Status of Women Committee on Nov. 24th, 2009

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Neville.

Madam Wong.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Kaegi.

I had a specific question related to your remarks about immigrants. You stated in your presentation that older people brought into the country by their children for child care are now in poverty and that something needs to be done in order to help those people. How did you gather the information and data, please?

[Gerda Kaegi]

What I said was they are at risk of being poor because they have to wait a long period of time--10 years--in order to be eligible for OAS and GIS. Certainly in the city of Toronto there are a number of older parents who have been brought into this country to do child care, and then their families, unfortunately, have not paid or supported them the way they ought to. Many of them have ended up in the social housing units provided for low-income seniors in metropolitan Toronto.

I had this information from what was then the community services of metropolitan Toronto. We are still hearing it from people who are dealing with low-income people who have come as seniors, as immigrants, into the country.

Unfortunately, families sometimes can't keep supporting their seniors. They've become unemployed. So there's a huge issue for that almost hidden group of poor who really fall between the cracks. We have a concern about them because they're not easily identified. The communities are not known. It's really difficult, so communities I work with in the poverty groups are saying we have to start thinking about these people. They're on our doorsteps. There's little we can do for them.

That's where I'm coming from.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

In other words, in fact, those families that promised and signed sponsorships should also take their responsibility. When they apply for these people to come in, they guarantee they will look after them. Finally, for whatever reason, they give up.

In some cases there are abuses. Senior abuse has been common in all areas, and some seniors actually had money, but then the children took it away. It's across the field, not just in specific communities.

Are you aware of a government program called New Horizons, which actually educates seniors and other people to report any form of abuse? Financial abuse is one thing. These sponsors have to declare that they cannot support these seniors in order for these people to get OAS and GIS. This is a more complex issue than simply saying, “Let's give everybody a pension.”

I have been working as a volunteer with low-income seniors for a long time, and I think these issues are more complex. I'll just mention it, and then I think--

[Gerda Kaegi]

I agree with you. In fact, I was one of the instigators to develop the prevention of elder abuse policy lens that has been adopted by the Province of Ontario, and we have taken it across the country. It's a way of identifying the different forms of abuse. And yes, you're right, financial abuse is a huge issue for seniors. But I'm also recognizing that many sponsoring families have been hit badly by the economic downturn, so they can't support the older person, let alone their families. We have a problem with people falling between the cracks, apart from the issue of financial abuse.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Do you believe that programs such as the New Horizons project, which gets the seniors out for wellness and encourages people to stop exactly what you've been mentioning, would be a good program?

[Gerda Kaegi]

New Horizons programs are great, but they're very limited. The maximum dollar amount is very low; they're short term—the vast majority aren't long-term programs—so there is an issue around them. You can do a wonderful pilot, but you don't have the money to continue it.

I praise New Horizons programs. I think they're great, but they're not long term; they're short term. To create awareness, to start communities understanding the issues, they're terrific. But we need longer-term programs and we need to look at the underlying issues that are causing the poverty, causing the abuse.

[Alice Wong, Conservative, Richmond, BC]

Are you aware of any culture differences between various groups? For example, some of them, probably because of faith, would not even report what's happening. That would put the people who are in charge in a difficult position, because if there's nobody reporting whatever happens, then there's no case. Are you aware of the fact that this might be happening in all cases, not just in specific communities?

[Gerda Kaegi]

Absolutely. Elder abuse crosses every ethno-cultural community in this country. It is not unique to any one group.

The more difficult issue, though, is this: where there is a language barrier for an older person, how do you identify that they're at risk? How do you identify that they need income supports if they are isolated because of language difference, communication skills, whatever? We recognize that there is a struggle to reach many of those older people because of these other barriers that exist in our communities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much, Ms. Wong.

Mr. Desnoyers.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to pick up on my last question, as we did not discuss it in much detail. You mentioned creating a guaranteed annual income. Could you elaborate a bit more on that? It is at the end of your report.

I would also like to hear your thoughts on the possibility of holding a Canadian summit on pensions, where the status of women would be a major focus.

Those are the two things I would like you to comment on.

[Gerda Kaegi]

The idea of a guaranteed annual income, as you know, is not new; it's been around for decades. We believe it is one way of ensuring that we don't ensure the deprivation of people in our society. We have lived with poverty from the beginning. I would argue that in today's society, it's not easy to look at the face of poverty when you walk down the street. You see children who go to school hungry; you see older people living on the streets. The guaranteed annual income would give a level of security that would allow us to ensure that people aren't living in deprivation. You would meet the determinants of health, so you'd have a healthier population, more like what you would find in the Scandinavian countries.

