[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Monday, March 18, 1996
.1532 
[English]
The Chairman: I'd like to call the meeting to order and welcome the representatives from the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, Ms Atkin and Ms Tyrwhitt.
As you know, our major purpose here is to improve Bill C-12, An Act respecting employment insurance in Canada. We usually operate in this fashion: we have one hour, and it is really entirely up to you how many minutes of that hour you will take for your presentation. What the committee members really like about this process is the question and answer session, above and beyond, of course, listening to what I'm sure will be an insightful presentation on your part. So how we divide that will be really based upon how many minutes you take to present your case.
Welcome once again, and thank you very much for your contribution. You may begin.
Ms Elizabeth Tyrwhitt (Coordinator, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada): Thank you. Wendy and I are very happy to be here. This is really a baptism by fire for us. Wendy started her position on Thursday, and today is my first official day with the association.
We were invited Thursday afternoon to speak, so the paper you have is a draft. We did what we could with three days to prepare it, but we will be sending you a final draft in a few days.
The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada is a non-profit association committed to accessible, affordable, high-quality, non-profit child care services for Canadians. Founded in 1983, the association promotes the development of a broad consensus of support within all regions of Canada to pursue child care issues at the federal level. The primary goal of the CCAAC is to expand and improve the child care system with emphasis on high-quality child care. The CCAAC advocates the development of a non-profit, comprehensive, affordable child care system that is accessible to every Canadian family that wishes to use it.
The association receives funding from the Women's Program, Human Resources Development, and from private donations and membership fees. We currently have 577 members from all the provinces and territories.
The Child Care Advocacy Association is very pleased to comment today on Bill C-12. There is much in this bill that other organizations have and will be commenting on constructively. We will focus on the implications of the bill for work and family, the plight of children living in poverty, and the importance of a national child care program in addressing both the needs of Canadian children and assuring opportunities for all Canadians to participate in the workforce.
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Our association believes the unemployment insurance program is in need of reform. It has become far too complex and tries to accomplish too many goals. Its main purpose is to protect employment earnings against short-term unemployment. Over the years it has grown to include training, regional income distribution, job creation and income supplementation.
Many Canadians are currently left out of the program. The government acknowledges this in its discussion paper, Agenda: Jobs and Growth - Improving Social Security in Canada. As part of a social security review, it states:
- Changes in the labour market have increased the number of working Canadians who are not
covered by insurance under the existing UI rules. This particularly affects women and youth,
who tend to predominate in nonstandard work.
Ms Wendy Atkin (Coordinator, Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada): I would like to start by addressing the issue of child care as an employability issue. It is one dear to my heart, as Liz and I have both been running around arranging child care in the last few days as we step into our new positions as co-coordinators. And I'd like to focus specifically on the issue of vouchers administered through the unemployment insurance system.
Child care is linked to employability, especially for mothers of young children. The federal government has been spending close to $100 million every year on vouchers as dependant care allowances to assist with baby-sitting costs for unemployment insurance recipients on job training programs. This money is spent virtually without accountability. This measure has done little to foster the creation of quality, regulated child care spaces. In fact, it can be argued that parents who find jobs after completing job training may be discouraged from taking them if they cannot afterwards access quality child care.
In Bill C-12, paragraph 61(d) provides for ``vouchers to be exchanged for services and payments for the provision of the services''. Does this reference to vouchers mean the continuation of these allowances, which do little to alleviate the current child care crisis? This $100 million would be better spent toward the creation of a national child care plan.
The government should consider instead the child care sector as a method of job creation. The Liberals' red book points out that on average one person is employed for every five child care spaces created. The spending of EI money on short-term unregulated child care yields no permanent returns and resolves only half of the employability equation for Canadian parents.
Child care is also a child poverty issue. Quality child care not only has yields for parents in the labour market, it is a means of remedying some of the crushing child poverty we have in Canada today. A recent report from the Canadian Council on Social Development shows 1.4 million children living in poverty in Canada. For pre-school-aged children this represents one in four, or 24%.
Bill C-12 addresses the poverty issue through the family income supplement, which will top up the incomes of families who receive the child tax benefit. Low-income claimants will welcome an estimated 6% or 10% increase in benefits, but we must note that the FIS will affect only about 20% of all children living in families with earnings below $25,000 per year.
The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada believes that the unemployment insurance system is an inappropriate place for income or needs testing to address family income and security. The FIS appears to complement the income working supplement introduced with the child tax benefit, which pays up to $500 per year. It was designed to assist these families to meet these additional costs associated with working, such as transportation and child care, and to offset the loss of income benefits available to families on social assistance.
We are hard-pressed to understand why the benefits that will be derived from the FIS cannot also be allocated through enriching the child tax benefit. If the government is truly committed to alleviating child poverty, it will do so by streamlining the administration of child-related benefits through the existing mechanism of the child tax benefit.
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Turning now to women and employment insurance eligibility, the government has failed to consider the needs of workers in so-called non-standard employment. This includes part-time, temporary, self-employed, or multiple job holders. Of all the jobs created in 1993, 60% were part-time. This is the fastest-growing sector of the labour market. Most of the workers in the non-standard workforce are women. If women in dual-income families stopped working, the number of low-income families would more than double. We ask why the government will not create an employment insurance program that better suits the needs of women in the changing labour force. We need a program that allows all workers the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from the plan on a proportionate basis.
