Status of Women Committee on May 1st, 2007

[Jacquie Maund]

I think the legislation on labour has not kept up with the changes in the labour market. It's way behind at the provincial level and at the national level. So when the federal commissioner, Harry Arthurs, released his report last October, many of us were very disappointed that it received no press coverage and was not really taken up. So I think there's a lot of material there to still work with to follow through on his recommendations.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We will now go to Ms. Smith, for seven minutes.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Thank you.

I would just say that I'll share my time with Mr. Stanton, and in the second round we'll share our time just to get our questions in.

Thank you so much for coming today. It was very nice of you to do that, to take your time.

In 1989 there was a promise that child poverty would be eliminated by 2000. I realize this is a very deep problem and it's something that needs to be addressed.

Quite honestly, we have heard from absolutely hundreds and hundreds of parents who are in a very poor situation with young children, and they're very grateful for the $100 a month that has been allotted to them. And they don't pay tax on that because they're below that level of paying tax. So it has been extremely beneficial to them, particularly when there are very small children. They're also able to use it for anything they choose to use it for. It would be my wish, personally, that we could increase that, because we've had such a great response from very poor families on it.

Seeing that this was a declaration made in November 1989, what do you think, over all this time, were the greatest hindrances? Because when you bring up the stats today, the same old same old did not work, did it? I've looked back at conversations from way back then; I've looked back at committee reports. The same kind of thing was being said.

What has happened now with the new government is that we've tried to attack it in such a way that low-income families have had immediate benefits. It's a start, and we need to do more.

Very practically speaking, what do you think? Why wasn't it successful, since 1989? I mean, why are the stats the way they are today? It's deplorable. Do you have some comments on that?

[Jacquie Maund]

Sure, I have two comments.

Number one, I think when the promise was made in 1989--and maybe there's someone here who was there then, I don't know--it was said, and there was no plan put in place. So it was a political statement. There were no targets set. There were no timetables. There was no action plan. There were no commitments behind it.

Subsequently, the Canada child tax benefit was developed in 1998, and we know that actually did have some targets and timetables and money and has really begun to make a difference.

But if you look at what other countries have done, you'll see, for example, the United Kingdom in 1999 made a commitment to address child poverty and set out a very specific 20-year plan, set out a monitoring committee, set up a U.K. low-pay commission. They did a number of things and have been monitoring progress on those targets and are making progress.

We're calling on the Canadian government, and many of us also at a provincial level, to set out a poverty-reduction strategy that includes targets, timetables, and specific investments so that we can track progress over time. That will make a difference.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Stanton now has a question.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you for joining us this afternoon in our study of the economic security of women.

In the conclusion of your report today, in the recommendations, you outlined five different areas that you'd like to see addressed. Certainly, at a philosophical level, anyway, I don't disagree with any of it.

The one question I would have is whether your organization costed any of this out in terms of what the weight of this would be in the public sector. I just quickly took some references from some of the numbers I do know, and this is a substantial social cost.

[Jacquie Maund]

It's a substantial public investment for a substantial public benefit.

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Okay.

So from that point of view.... I'm taking the view of people I hear from in my riding on a regular basis with concerns about the high levels of taxation. Ultimately this has to be paid for.

Did your organization come at that question in terms of where the taxes should be increased? Where would one move this $15 billion, $20 billion a year--whatever the number is--to do what you've recommended here? On whose shoulders would that be placed?

[Jacquie Maund]

No doubt there's a cost to this. There's a cost to any government program, obviously, whether we're talking about meeting Kyoto targets or whatever.

Canada has been in a very strong fiscal situation. We've run a surplus for a number of years now. There are various proposals for how that surplus should be used. Should we use it to invest in the future of this country in ensuring the well-being and the future education and health of our children? That would be one way.

Some people are very concerned about continuing tax cuts that, in essence, will reduce that surplus, will reduce our ability to make the investments in the kinds of social programs that are needed to build our social infrastructure.

It's a political decision. Do we continue to give tax cuts and to erode our fiscal ability to make the kinds of investments that, we would argue, we need, as a country, or do we just look at the short term and say people want tax cuts, so we'll give them to them, even though this means that, inevitably, our public services are going to suffer?

