to submit a report following this study. The report will provide findings on what can be done to better support intergenerational volunteerism.

Ms. Cassaday, you talked about connectivity. From a human standpoint and from a technical standpoint for seniors and volunteers, that's a tall order. At the end of your presentation, you said how important it is to have stable funding. Could you be more specific about your expectations in that regard?

[Kascha Cassaday]

Yes. It's stable funding, depending on your organization's size and what's available to you.

I previously tuned into other sessions that you guys have had. One conversation that took place was about removing episodic funding and instead doing bigger or larger year-long or multi-year funding, which is very nice for individuals and organizations that have a foot in the door in those types of grants, but what my organization finds is that we spend many hours on these grants and what happens is that year after year they tend to go to the same programs—very well-established programs.

That is wonderful, because they are doing great work, but those episodic grants are what allow smaller organizations to get their foot in the door to show government and to show other grant programs that we are capable, that we are doing good work and that the money given to us does go to important work. Keeping those small episodic grants open, but also recognizing that in those episodic grants, there would be an amount of money that would be going toward operational costs and also costs for volunteers.... As mentioned by many people, what motivates volunteers to be involved? In the current economic situation, that tends to be funding to our young individuals.

We talked about the mandate for volunteer hours, which is great when it's put into a school system. Maybe they're getting off a class in order to do that volunteerism, so it's within their school curriculum, but if it's required outside of school hours and they have the option to work versus volunteering, many of those individuals would not give up the opportunity to take on a part-time job if they're able to get it. If there were some level of stipend or grant guaranteed.... I know that there are grant options available to young people who've completed a certain amount of volunteerism, but also, for a lot of those grants, someone has to recommend that young person.

For me personally, I oversee all of our volunteers. How am I supposed to pick which volunteer I should submit for one of these grants? How do I know that they're interested? How do I know that they're needed? Having some level of “tierism”—if you have this many hours of volunteerism, you're guaranteed this stipend or you're guaranteed this scholarship opportunity—I think those types of things financially really help us, because they mean that our volunteers can come and know they're getting something out of it. It's more than just the support we can give them; they're also getting some type of financial support as well.

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

Thank you.

I was impressed to learn that you train 5,000 young volunteers, if I understood correctly. That's really incredible. With regard to recruitment, you mentioned that volunteering was mandatory in some schools or if it's a prerequisite for accreditation.

Despite the difficulties encountered with regard to work, even if young people were recruited because they had to volunteer, in your opinion, did they find the experience enriching and rewarding enough in their life journey to continue their volunteer work? Do you manage to retain young volunteers or do they leave after volunteering?

[Kascha Cassaday]

Yes, we are. I think all young people really benefit from all levels of volunteering, no matter the program, but specifically for us, we put a lot of emphasis on ensuring that our volunteers get something out of it.

When funding allows it, we provide additional training opportunities, like work readiness webinars for them and so forth, but yes, we have a training model, and there are different levels of it, depending on how they're joining us.

The main way we are able to support our volunteers is.... They're volunteering virtually, so all we ask of them is that they join us for an hour and a half on a call, whenever they're available. They sign up, and it's flexible for them. Whether they're in high school or university or have a job, we don't require them to show up somewhere, take an hour to get there, an hour to volunteer and an hour to get back home; they're able to do it from the comfort of their home.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Cassaday.

Thank you, Ms. Chabot.

Madame Zarrillo, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to start my questioning with Madam MacKenzie, but first, I want to start by thanking all of you for being here today. It's likely that I won't get a second round of questioning, just because of our late start today. I'm going to apologize now for that and thank you all for being here today.

Ms. MacKenzie, I wanted to dig a bit deeper into the health benefits of intergenerational volunteering. You mentioned that it definitely improves health for seniors. I wonder if you could expand on it a bit.

My question on it is whether this concept of intergenerational volunteerism should fall under the health file federally.

[Sharon MacKenzie]

I'll answer your last question first, just by virtue of the fact that in the last 20 years I have worked with one foot in health and one foot in education. Interestingly enough, they have similar needs, and the intergenerational aspect has been able to work with both of those, with education.

As many of you have talked about already, there is a training process. You don't just go into involvement with a senior without some background training. For sure, that is in the education field, but the health benefits are amazing.

Now, what is it specifically? It's been very hard to get quantitative data, because everybody wants to have numbers, but of course, when you're dealing with health, privacy issues are huge.

First of all, there's mental health. It's incredible. There are so many things that I noticed in my last 20 years of working in this field. There's a small thing that's bothering someone, and it becomes a big thing because they muddle it in their head, and then they have to call to go to the doctor, and they can't get in, and that's upsetting. When you have somebody sitting with you who is a friend—and they consider the children friends because they are relatively non-threatening—you just talk. You talk about other things, and pretty soon what we found was that they would talk themselves right out of their concerns. They felt like they were being seen. They felt like they were being heard. The problem wasn't so much medical as it was just feeling mentally isolated, having a lack of purpose and so forth.

There are some very specific examples. They did a research project in New York several years ago. They took seniors from a care home and split them in half. Half of them went on a bus and went on various tours around the town. The other half worked one-on-one with young artists. Afterwards, they were able to get the quantitative data, and after a certain period of time, they measured how much medication the seniors were taking before and after.

For the group who went on the bus tours, everything was the same, but the people who had that intimate relationship and spent time with these artists and talking were taking less medication for depression, and they were having fewer falls as a result of it. That's one of the few actual quantitative studies that have been done.

Medically, to see it qualitatively and to see the difference, you just talk to the people in the care homes, for example, the people in the community or the families. They say attitudes are so much better because these people are connected and feel they have a friend.

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

Thank you so much.

You just spoke about care homes. I know that as part of the confidence and supply agreement between the Liberals and the NDP there is a project around long-term care homes and national standards. I wonder if this intergenerational volunteering is something that should be part of national standards.

Do you have any thoughts on that?

[Sharon MacKenzie]

I most certainly think that it should be, for sure.

It should be systemic. I think we really in a way disconnected community with so many interest groups, and we have so many people who want to have attention to their particular situation, which is great, but now I think something like intergenerational is something that could pull us all together.

In fact, across Canada only 6% to 11% of the senior population is actually in care homes. I think intergenerational volunteerism is really important, because it reaches out into the community, to seniors who are in apartments or elsewhere.

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

Thank you so much.

I'm going to move to Ms. Cassaday.

You mentioned sustainability. I did want to get from you, around pay and pensions, whether pensions are a reality in your organization or in not-for-profits you might have worked at in the past, and how many employees you have.

Lastly, if some of your programs are running on grant funding, if those grants dry up or are not renewed, are your employees eligible for employment insurance?