Let us examine the bill more closely to see how it deals with non-standard work. The bill would change the basis for determining eligibility from the number of weeks worked over the past year to the total number of hours worked. Under the present system, areas of high unemployment require 12 weeks of work to qualify for UI. Under the new system, these areas will require 420 hours of work. In addition, the government has established higher eligibility requirements for new labour market entrants and re-entrants - from 20 to 26 weeks or 910 hours. For those who work over 35 hours per week, the shift from weeks to hours will have little effect. Workers who work overtime will find it easier to qualify for UI and receive more weeks of benefit. It will be part-time workers, many of them women with between 15 and 34 hours per week, who will suffer the most from these changes.
The largest number of female part-time workers are between the ages of 25 and 44 years. This is significant because it is the group that draws on maternity and parental benefits. The change from weeks to hours will also impact on the duration of benefits. Again, it is the part-time and temporary worker who will lose, as well as individuals - primarily women - who have to leave the workforce for extended periods of time.
The maximum insurable earnings will drop from $42,380 in 1995 to $39,000 per year in 1996. This will reduce the premiums and coverage of all those with earnings above the threshold and will result in a 7% drop in a proportion of earnings insured by the program. Men will be affected by this provision, but women will also feel its impact since a smaller portion of their earnings will be insured under special benefits that are accessed by 85,000 women every year.
A national child care program has been discussed in the context of Canada's social policy agenda since the 1970s. Task forces, commissions, reports and committees have recommended changes to existing policies and funding arrangements. Today, however, only one in six Canadian pre-school-aged children have access to quality, regulated child care services.
Since the announcement in the media last month that the government was planning an exit strategy from its proposal to negotiate a national child care fund of $720 million, child care advocates have received no indication as to whether or not this money is still earmarked for child care. Although the federal budget made no mention of these funds being allocated elsewhere, the Caledon Institute of Social Policy suggests that $630 million has been rolled into the human resources investment fund. This fund permits, among other things, spending on child care vouchers for persons enrolled in job training programs. The Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada has serious concerns about whether funding for child care will be restricted to the employment insurance system.
The lack of coordinated public policy between the federal government and the provinces and territories has a substantial negative impact on the services children receive. Looming over this scene is the demise of the Canada assistance plan and its replacement with the Canada health and social transfer, which is scheduled for April 1. This change is an opportunity for the federal government to establish high standards for child care through the creation of a national child care program.
Parents, child care providers, and persons concerned with child welfare in this country are hard-pressed to comprehend why Canada lags behind other countries in providing high-quality child care and early childhood education. In France, publicly funded child care is provided for one-quarter of children under age 3 and for virtually all 3- to 5-year-olds. In Denmark the service provision is comparable, with 48% of under-3-year-olds receiving publicly funded child care. And Sweden pays for half of all children under age 6 to receive child care in a wide variety of settings.
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Canada's deficit in child care provision reduces our international competitiveness because Canadian workers have to work harder to juggle work and family responsibilities. Additionally, indirect subsidies are paid by businesses and the education system for lost work time and the loss of trained employees who have no one to look after their children.
Instead of passing the buck to the provinces, the government should find imaginative solutions to the current crisis in child care and develop a non-profit, comprehensive, affordable child care system that is accessible to every Canadian family who wishes to use it.
Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. You certainly raised some very important issues in relating the child care issue to the employment challenges that we face, the issue of child poverty and the family income supplement. I'm sure you'll get some insightful questions from the members of both the government and opposition.
Ms Jennings, do you have any questions.
Mrs. Jennings (Mission - Coquitlam): Not at the moment.
The Chairman: Then we'll move to Ms Augustine from the government side.
Ms Augustine (Etobicoke - Lakeshore): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I want to welcome both Wendy and Liz, not only because this is their first public duty but also because of the fact that they've taken on their new jobs and within a very short space of time have shown the ability to come to make this kind of presentation to us.
We appreciate all the expressions here. I think you speak not only for all parents but for all people caught in the difficult socio-economic situation of finding employment, of being in the world of work, and of also being able to provide child care.
I want, though, to speak to you a little bit about the reasons for the reform and what we see as benefits, and to suggest to you some ways in which maybe we can work together to make the bill that is before us better. This is really the reason for this consultation - to give us the best possible bill, the best possible ways in which we as a government can help families.
As we consider this legislation, we need to look at the issue of fairness for people facing hardship. We know there are 350,000 people who have received the family supplement, and I think you mentioned that in part III of your paper. The family supplement will ensure that these claimants will have the means to fulfil their family responsibilities. It will mean that low-income claimants, perhaps with young families, will be able to obtain unemployment insurance benefits worth up to 80% of their work income instead of the normal 55% benefit rate.
On page 2 of your document, I noticed you were not very positive as to the direction in which we're going with the family income supplement and how it would address the issue of poverty. The intensity rule is there to provide an extra incentive for people to work and to work as much as they can and as often as they can. I think that to have full wages is always better than a benefit that is a fraction of those wages. I want to keep in mind - and I want us to keep in mind - always that this reform is about helping people, about helping women.