[Bruce Stanton, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

I have just a follow-up question on that.

This is now specifically on the child care benefit side of things. You're suggesting something in the range of $5,100 a year, and specifically for a national day care strategy that would support a--maybe I'm paraphrasing--structure of expanded day care facilities for more access. You mentioned the 800,000-odd spaces that are there now.

What would you say, then, for the people who, for example, are not in proximity or are in a situation in which they cannot access those facilities and/or are working a non-standard work schedule? The traditional not-for-profit institutional day care typically runs from 6:30 in the morning till 6 o'clock at night. Those people on shift work represent a whole sector of the population that can't access that. Where does that leave them?

[Jacquie Maund]

I just want to clarify. The $5,100 is the Canada child tax benefit. About 90% of Canadians who have children currently receive the Canada child tax benefit. It's going to reach $3,200 this summer. We're saying increase it to $5,100, which would be the approximate additional cost to help raise a child.

One option would be, instead of the $100 universal child care allowance that is available for everyone who has a child under six, to flow that money to increase the Canada child tax benefit, which is both income-tested and is a non-taxable benefit. So I'm sure for those parents who are currently receiving the $100 cheque, we would argue that a fairer way would be to increase the Canada child tax benefit. That's one thing.

Secondly, in terms of child care, we're talking about building a national, accessible, affordable child care system. When we say flexible, ideally we're talking about flexibility in terms of hours, because, as you so rightly saw, particularly parents working on shift work do not necessarily have access to it.

We want to talk about increasing the system so that's it available to more people and so that it's a good-quality system, so that parents have the option to use that system. Right now, if you're on a waiting list—many of us have been on a waiting list for many years—it's extremely frustrating. There is no system there that one can rely on.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Ms. Mathyssen.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Maund, for the incredible information. It's very useful, and I think it's very important to have this kind of information in the public domain.

I wanted to ask a number of questions. Firstly, your group has been around for about 18 years, and obviously you've been working very hard in that time. I wondered what kind of opportunity you have had to work with governments. We've had a number of them since 1989. Have you had any success in talking to governments; have they been listening; and has there been progress?

[Jacquie Maund]

We're a non-partisan organization, so we meet with politicians of all parties and senior bureaucrats, and we have done so a number of times over the years. Our material is publicly available, and we encourage political parties to use it in their platforms and to adopt our policy recommendations.

I haven't worked with them for 18 years, but I know from meetings that have happened in the past that our work has had input. It has been reflected sometimes in throne speeches, in the design of some programs, in terms of the feedback that we provide around programs like the Canada child tax benefit, and on the clawback issue. So I think we have had some input, certainly also around the development of the national child care program and those agreements that were in place. At the end of this fiscal year, there were some discussions there.

While the child poverty rate has not declined, our work does show that government programs do make a difference. In fact, if we did not have the programs that we do, the rate would be around 24%. I can only say that we'll continue our work--both our policy work and our advocacy work--building on the research that we do, in terms of what has worked in other countries in northern Europe that have significantly lower child poverty rates.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Now that you mention it, I was doing some reading, and in the mid-1990s Ireland made a determined effort to tackle its child poverty, poverty in general. At that point in time they had a rate of about 15%; ten years later it's at 6.8%. If you start to look at what's happening in Canada, we're at 19%; and my God, we have failed if it's increasing and not coming down.

In the reading, I discovered that they put together a ten-year plan, including a budget, dedicated money that looked at income, education, health, housing, affordable housing, and targeted women, children, seniors, and disabled people, including urban and rural dwellers. They made sure there was an inclusion there.

The responsibility for this was placed firmly on the Prime Minister, who oversaw a cabinet committee whose job it was to work for social inclusion, and they developed what they called the 20% plan. The 20% plan basically said that 20% of all new housing would be set aside for affordable housing, 20% of placements in colleges would go to needy young people, 20% of all new jobs would be directed toward the poor, and that their plan would reduce the number of persons on welfare by 20%. The bottom line was that they did have this impact.

