Evidence of meeting #45 for Status of Women in the 39th 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 p.m.
Liberal
4 p.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much for being here today. This is very important.
We're seeing the two ends of the curve: young women, mothers, heads of single-parent families and elderly women coming to the end of their lives. We see that there's not a lot of difference between the two situations. The poverty is the same. The poverty persists and continues to exist, even into very advanced old age.
Ms. McGowan, I had the privilege of co-directing a home care services cooperative for about 10 years, and I am very familiar with what you're talking about. What you're doing is very important, and I thank you for doing it. However, I believe there are not enough agencies like yours to meet the many needs that are expressed, because the population is aging quickly.
I would like to ask you a question. What should be done so that there are more agencies able to meet these needs? How could we benefit from a number of additional agencies? Do you believe that's really necessary? Do you believe that the public would benefit from that, both monetarily—because governments are always concerned about that aspect—and socially? Do you believe that elderly women and men could benefit from that?
4:05 p.m.
Executive Director, Neighbourhood Link/Senior Link
Absolutely. That's a wonderful question, and I've got a great plan, but it will take me longer than ten minutes to explain it.
I believe sincerely there should be a blanket of community support services across the country. I think what it would take would be to break down some of the silos that presently exist. It clearly is of benefit financially. If you look at the system as a whole, and all taxpayers' money went into one pot and was redistributed out, two-thirds of our clients who live in their own homes would be eligible for subsidized nursing home beds at $700 a week—yet we keep them at home for $22 a week. So there's this huge difference, and that money could be so much better spent than on nursing homes. So if the investment in community supports were made, fewer people would need to draw on the more expensive health care and long-term care facilities.
I did bring a study that Neighbourhood Link undertook with the University of Toronto and Ryerson. Unfortunately it's only in English, but I understand that the executive summary is going to be translated and be distributed to the committee. That specifically looks at supportive housing, but it can certainly be extrapolated to the services in the community.
I'm not sure I've completely answered what it would take. If we said a person is evaluated as eligible for a nursing home at a full subsidy of $700 a week and we said to the community agency, the government will fund you to spend up to 60% of that to keep that person at home, then whatever that individual needed—And somebody will need transportation and personal support, and somebody else will need nursing and housekeeping, and so forth. You can spend up to 60% that the client directs and the community worker organizes, for example. And where there are no community agencies such as mine and the many that are in the Ottawa area, in those spaces there are already good community agencies. They may be dealing with newcomers or youth or families, or what have you, but they would be the ones who could best provide the senior services.
The fact that no senior service exists in Hamilton doesn't mean there aren't good community agencies. It's better to start with one that already exists and already has roots in the community than to try to develop a brand-new one, because all you're doing then is building one more silo.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Nicole Demers Bloc Laval, QC
Thank you very much, Ms. McGowan. Pardon me, but I also want to ask the other two persons here some questions.
Earlier you talked about systems. We in Quebec are often accused of having better social programs, of wanting to introduce better social programs, and thus of spending our funds for purposes other that those contemplated in other provinces. Earlier you said you were in contact with other pan-Canadian organizations.
Are those organizations of the same view as you with regard to the solutions you proposed to us earlier, with regard to the observations you've made? Are those other organizations also of the view that it would have been preferable for the child benefit to be a refundable tax credit? Can we have an idea about that? I think governments can sometimes make errors in good faith when setting up a program and that, if there is a strong enough consensus across the country, then perhaps they would like to change their program in order to design one that better meets the needs of the general public. Can you give me your impression on that subject?
4:05 p.m.
directrice générale, Fédération des associations de familles monoparentales et recomposées du Québec
What I would feel more like saying is that, in the rest of Canada, they should draw more on Quebec's successes in this area. I think that what Madame said earlier regarding the communities, for example, shows that they are much less supported in the rest of Canada than Quebec. So if we have a highly developed collective system in Quebec, or, in any case, if the government recognizes and funds it, I believe that makes it possible to have better services and better policies for the population as a whole.
If you take, for example, all the measures we've discussed today, education, child care services and all that, we've long been in a coalition with the rest of the Canadian provinces as well. That's the case with child care services, for example. A number of people envied what we had in Quebec and also wanted the budgets coming from the federal government to be able to enable them to put similar measures in place. Moreover, as we saw earlier, the statistics of the National Council of Welfare show that it's better in Quebec, but that, in the rest of Canada, women heads of single-parent families are really in a situation of extreme poverty. So we think you really have to—There have been improvements in Quebec because we've been working on this for a long time and because funding and policies have been put in place, but the situation is much more critical in the rest of Canada, and poverty—
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Yasmin Ratansi
Ms. Demers, your allotted time is up.