I want to ask you this: if we were to look very carefully again at the intensity rule, and if we were to accept the importance of insurance principles, we would want also to show compassion for those with limited means. You quite eloquently spoke about sheltering children from poverty and deprivation. How do you see us making this family income supplement a bit better than what you read in the specific bill?
.1550
Ms Atkin: I'd like to say two things. First of all, we are not necessarily opposed to the family income supplement. We're pessimistic about it. We have concerns that administrative costs could be saved by streamlining those kinds of benefits with the child tax benefit.
We also have concerns with the fact that many poor children live in families where parents are not even eligible for UI or whose unemployment insurance benefits have been exhausted. We're looking for other measures that would cover that population more uniformly.
I'm not sure if you wanted us to address the issue of intensity in women's work.
Ms Augustine: Yes.
Ms Atkin: We might not have made that terribly clear in that section of our brief, but one of the things we're concerned about is that in view of the inadequacy of existing child care services, many women choose to work part-time out of necessity. It's a bit of a contradiction in terms. Those women have to work part-time because either they can't find full-time jobs or they can't find child care that would fill a day in terms of quality. Those women will have to work longer to qualify for employment insurance benefits.
For example, my understanding of the intensity rule is that if a woman had worked for the same number of weeks as someone else who was working full-time, the woman working part-time would have to accumulate a similar number of hours and would end up, in fact, working longer than the full-time worker in order to qualify for employment insurance benefits. That is one of our big concerns in this bill - the issue of women's employability.
Ms Augustine: You have some difficulty with the way the rule is set out at present. Do you see an opportunity, then, for women who have not been able to get into the work of world with some bonding to the system?
Ms Atkin: I'm sorry, I'm having trouble hearing you. I missed the last part of your question.
The Chairman: We can continue; we'll just have to speak a little bit louder so we can all hear each other. These days I don't want anyone to stop working.
Ms Augustine: I was looking for some positives for women within this present legislation. You spoke about going from weeks to hours. We know that from hour one, especially with part-time work, one begins to accumulate. I was asking whether you saw some benefits there for women.
Ms Atkin: My short answer would be no. I feel that the whole issue of changing from the weeks-based entitlement to the hours-based is potentially very disadvantageous for women, given the structure of the labour market. That would be our short answer, not having had a lot of time to explore that aspect of the bill.
The Chairman: Mr. Easter.
Mr. Easter (Malpeque): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I too want to delve into that area, but first of all, congratulations on your new responsibilities, and welcome.
With regard to the area we were just talking about, do you not see, though, quite an advantage in going to the hours-based system, where you'll bring in quite a number of women, mainly, who are now caught in the less-than-15-hour trap? They will come in under this system, where previously they couldn't. They may end up working, say, 40 hours at 14 or 15 hours a week, so that will be quite an improvement for them. I think you need to think about it in that context.
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The problem, as I understand it, in the area of people working less than 15 hours is that there are not really any statistics on it that I'm aware of, because they haven't been in the system. But also, when you look at the concern between the 15 and 35 hours, at least I am told - and we can check out these figures - that there certainly will be some people affected who are in that area of work now, but the great majority will qualify under the system.
So I think overall the benefits of going to the hours-based system and bringing in those now working less than 15 hours will have a number of positive factors on women and part-time workers in particular. Number one, they will now qualify for the system, whereas they didn't before. Number two, we will be out of that 15-hour trap that a lot of youth and part-time workers are caught in.
I would like to hear your thoughts about it when it is put in that perspective.
Ms Atkin: That point did not escape our notice when we first read the bill. It is certainly welcome that those women will now have some entitlement.
I still believe, however, that the way this hours-based entitlement is structured will ultimately disadvantage many women. One of my concerns is that women who are working less than 15 hours a week must have other forms of support, either social assistance or another wage in the house. If we look at it that way, it offsets the potential advantages for that group of women. But you are right, it is certainly a point well taken that they are included.
Mr. Easter: I'd like to make one other point related to that area. I don't want to belabour the point about less than 15 hours, but I think you also have to consider that some of these people who are caught in the 15-hour trap are in fact working at multiple jobs, maybe two, sometimes three, and that will bring them up over the 35 hours. I think you should consider that factor as well.
My last point is this. I am a little concerned by some of what I would consider to be social activist groups - and I came out of that kind of movement myself - and their position on the family income supplement and, to a certain extent, using the employment insurance program to assist low-income families. I am surprised at the response that we shouldn't be using the employment insurance system that way, because I think in terms of those low-income families there certainly is an attachment to the workforce. They are not always great-paying jobs, I admit, but I think there is a lot of legitimacy in terms of using the system because of that attachment to the workforce.
In all honesty, the reality out there is that if the social activist groups come here and oppose tying in the system in this way to benefit low-income working families, I don't think we're going to win the fight in other arenas. I am suggesting to you - and I hope you can support us in that endeavour - that it is necessary to have the family income supplement in this bill rather than trying to exercise another fight elsewhere.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Is there any response to that comment?
Ms Atkin: No.
The Chairman: We'll go to the opposition, Mrs. Jennings.