The other question slipped my mind; I apologize. What was the second one?

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

The second question was about the possibility of holding a pension summit, which would bring together all the major stakeholders to discuss this issue.

[Gerda Kaegi]

I think it would be wonderful. I know the provinces have been pushing the federal government to have a meeting on pension issues. I would strongly support it.

What we would strongly recommend is to ensure that there was enough preparation at the provincial level for the groups to come together to bring the ideas that could then be taken to the summit, so that you would get a cross-section of people speaking to the issue. You'd have people not only at the government-to-government level, but from the low-income populations, from the first nations or aboriginal communities, from seniors, from the different demographic groups. You would get the voices of everyone brought to the table.

I think it would be wonderful; it would be timely. Then, out of that, we could develop a long-term plan that over time would start to reduce the unnecessary levels of poverty.

[Luc Desnoyers, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, that is all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Ms. Mathyssen.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Again, thank you, Ms. Kaegi. I am quite intrigued with the information you're presenting.

I want to go back to a previous question from Madam Wong. I'm a bit stymied by this. Essentially, if a senior is abandoned because a family has fallen on hard times rather than because of financial abuse, it seems to me that we still have a vulnerable, abandoned elder—somebody who must be looked after. We can't just say this one is deserving, and this one is not—a scheming family, or whatever.

How would you identify and address the need to provide support for that abandoned individual?

[Gerda Kaegi]

That burden has tended to fall on the municipalities, because in many cases municipalities have picked up the cost of social housing. Many municipalities, such as the City of Toronto, have designated housing for older people. There, they have the support services, the infrastructure, to help these people: to get them into the housing they need and bring the services they need.

The burden has fallen on the level of government that has the least flexibility in income. But they have picked it up right across the country.

So it is an issue. They're not left. If the municipality discovers it—and people do report, and these people are brought into service support—it is a cost in large measure faced by the lower-tier level of government, not at the federal level, not at the provincial level.

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

Thank you.

You have raised an important point. I heard some years ago from someone who said that the federal government did not resolve the deficit, but simply dumped it onto a lower and less able level of government to manage.

Would you suggest that these costs be uploaded? Should the federal government be taking up its obligation with respect to supports such as home care, long-term care, social housing?

[Gerda Kaegi]

I should confess, I'm a political scientist by background and I know the Constitution. I know that under the Constitution the primary responsibility is provincial. But over time, under the equalization payments and the health and...well, the transformed SHST, or whatever they were—the names change—the shift of money from the federal government to the provinces has contributed to education, social services, and the health care.

My view is that yes, that burden was downloaded in the 90s, and it was downloaded from the province to the municipality. In Ontario, the provincial government has said it is going to upload some of those costs. I haven't heard the federal government recently say anything about uploading back to the federal government. It is an issue, it is a problem, but I'm also very sensitive, especially coming from Quebec originally, about the constitutional division of responsibilities. That's a minefield.

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

I quite agree, and in a time of deficits, one of my fears is that the deficit will become the excuse for not pursuing the kind of social equilibrium that I think we need in this country and that seniors certainly deserve.

I have another money question. I don't know if you can help me or not.

We heard from a witness a couple of weeks ago, a Monsieur Laporte, that there's about $10 billion floating around in terms of money, retirement moneys, whether it's from private pensions or from RRSPs. His suggestion was that perhaps that would be better invested.

We know about 40% of all the money that goes into RRSPs over a 35- to 45-year period ends up as management fees. It's money that's lost to the person who was trying to save. Is there a more progressive, positive, lucrative way of investing this $10 billion that seems to be orphaned out there in regard to securing a public pension?

[Gerda Kaegi]

I think there's a distinction to be made between the RRSP and the management of, especially, mutual funds, which are at much higher cost in Canada than they are in the United States. The charges in Canada are, to me, offensively high. The Canada Pension Plan has a relatively low management charge, and it has done very well.

I'm not a financial accountant, so I cannot go into it, but I do have concerns that these significant discrepancies of management fees between Canadian mutual funds and American mutual funds are offensive. If there was some way of tackling that, it would be wonderful.

People are turning to exchange-traded funds, but whether that's a good solution, I do not know. That's not my area of expertise.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Mr. Van Kesteren.

[Dave Van Kesteren, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Essex, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to our witness today.

I have a number of questions. First off, before I forget, you mentioned that you had 10 recommendations. I tried to jot those down, and I got some of them, but I wonder if you could send that list to us.

[Gerda Kaegi]

There are nine short-term strategies, but we did e-mail them today.