Human Resources Committee on Feb. 1st, 2024

[Kascha Cassaday]

We currently have nine full-time employees. That grew out of COVID. There was a lot of funding that was given to us throughout COVID, because we were able to go virtual. There was this need for older adults to get online during everything that was happening in COVID, and they needed access.

As that time leaves and we are moving into more tricky economical situations, funding is harder to find; it's less guaranteed. We don't have a pension program at our organization, but our employees are eligible for EI if something were to happen, which I hope it won't.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have five seconds.

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

Ms. Cassaday, what is the gender split in your organization, for employees?

[Kascha Cassaday]

It's about 90% female and 10% male.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Zarrillo.

Ms. Falk is next, for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Specifically, in listening to you, Ms. MacKenzie, and some of your testimony, it really triggered a lot of thoughts I have regarding family. I think it's interesting that we're at a place or a time in society where we are now trying to get younger people to be involved in older people's lives. It's crazy to me, because I think that when we look at the breakdown of immediate families and the breakdown of extended families, it is something that culturally...that many cultures have, with intergenerational families living in the same house. Those children are being taught the importance of caring for, gleaning wisdom, asking questions and learning from experience, and it just saddens me a bit that we are in a time in society where we don't have that. We now have organizations coming to the federal government and saying, “We need money to create this,” when it's something that should be natural. I believe it was intended to be like that.

When we look at the past recent years, with the COVID pandemic and how government policies actually forced isolation on our seniors, forced isolation on our children and further exacerbated that problem, and now we have.... I talk to some parents whose children won't even leave their bedrooms to have relationships and community with their own family, let alone what we need for the intergenerational.... I believe there is such rich fruit that comes from the younger generation, the older generation and really just the different intergenerational levels, in having those relationships, conversations and experiences.

I think, too, that when we look at the current climate of where we are in society with the affordability crisis, we've heard throughout this study that the affordability crisis is making everybody stretch thin, so how can people take time out of the busyness of their lives when they need to pick up extra shifts and more jobs? How can they take that time to go into their community, go into their children's classrooms, to go into care homes...to have that opportunity? It just seems that it's so far out of reach.

I really want to thank my colleague, MP Van Bynen, for bringing this forward, for bringing forward the conversation and having a conversation on how we can do this, because I think it's so much more than funding. I honestly don't think that government funding is going to help the situation. It's a societal shift that has to happen. We have to definitely exhibit that and show our children the importance of being involved with those who weren't born at the same time and who've had different life experiences, because that's so important.

Chair, with that, I'd like to pass my time to MP Gray.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

You have 30 seconds.

[Tracy Gray, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you for the great conversation here today.

What I wanted to bring forth was that we do have some unfinished business from the last meeting, and rules to adjourn this committee clearly weren't followed. We were discussing a motion on housing brought forth by the Conservatives in light of the housing crisis getting worse in Canada and of new information that was just released that, in fact, housing starts in 2023 were down.

Therefore, I move that the committee resume consideration of debate on my motion on housing from January 29, 2024.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Ms. Gray.

That is a dilatory motion, so I need approval of the committee by vote. Does the committee agree to proceed to the order? When we adjourned, we were in discussion on an amendment to the motion.

Clerk, we will have a recorded vote on the dilatory motion of Ms. Gray.

(Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5)

The motion is defeated. We'll now return to Mr. Long.

You have the floor for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, everybody.

Again, I apologize to our witnesses for these delays. Thank you so much for your testimony this morning.

One thing I want to touch on is programs that we offer for seniors, and I want to touch on the New Horizons for Seniors program. I think most of us have used it or have had organizations in our ridings that have used it. It's a great program. It promotes volunteerism among seniors and other generations. One of its streams funds community-based projects that are led by seniors and our volunteer base with up to $25,000 per year. I know that in my riding, two or three different organizations have used that to promote intergenerational volunteering to put seniors with youth. It's a wonderful program.

I'm wondering if each of you could tell me whether you've participated in the program and give me any thoughts or feedback as to how the program was delivered.

We can start with Mr. Harvey.

[Christian Harvey]

Yes. Around bringing people, volunteers, we have found....

I'm sorry. I heard you talking about the volunteering. Could you repeat what you were saying there?

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

Sure. It was a question for all three of you about the New Horizons for Seniors program, asking if you have used it, if you have participated in it and for any feedback that you can give us.