Mrs. Jennings: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Wendy and Liz, I'd like to congratulate you both and welcome you here today. It's nice to have you with us.
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On the first page of your brief you say:
- the development of a non-profit, comprehensive, affordable child care system, which is
accessible to every Canadian family who wishes to use it.
- Are you suggesting, then, that we might end up with a two-tiered system here; in other words,
that those who can afford not to use it would be expected not to use it? And where might they
come into play if they are paying for their own choice of child care? Would you suggest they
might get a tax deduction or somehow work into it? Just how do you see this system? Is it a
two-tiered system that you think might develop?
Mrs. Jennings: By saying ``every Canadian family who wishes to use it'', are you assuming that everybody will use it as a child care system?
Ms Atkin: I think part of your question is whether we support the use of the tax system to enhance the option in families who choose not to use the non-profit system, to somehow provide their own child care. And our answer to that is that although we support the recent minor adjustments that came out of the federal budget in enhancing child care expense deductions, in general we oppose the use of the tax system as a way of providing funding for child care, because the reality is that most families require a double income in order to get by in today's society.
In general, we do favour choice in child care. We're not suggesting we should have a national child care program that people would be forced to use. We use the language ``wishes to use'' to reflect our vision as well that there be choice.
Mrs. Jennings: Following that line, then, indeed what about the cost? I think the projections are that we may be $968 billion in debt by the year 2000, and if we look at that, should be be adding more cost to the taxpayer? In running any new program there will be some cost. Do you not see it as a cost to us, and would it not be burdensome at this time for the taxpayer?
Ms Tyrwhitt: I think when you're looking at expenditures for children, particularly for early childhood education that includes a child development component, you're looking at costs that are well worth the investment since you will have healthier children, better adapted children. If one in four or one in five children between 1 and 6 years old are living in poverty.... If those children in that group are well looked after, those are children who won't be at risk when they're 7, 8, 9, 13, 14 years old. So we're looking at it as an investment in children, as a positive step for Canada's children.
Mrs. Jennings: So you're saying this program is well worth it because of the children, and the additional cost should be borne by the taxpayers.
Ms Atkin: I know we keep adding supplementary answers here, but I have a study that I could certainly make available to you, an American study, which shows that for every dollar that is spent on services such as quality child care programming in the pre-school years, $7 is saved farther down the road in terms of the need for health costs, special education and correctional services. And in terms of the costs to the taxpayer, if we have this large surplus in the unemployment insurance system, perhaps we could spend it on a national child care program.
Mrs. Jennings: Wendy, do you think you could get that report? I would be interested in reading it.
Ms Atkin: I certainly will. I'll make a note of that.
Mrs. Jennings: Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mrs. Lalonde.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde (Mercier): Good afternoon. I would like to apologize. I had something urgent and unexpected to take care of.
I congratulate you on your brief. I am happy to note that you don't consider the unemployment insurance reform as the proper tool for dealing with child poverty. So you are proposing to add that money to the child tax credit? Is that correct?
.1605
[English]
Ms Atkin: Yes.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: In that case, it would be for everyone, would it not?
[English]
Ms Atkin: That's correct. We feel there would be more equalization in the distribution of these benefits if they were streamlined through the child tax benefit system rather than through the unemployment insurance system.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: I note in passing that you have identified the problem of the link between eligibility and maternity leave. I am sure that you noticed that in its reform, the government will deprive the fund of $900 million by decreasing the maximum insurable income from $42,400 to $39,000. I would like you to address that.
We could say for example that women who work between 15 and 34 hours will be penalized, as you pointed out, especially with respect to maternity leave. Do you not find this completely unacceptable and that we cannot talk about social equity, as the Minister is?
[English]
Ms Atkin: I think you've raised an excellent point. There is one thing that concerns us greatly about having a ceiling on premiums beyond the $39,000 mark. It certainly discourages any attempts to restructure the labour market around allowing more flex time, more job sharing, and other options that will enable families to make better choices about who works and when. I can't remember the exact phrase used in the bill, but it appears that the overtime worker is rewarded rather than the worker who attempts to balance a reasonable number of hours of work per week with other responsibilities.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: Some benefits will be significantly decreased for women who want to have a child. It says that women who work less than 15 hours a week will now have access to the system. You must bear in mind that they will only have access once they have worked 910 hours in a year, that is in the following year. For someone working less than 15 hours a week, it is impossible to work 910 hours a year. So this will considerably change the way in which modest income couples plan their children.
[English]
Ms Atkin: I agree with your comments entirely. Thank you.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: As for child care services, you are aware that in Quebec, we want to have a Quebec child care plan. You do, I think, accept Quebec's having its own plan, but you want a uniform plan for the rest of Canada. How would this uniform child care plan be set up?
[English]
Ms Atkin: I'm speaking only for the rest of Canada. What we hope to see is the development of some national standards similar to those that prevailed in the early period of the Canada assistance program. We would be very disappointed to see the Canada health and social transfer be introduced without any kind of national standards for the spending of child care dollars.
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[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: But do you not understand that the provinces, especially the poorest ones, have problems with sharing costs? Historically, the richest provinces have benefitted the most from these cost-shared projects.