It is a wonderful conversation, but we have to move to Ms. Davidson.
March 22nd, 2007 / 4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you.
I'd like to thank our presenters for being here today. There was certainly some very insightful information.
Ms. McGowan, I commend you on what you're doing and I relate to what you're saying. I too have a 93-year-old mother, and I know some of the challenges that are there with trying to keep them active and to keep them in their own home.
I couldn't agree with you more when you say that as long as they could stay in their own home that's the best place for them. I think that's where they need to be. Unfortunately, there aren't the community supports in a lot of areas. I'm fortunate in the community where I live that we do have a fairly active seniors coordination group. It looks after transportation and a lot of things. There are some visiting things that go along with it, and they do help.
There's a lot more that's needed. I think in rural areas we probably look at more challenges perhaps for servicing. Do you have any insight into making conditions easier or better for the elderly who can't afford things in rural areas where services may not be quite as available?
4:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Neighbourhood Link/Senior Link
I will go back to that blanket of community support services. The problem with rural areas is the distance. It's the travel time between people. That would certainly have to be taken into account. It would be a cost that's higher in a rural area than it is in a densely populated city, but you're still not going to get anywhere close to the cost of an institution. And you would be able to serve those people and enable them to live in their own homes.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
How did you calculate that? I think you said $22 as opposed to $700. How did you calculate that $22?
4:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Neighbourhood Link/Senior Link
Neighbourhood Link expends $3 million a year on its seniors programs. We have 2,600 clients. You would divide $3 million by 2,600 and then divide it again by 52 weeks, and it comes to $22.
What that doesn't deal with is the fact that we have the healthy senior social recreation programs that are virtually nothing, and then we also have the adult day program for clients with Alzheimer's, which are very expensive, and I've just mushed it all together. It's not a very sensible number, but it's at least illustrative of the difference in the costs.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Does your group work with the VON volunteers, the Red Cross volunteers, or the Alzheimer's volunteers? Do you coordinate those groups? Is that your role as coordinator as well?
4:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Neighbourhood Link/Senior Link
We actively deliver service, and our principal program is called client intervention and assistance. It's very difficult to explain that in a nutshell, but it's all of the things that a caring niece would give her aunt or uncle. It's what the client directs.
Now I've lost track of your question.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
I just wondered if you coordinated with the Alzheimer's volunteers, etc.
4:10 p.m.
Executive Director, Neighbourhood Link/Senior Link
We absolutely work with them. We have about 500 volunteers that work with our agency, in all of our various programs, not just seniors. We work with the Red Cross, with Alzheimer's, with any number of other agencies. For example, we do not ourselves provide meals on wheels, but we will arrange for that from a local agency that does.
4:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Neighbourhood Link/Senior Link
Yes, we do. We provide CCAC-contracted service.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to all for your time and your presentations.
A common criticism of Quebec's day care system is that it's only benefiting the middle and upper class families. Is there any kind of support system from the provincial government to single mothers or low-income families?
4:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Neighbourhood Link/Senior Link
Maybe that would be better responded to by you.
4:15 p.m.
Conservative
Nina Grewal Conservative Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Is there any kind of program that supports low-income families or single mothers that you are aware of?
4:15 p.m.
directrice générale, Fédération des associations de familles monoparentales et recomposées du Québec
That's somewhat what we explained earlier. Child care services are not just for well-to-do families; they are for all Quebec families, including low-income families. Earlier we said that there are additional support measures apart from child care services. For example, the child support program, which we talked about, provides family allowances for all Quebec families. There's also what I would call a more targeted measure for low-income single-parent families. Those families with incomes of less than $30,000, for example, actually enjoy very generous family allowances through the child support program. That's what there's been in the past two years. If parents need to put their children in child care, the child support program enables them to participate more effectively in the labour market.
As we explained earlier, one of the major barriers for heads of single-parent families is that, in addition to working, they have to have access to all child care services, transportation and housing. So there are a lot of barriers to getting out of poverty. In Quebec, child care services are offered to the population as a whole, including low-income single-parent families.
4:15 p.m.
Research and Communication Officer, Fédération des associations de familles monoparentales et recomposées du Québec
I can supplement that.
The universality aspect of the programs is very important for us. In Quebec, this is a choice that we've made, that is to say that the family allowance is universal and there are targeted measures for low-income families. In addition, child care services are also universal and do not merely target one class of people.