Is this something for Canada? Is this something--it obviously works--that we should be importing here?

[Jacquie Maund]

Definitely, and I'd refer again to the concept of a poverty reduction strategy that has targets, timetables, and investments. Ireland has done it, the United Kingdom has done it; both of those cases are well documented.

Here in Canada, Quebec has a bill that is law now, a poverty reduction law, since 2004. Newfoundland, one of the poorest provinces in the country, after a year's worth of consultation, in June 2006 announced their poverty reduction strategy. The province of Nova Scotia now has an all-party commission looking at it.

Definitely, it's time for the national government to step up to the plate, work with the provinces and develop a national poverty reduction strategy. Our children deserve it.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

There's been a great deal of talk about the cost. Everybody is worried about the cost of doing it. I wondered if you could comment on the cost of not doing this.

[Jacquie Maund]

Canada is at its economic peak right now. There's an amazing report called Growing Concerns: Canadian Attitudes Toward Income Inequality, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. We have the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years. We have the highest corporate profits in 30 years. We are in a strong fiscal position, one of the strongest in the OECD countries. If we cannot afford to invest in reducing child and family poverty in this country now, when will we ever be able to?

The cost of not doing it, the cost of children growing up in poverty--there are numerous studies that show the impact on health, in terms of increased obesity, increased diabetes, increased asthma, numerous studies. They're at risk for lower performance in school, and then as adults, at higher risk for more periods of unemployment and low pay. So if you're talking about the longer-term cost in terms of health, education, criminal justice, social services, it's there.

In Campaign 2000, we can't see what we're waiting for. Obviously, the research is there both in terms of the cost of not doing anything, in terms of what needs to be done and what we can afford to do. Research has costed out what needs to be done. We would say, let's do it. If it took us since 1989 to get this far, what are we waiting for now?

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

You have 40 seconds.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay, I'll try to be very quick.

We've had a number of folks in here talking about things that need to happen. You made some reference to unemployment insurance or employment insurance, which doesn't reach women in their greatest need. Part of the problem is that for many women, they just don't have the number of hours in, particularly if this is the second baby and they haven't managed to get enough work time in between the arrival of the first and the arrival of the second.

One of the recommendations was that there be a reach-back, whereby women could go back to a period of three to five years prior to the birth.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Question.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Is that a good idea?

[Jacquie Maund]

I can't comment in detail on this proposal, but I think any modifications or updating of employment insurance to increase the eligibility and to ensure that women who are not eligible for reasons of having been out of the workforce temporarily for child-bearing or child-rearing obviously would benefit women and would benefit their families in the longer term, in terms of their ability to build up pensionable earnings, as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Yasmin Ratansi]

Thank you.

We'll now go to the second round, and it's five minutes.

Mr. Pearson.

[Glen Pearson, Liberal, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I was here in 1989 on the evening they passed the child poverty package that was introduced by Mr. Broadbent. I wasn't here as a member of Parliament; I was here as a director of a food bank. I still am the director of the food bank in London.

There's great frustration that from the very beginning we as food banks across the country have tried to work, along with Campaign 2000, once it got going, to tackle this problem of child poverty. It continues to be a real issue for us.

At my food bank, for instance, we help 2,600 families a month directly and another 2,600 families through other agencies that we feed. They are grateful for having $100 a month, as the package gets out there, but it's not what they're looking for. They need something more substantial.

I'm not bringing that up to be partisan in any way. What I'm trying to say is that we keep coming up with short-term measures as the way to incentivize things, and that doesn't work.

I thought Mr. Stanton asked a good question when he asked, “did you cost it out”, and “how much will it be”. I thought Ms. Mathyssen's was better: “What would the cost be if we didn't do it?”

I know, because I used to live there, that Ireland went through a phase where they did cost it out. I think it would be helpful for us as a committee, if you have any way of compiling those things, for you to get those things to us. We have to sell to people that this is what women are facing in poverty, especially single mothers, and it's very necessary that we do it.

I want to know whether you think it's possible. You say there are numerous studies out there, or pieces that have been done about costing. Is it possible to pull all that together in one package, or has it been done—for the cost of not doing it?