So as part of the Canadian Health and Social Transfer, you expect there to be negotiations to set standards for child care services?
[English]
Mr. Atkin: One thing I find interesting is that there are other areas where the federal government and the provinces have been able to agree on certain things. I think the Environmental Protection Service - I hope I have the name right - is one area where there has been a consensus that this is a necessary organ for dealing with a pressing problem, and a tremendous amount of cooperation has ensued. So it seems that if the issue is seen as important enough, if quality child care is seen as important enough, almost anything is possible.
As for the issue of equalization, we already have in place, as I understand it, many means of equalizing transfers among provinces, reflecting different rates of economic growth. It doesn't seem to me that it would be complicated to equalize child care funding as well.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: Could you elaborate on the reasons why you prefer child care services to be accessible to all families that need them instead of being mainly provided to families who are working?
[English]
Ms Atkin: People need child care for quite a variety of reasons. Often in the later years - the pre-school years - people choose child care that will provide an enriching social and educational environment. Also, people are often struck with illness, or the care of ill relatives, and need care for pre-school-aged children. Sometimes parents are returning to school and their child care needs are usually very different in terms of both scheduling and funding.
Our organization has been lobbying since 1983 for a system that would incorporate quite a variety of approaches to child care. There would certainly be room for each province and each locality to spend funds according to the needs of their community, and there would even be national standards similar to those we see in health care.
The Chairman: Thank you, Madame Lalonde.
Mr. Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, may I ask for a clarification?
In answer to a question from Madame Lalonde, Ms Atkin said she was answering for the rest of Canada. The first paragraph of the brief says that the Child Care Advocacy Association represents all regions of Canada. I just want that clarified.
Do you have any members in Quebec, or none at all?
Ms Atkin: We do have members in Quebec. When I said I was speaking for the rest of Canada, I meant I was speaking to the subject of child care services for the rest of Canada as opposed to child care services in Quebec.
Mr. Allmand: But you do have members in Quebec.
Ms Atkin: We do have members in Quebec, yes.
Mr. Allmand: That's it.
The Chairman: Thank you for clarifying that Quebec is in Canada, Mr. Allmand.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: You wanted me to ask a question; that's why I asked it.
[English]
The Chairman: We're going to have time for another five-minute round. Madame Lalonde.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: I would like you to expand on the national child care plan. Do you still want negotiations with each of the provinces?
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[English]
Ms Atkin: Yes.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: On what basis?
[English]
Ms Atkin: I feel I'm skating on thin ice if I venture to say too much on the subject, having leaped into this position recently.
What I would like to do is this. We have a wealth of material on the standards we'd like to see in a national program. In the interests of the committee's time, and in the interests of my being afraid of thin ice, I would really prefer to forward you some information, if that's okay. We would actually like to meet with you, if you like, and talk more about that in detail.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: Do you agree with the cuts to benefits set out in Bill C-12? Do you think that it is a reasonable way for the government to act in the area of social programs at present?
[English]
Ms Atkin: A short answer would be no. We are familiar with some of the responses from the labour movement to this bill. Because of some of the cuts in previous years the system has a surplus, and we concur that's it's inconceivable at this time that there are cuts being made to benefits and eligibility.
The Chairman: Thank you, Madame Lalonde.
Ms Jennings.
Mrs. Jennings: Thank you.
First of all, Wendy, with regard to this national standard you would like to see established throughout, who exactly do you see as setting this standard, when we are talking about the provinces and the federal government? Just what part will educators play in setting these standards? How do you foresee that?
Ms Atkin: That's interesting, because some of our partner organizations, our associations of early childhood educators - who are quite well organized across the country - now have common standards on curricula. They have many interesting contributions to make to this discussion of what national standards would be appropriate in child care. Given that the federal government has been spending money on child care since 1966, it seems appropriate that more attention be paid at the federal level to developing common areas of concern with the provinces.
Ms Tyrwhitt: I'd just like to add something. A few weeks ago our association had a public meeting here with Peter Moss, who has worked in the child care network in the European Union. In some jurisdictions, the education sector does take responsibility for the care of children down to, say, the age of 3, and below age 3 the care is seen as a social responsibility or a social welfare cost.
So different jurisdictions have really done some thinking about what sector is responsible for what and what ages the children will be in which sector. There has been a commitment, and some thinking has been done about who is responsible for children under the age of 3 and after the age of 3.
It was very exciting to hear Mr. Moss speak about the developments that have been taking place in Europe for many, many years. If you like, I could try to get a copy of his speech. In Europe they have advanced so much farther than we have here. You can see that they've thought about jurisdictions and about who is responsible for children under the age of 5 or 6. It's really heartening to see that jurisdictions have taken that kind of responsibility and thought.
Mrs. Jennings: Are you aware that a child who is away from the parents for 20 hours can be manipulated or trained in a way that may or may not be positive for the child? We have to be very, very careful about who will be in the position of being with the child.
Ms Tyrwhitt: I am quite familiar. As a parent, I've been involved in parent resource centres, day care centres and pre-school nurseries. So I've heard very many different kinds of arguments. We know that high-quality day care is a really positive advantage in a child's life. There is research now that shows that. And I think many, many parents just don't have a choice. As much as we wish some people could have a choice, they don't. It's incumbent on us as a nation to develop a high-quality child care program, because quality does matter. The education of child care staff matters, their training matters, the way the programs are run matters, and that's why we need public investment in child care programs.