Thank you.

[Christian Harvey]

We have no experience with the New Horizons program. I apologize.

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

Ms. Cassaday.

[Kascha Cassaday]

Yes, we recently were part of some grant funding—specifically in the Smoky Lake, Alberta, area—through the New Horizons funding, which was wonderful. We've just recently applied for the pan-Canadian program as well, so we are hoping and eager that it will go through, because we really believe that it is a project that will work.

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

Ms. MacKenzie.

[Sharon MacKenzie]

Yes, I'm very familiar with it, actually. In 2010, I approached the National Seniors Council to have the word “intergenerational” added to its grant process, so that we could start that dialogue. I've been involved with the pan-Canadian program, and I've also been involved with quite a few smaller grants.

I think that what was spoken about earlier, just the whole idea of episodic grants.... It's actually quite a small grant. It's great for small projects. Part of that application states that it would like that to have sustainability, so you have to show that you can keep it going. That's not always possible, so it kind of fades away.

The smaller grants are really good for some things, and for some things they just absolutely don't work. They're not an answer to the kind of work that we're doing where we're trying to work nationally, encouraging people to train for intergenerational activities.

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

Thank you very much.

I just want to step back and talk about volunteerism in general.

In my previous life, I had a lot of experience with volunteers. In major junior hockey, we couldn't have run our organization without volunteers, putting on the Memorial Cup or special events. My wife Denise was actually chair of the Saint John volunteer association.

I'd like each of you to comment, if you could, on how you recruit, train and retain. One of the issues that we always had.... You know, I've seen so many organizations—my own organization included—that would recruit volunteers but do a terrible job of training them and matching them, and then they would lose them. It really wasn't the volunteers' fault. It was the fault of the organizations for not putting in the proper time.

Maybe we could start with you, Mr. Harvey.

[Christian Harvey]

I think that's a very good point. We have found that the recruitment is just getting out there what we do. People want to be a part of making something exciting in their community. That part is just getting that out there, and it's about having opportunities that feel meaningful to people. We have to be clear that this means something, that this makes a difference in this operation.

We've also found that it's not just training on the very practical pieces. We actually do a three-hour training on the values and vision of the organization. We've found that by doing that, even if their volunteering is doing maintenance at one of our houses, people are able to see what they do as embodying the mission and values of the organization. Even with smaller tasks that sometimes can be seen as menial, we can position them and say that they're not menial at all, that they're actually part of these values and this vision.

We find that that's how we are able to retain volunteers. We have probably around 80 to 100 volunteers, and that is how we are able to retain that group of volunteers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Harvey.

Thank you, Mr. Long.

We will conclude with Madame Chabot and Madam Zarrillo.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Witnesses, I wanted to finish this round out of respect for you.

The committee has asked many questions about housing, and rightly so.

Mr. Harvey, you clearly said that we need to invest in public policy and that, despite their role, their mission and the importance of their volunteer work, community organizations cannot singlehandedly change fundamental aspects of our society, like housing. So I'm sure we'll come back to it.

However, given our significant delay, I think it's important that we finish the discussion. So I'm going to ask my questions based on my knowledge of things.

Each of you talked a lot about funding or programs, but your main mission is normally funded by existing programs. In any case, that's how it is for community organizations in Quebec, and I imagine it's also like that in the other provinces. However, are the federal programs well known? Do you use the existing ones?

Ms. Cassaday, would you like to respond?

[Kascha Cassaday]

Yes, funding from the federal level would also be great. We are a North America-wide organization, but we have a Canada-wide focus. We pull our volunteers from all across, because we are virtual and we have programming in person all across Canada.

Having funding at a federal level so that we're able to keep our operational costs going but also able to support the volunteers we have across Canada would be incredibly beneficial.

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

Lastly, many people are talking about national standards in all kinds of sectors.

Do you really think that national standards will resolve the situation when the provinces are responsible for organizing volunteering and our community organizations?

My question is for Ms. MacKenzie.

[Sharon MacKenzie]

I'm not really certain that I understand the question. I'm sorry.

Could you repeat that, please? Is it about the national standards? Is it the pan-Canadian standards?

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

Let me explain, Ms. MacKenzie.

You seemed to support the idea of Canadian national standards. However, I told you that Quebec and the provinces are responsible for organizing community organizations and their missions, as well as health care. Given that, what do you think national standards would change?