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Bloc Québécois Dissenting Report
Realities distorted by an obvious desire for visibility

Although poverty has many causes, the impoverishment of children is mainly the result of the cuts to the Canada Health and Social Transfer (CHST), tighter access to Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, and failure to index tax benefits for children. If the federal government is to foster the greater wellbeing of children, it must first correct these errors. Indeed, Judith Maxwell of the Canadian Policy Research Network confirms that federal government cuts to the CHST have increased poverty among children and their families. Other witnesses also pointed out a grave increase in poverty in Canada, greater social inequalities, and an unravelling of the social safety net.

The Bloc Québécois calls on the federal government to restore complete funding for social programs and to make a commitment to providing stable, adequate funding to the provinces as underfunding threaten social equity and economic growth.

The Sub-Committee's main Report states that all witnesses mentioned the need for an integrated--that is, Canada-wide-program to support children and families. It goes without saying that representatives of Canadian institutions will call for Canada-wide programs. Not all stakeholders share this view, however. Even the National Council of Welfare emphasizes, "Even more complications arose when the federal government joined the field . . . . Community-based projects are now responsible to two levels of government instead of just the provincial and territorial governments . . . . The trouble with these federal programs is that they add further complications to the tangle of fragmented programs and policies that are within the jurisdiction of the provincial and territorial governments. Time and money that should be spent on good programming that works with children is spent instead on managing jurisdictional problems between the two levels of government. Worst of all, after moving into delivering a funding program in the provinces' jurisdiction, the federal government has not even maintained its financial obligations to the community organizations.''1 Testimony from individuals and local, regional and provincial communities would have provided a more representative reading of the actual situation and action to be taken.

The Sub-Committee should also have considered existing programs in all parts of Canada. The main Report notes that the Sub-Committee did not go as far as it would have liked; but the Sub-Committee still proposes intervention in existing programs, or wants to set up others.

It is saddening to read that the Report relies solely on the framework of the Social Union to set up means of helping children, thus ignoring provincial areas of jurisdiction. Social union is the federal government's panacea for dealing with poverty among children and youth at risk.

The Bloc Québécois calls for the right for Québec to withdraw from federal programs with full financial compensation as he did not sign the Social Union Agreement.

The Sub-Committee should have considered all aspects of provincial jurisdiction. The Report points out the reality of jurisdictions limits and the difficulty it poses in setting up and operating programs for children and families. This point, which is vital to the provinces, was not considered in depth. The Bloc Québécois would have considered it essential to assess the impact of federal intervention in areas of provincial jurisdiction requiring the provinces to make adjustments, i.e. the new Child Tax Benefit. The Sub-Committee could have assessed these constraints on implementation of Québec family policy, which is being prevented from reaching its full potential in meeting families' needs. As well, the actual tax situation of Québec families opting to use the $5 child care service should have been analysed. Of course the federal government is the big winner when families do not claim child care expenses. It is illogic that Québec's approach, cited as exemplary, is obliged to adjust to federal policies while the opposite would have been the normal approach.

The Bloc Québécois demands that the federal government harmonize its tax system to take provincial programs into account, and negotiate the transfer of the necessary funding, so that taxpayers, including those in Québec who use the $5 child care service, are no longer penalized.

It would have been desirable if the concern for avoiding overlap and duplication among the various committees addressing children issues had been reflected in federal programs. Two examples among many of overlap and duplication are Québec's Programme OLO (oeuf, lait, orange) [egg, milk, and orange program] overlapped by the PACE Program and the Millennium Scholarships overlapped by the Programme de prêts et bourses du Québec established since 1964.

In the Bloc Québécois' opinion, the federal government's approach only discourages the provinces from taking initiatives, instead of encouraging them to set up programs that meet the needs of their populations in accordance with their realities.

The Bloc Québécois demands that the constitutional areas of provincial jurisdiction be fully respected and that an end be put to overlap and duplication, which cost taxpayers money.

The Report states that measuring the effectiveness of programs and informing the public about how their tax dollars are spent are essential. Although the Bloc Québécois can support these objectives, it wonders to what extent they can actually be achieved when the federal government is both judge and judged. For example, when Parliament wanted to assess the results of the reforms to EI, the Minister of Human Resources Development was careful not to deliver those results, which would have embarrassed him.

Furthermore, the April 1999 Report of the Auditor General points out that it will be very difficult to obtain transparent and adequate data thus compromising reliable evaluation of the Program. Although the concept of evaluation is referred to in the Report, it can only be fully implemented by the creation of an independent auditor position.

The Bloc Québécois calls for the designation of a Poverty Commissioner, an auditor independent of the government who will report primarily to Parliament.

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1 National Council on Welfare, Preschool Children: Promises to Keep, Report by the National Council of Welfare, spring 1999, pages 66-67.