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Mrs. Jennings: Thank you. I only hope you will continue to see it as mainly an educational -
Ms Tyrwhitt: I think it's interesting, when you look at other jurisdictions, that they have seen it as that and they have taken the thought to say, yes, this is an educational responsibility. Then it's universal, so it does cover the school system. We can get you that material.
Mrs. Jennings: Thank you. I appreciate that.
The Chairman: Thank you, Ms Jennings. Now we'll move to Mr. Scott.
Mr. Scott (Fredericton - York - Sunbury): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to touch on a couple of things.
First of all, I'd like to speak to the question of eligibility. I would guess - and most of the statistics suggest - that in fact unemployment insurance is going to be much more accessible. Earlier you said you didn't understand why, at this time of surplus, eligibility would become more difficult. All the information we have shows that in fact it will become much less difficult, particularly where you have seasonal industries - and I come from Atlantic Canada - because the opportunity to value hours rather than weeks works very much in favour of allowing people access to the system, and that applies to both genders.
Furthermore, all the people who were faced with the artificial ceiling of 14 or 15 hours a week, which allowed their employers not to pay benefits and therefore kept them out of the system, are now allowed in.
In your introduction you talk about the fact that it has become a program of income supplementation and regional income distribution and those kinds of things, which I'm reasonably familiar with. I took from that that you see unemployment insurance as a program that was designed to provide income when someone loses their job - not an annual thing, as we've come to know it.
If it is seen as an annual thing, then the conversion to hours is good. If it is not seen as an annual thing, if it's something that happens only when you become unemployed after a period of work, then the 910 hours is not as big a problem as it's been made out to be, because 910 hours over a couple of years, if that's the way you view the system, is very achievable even at low hourly periods of work.
So either it's something that happens every year - in which case the 910 hours is tops, but you have to recognize that in that world hours over weeks is a huge benefit - or it's something that happens when you lose your job after a couple of years of employment, in which case 910 hours is not such a problem. You have a whole lot of people right now who are working between 0 and 15 hours who are not in the system at all, who have no access to any of these programs, period. I think it's very important to recognize that.
The other issue I'd like to bring forward - and I encourage your active participation in this discussion - is that this system is going to be monitored. I've long felt that we have had, at the 15-hour-a-week place, an artificial restriction on growth and jobs. Since we have a two-year monitoring provision in the bill, we'll be able to see to what extent that's true. And people who are now held back to 14 hours a week will be allowed to grow into something more than that.
Ms Tyrwhitt: I'd like to throw this question to you: how do you see this program helping women who are being encouraged to be self-employed? In the social security review there was mention that it's time to try out new ways of offering assistance to people who are working, because the workforce is changing so rapidly. I guess what we're looking for in the bill is some way of experimenting. People are working; some are working part-time, some are going the self-employment route. How is this bill going to address the new ways that people are working? Our concern is that perhaps the bill won't be flexible enough to meet the new needs of the labour force.
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Mr. Scott: I would concur that the bill should be more flexible. But you will have to acknowledge that this is a lot more flexible than it was before. So essentially what we're doing is moving in what I consider to be the right direction. It is much more flexible. Many more people will get in. Hours over weeks is a lot more flexible.
I can appreciate that, as was suggested last week, perhaps we should have an annual limit on overtime. I've long been an advocate of that. But at that point you're not talking about eligibility for UI any more, when you're putting an annual limit on it. I'd be terrified of a weekly limit, because in seasonal industries a weekly limit limits how much you can make in a very short period.
I would appreciate your continuing to monitor what happens with that fifteen-hour level as we've freed it up. Those people will not be encouraged to be limited to fourteen hours a week so that their employers don't have to pay benefits.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Scott.
As the chair, I may just spend a minute or two to thank you, because we do count on Canadians to give us sound advice on ways to improve this bill. But I was struck by the comment you made about how this bill reflects the new nature of work, the new structure of the economy, and how people would be helped. I was just wondering if in fact the recognition of part-time workers, the recognition of multiple job holders who are not covered in the present employment insurance program, is viewed by you as an improvement to the present system.
Ms Atkin: I would say clearly, especially with members' comments today, that we can see including especially women who work under fifteen hours a week, enhancing the flexibility for seasonal workers, is certainly a good thing. Having said that, I think the bill needs to be more nuanced, especially about women and part-time workers above fifteen hours a week. I still think they will be discriminated against in having to work more weeks in order to qualify, in order to accumulate the number of hours required. The issue of maternity benefits is another one I think needs to be re-examined.
The Chairman: This committee has duly noted your comments and of course we'll be looking at those issues.
On the issue of self-employment, I don't know if you've reviewed the part of this bill we call ``re-employment measures'', which deals with self-employment assistance. Over the past couple of years this program has encouraged 34,000 people to participate in the program, people who in turn have created an extra job, which means 68,000 jobs have been created in this particular program. Given that you have great insight into the way the workplace has changed and the economy has changed, I was wondering whether you would want this committee to encourage an expansion of the self-employment assistance program.
Ms Atkin: At the moment I would like to decline to answer that, although it's a very interesting question.
The Chairman: Is it because the job creation numbers are not high enough?
Ms Atkin: No, I think it's more a reluctance to discuss an aspect of the bill that doesn't really impact us directly on our policy.
The Chairman: If I may, I will tell you that women have done very, very well on the self-employment assistance. As a matter of fact, they have done better than men in retaining their businesses.
That wraps up my comments for today. The committee certainly would like to express our warmest and sincerest gratitude for your excellent presentation. We look forward to working with you in the coming weeks to improve the bill. Thank you.
We're going to pause for a couple of minutes. Then we'll be joined by Mr. David Pollock, executive director of the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work.
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The Chairman: Ladies and gentlemen, this afternoon we have the pleasure of hearing from Mr. David Pollock from the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work.
Welcome. We certainly look forward to your comments. I'm sure you're going to have many ideas on how to improve Bill C-12, and we will duly note those ideas and perhaps expand on them so that we can in fact improve this piece of legislation.
As you may have gathered, we have one hour, which is broken up into basically two sections, your presentation followed by a question and answer session. Your statement will dictate how many minutes we will have to ask you questions.
Do you have a brief?
Mr. David Pollock (Executive Director, Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to start by just a word of explanation. I do not have a brief with me at this moment.
I wouldn't normally start with a complaint, but I hope this is not symbolic of the degree of thought that has gone into the new measures for the disabled community across Canada. I got a call on Friday to my office, and then the call was transferred to St. John's, Newfoundland. I haven't been back to my office since receiving the invitation. I was not able to get a copy of Bill C-12, although at 11:30 p.m, from a non-governmental organization in St. John's, I was able to get a copy of Bill C-111, which presumably is very close to Bill C-12, along with some historical documents and some interpretive documents.
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But in fact, the quality of comment I would have liked to bring - I would have liked to have access to some figures and comparative research we have in relation to European programs and so on. It seems to me that if we want to hear from Canadians in a meaningful way, we really should try to plan things out so that we have more than 24 hours' notice.
I would like to bring some supplementary material before the committee by mail or to table it in a subsequent moment, but I simply wasn't able to prepare in the depth I would have liked to. As I say, I am concerned that there may not have been sufficient reflection on the concerns of the disabled community across Canada in terms of the changes that are now being proposed.
This is just to explain why there's no brief today. But I would like to send you something in writing in more detail.
The Chairman: We thank you very much for your comments. As you know, members of many communities and organizations were aware that in fact the bill was reintroduced as it was left months ago. We are assuming - and the clerk should make sure - that people understand that.
I will look into your situation personally and report to you. More importantly, I'm also quite eager to hear what you have to say about ways to improve that piece of legislation, which I'm sure you reviewed the last time it was introduced in the House.
Mr. Pollock: I'm certainly willing to do my best with the amount of preparation time I've had, Mr. Chairman.
I do have another kind of contextual remark. I was listening to a comment by the secretary of state responsible for women's concerns in Canada. She indicated to an audience that part of her mandate and responsibility is to put all proposed legislation through the filter of how it will affect women in Canada. She said that contributed to moving from the weekly arrangements to the hourly arrangements and that many more women would benefit. Just a few moments ago we heard that dialogue.
The question I think needs to be asked is who in Canada takes on that same responsibility for the 15% of Canadians who face one form or other of disability at some point in their lifetime? At the moment my concern is that no one really has a focused responsibility in that area. When you look at the size and scope and extent of the whole human resources department, it's vast in terms of its concerns. People may want to rethink the issue of whether this 15% segment of some of the most vulnerable members of our society deserve to have a secretary of state responsible for disability issues, so that legislative proposals can go through that screen. Then the same kind of wisdom or advice that was brought to bear on this bill in relation to women's concerns and moving toward the hourly arrangement could be made with regard to the disabled community.
I say again that's a contextual remark on who's minding the shop and attending to these issues.
I have a concern to raise more than a sharp proposal, because I'm not sure what to propose in terms of the kind of cost savings every legislator is trying to bring to bear on different policy issues. I, for one, think it's important to consider the relative relationship between our debt loads and our gross domestic product and the growth of the gross domestic product, and how that compares to various European societies.
I am somewhat troubled, along with many commentators, that we may have too quickly adopted models imported from the United States as we move toward a number of changes in social legislation and social programs. I think Canada is well down on the list in terms of the percentage of gross domestic product that's being put into social programs and also in terms of gross domestic product and debt, as far as I know. But I didn't have access to a research file, and I want to double-check before I put that information before you.
What I wanted to share was the question of whether there could be an exemption in this program and in the bill as it now stands. Perhaps it could draw down a little bit from the $5 billion surplus that exists now, although I would be the first to support some form of reserve fund being established for future downturns in the economy. I, for one, would not want to see all that used up in other ways.
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This is referring to the December 1 press release about the new bill, when Minister Axworthy was still in the department. On page 5, under the employment benefits sections, it says:
- Some people need more direct assistance preparing for and finding a new job. Those who have
received regular insurance benefits over the past three years, or paternal/maternity benefits in
the past five years, could be eligible for supplementary assistance, in the form of
re-employment benefits.
The vaguest part of this bill - and I understand why, because it requires negotiations with communities and provinces - I think is on the employment benefits side of it.
I think it's the case that there have been so many changes in medical practice and breakthroughs in appliances and accommodations that increasingly we're finding people 45 years of age in Canada who have now been able to have an operation of some kind or other, who are on the public dole in one form or another, not self-reliant, who would like to return to the workforce and who have had no attachment over the last three years and perhaps not even over the last five years. But I think one could pick an age, 45 or 39 or some other particular age, for the members of the disabled community who would now have circumstances wherein they would like an opportunity to move into the workforce. If we're concerned about our weaker members, then they really must have access to try to get that sort of training, to try to get those kinds of benefits.
So what I'm suggesting you consider is some means to ensure that either incentives for the provinces or special funding will be set aside to allow for an exemption for members of the disabled community who may not have had this normal attachment to the workforce to be given that opportunity to have it. Exactly how you would structure that I would leave to the people who are working with the sharp pencils and pens, but it certainly is a very central concern.
Along with that, for example, in programs that we operate.... We're not in the business of proposing these, but we've been doing them for some years already and we have a number of programs in place that have been working very well. I'm personally concerned that the way the new benefits may work, and the new negotiations that haven't yet spelled out how that training will be made available, may make some programs very difficult.
For example, in the past a person who needed some accommodation had a draw of up to $10,000 that they could use to enable them to have the accommodation they needed to move into an employment situation. So a question I would ask is, will someone ensure that there will still be that kind of $10,000 accommodation, which often makes the difference between whether someone with a disability can or cannot participate in a meaningful employment situation?
The second concern I have - and this runs counter to the movement towards further decentralization and devolving of decision-making - is that, for example, on our board, while it's made up of both larger and smaller participants, we will have companies such as Imperial Oil or the Royal Bank of Canada, large Canadian enterprises. We have a program, called a skills training partnership program, where we've had some federal funding in the past, and we go to, say, the hospitality industry in Toronto, hotels, and we say, ``If we find 70 individuals who have disabilities, and you screen them, and you're involved as employers in the beginning, and you select 15 or 20 and then we contract with George Brown College to train these individuals, and they're successful, then will you guarantee them full-time, permanent jobs at the other end?''
We've been very successful in developing this kind of program, and it really has gone strongly against the critique of training programs that don't lead to results and lead to jobs. What we've been able to do by bringing the employer in on the ground floor is that they have agreed in advance, and they have been involved in the selection process in advance. The problem is that it is very difficult for small entities such as ours, which don't have a regional presence all across the country or the time and energy it takes for a company to negotiate 10, 15, 20, 25 of these separate agreements. It takes a certain amount of trust-building and dialogue to build these relationships before you put those partnerships together.
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We need some mechanism, and I think the federal government here, with the benefits, could provide a special mechanism such that if there were these programs that were going to involve a national company that was going to participate in more than one location across the country, or a national non-profit, charitable organization such as ours that was going to act as a go-between, or facilitate.... We simply don't have the resources, and the companies often indicate they don't have the time, to put together twelve or fifteen of those agreements, so we need a mechanism that streamlines and creates a kind of one-stop shopping for the development of these sorts of partnership programs.
That's another area I would commend to you to consider as you go about this devolution - that certain things don't fall into the cracks, programs that are really working now and that have been quite successful in their track record.
I believe one of the places we will find a kind of funding for training in the future - and it exists in the current budget - will be in youth programs. That's certainly available. Again, I would like you to look at the standard definition of youth and consider some expansion of the definition in terms of the age limits for people who have disabilities. I know individual administrators....
I was talking to one of the human resources people in the Province of Ontario just last week. He indicated he might be prepared to accept up to age 39, for example, if a person has a disability, as still qualifying for a youth program.
Some of us who are getting older might like to see that being moved up a little higher.
That's another mechanism. Depending on the amount of resources you have available, it could go all the way up to age 45 in a meaningful way for people with disabilities, simply, as I indicate, because of some of the medical changes and the possibilities for people who have that requirement.
One other area I'd like to touch on is tangential to this bill but may have some significance. It's the question of the incentives you can build in to help these new partnerships develop when it comes to the employment benefits you're speaking about.
I've lost that thought for a moment. I'll return to it if I can find it.
One other piece I would like to mention at one level may seem quite self-serving, because it's a project we're involved in. On the other hand, we're contracted with the federal government because they think this is a very helpful project. It's a project called the wide-area employment network, which we're now expanding in a pilot fashion in four centres across Canada. It solves one of the long-term difficulties of people with disabilities finding employers who want them, and it solves the problem of employers who want to give a chance to people with disabilities and also, frankly, want to have the best pool of skills to draw on.
This wide-area employment network project that we're involved in currently, in partnership with the federal government, has some software that creates a resumé-writing system. McGill Multimedia is our partner in this. On the other side of it you have a specific database for people with resumés. Employers have a piece of software they can call up. So if you want to find a schoolteacher in Brampton to teach music and French, you can simply call it up. If you find only five candidates, you can go Ontario-wide and eventually, we hope, Canada-wide.
Rather than a small agency such as ours trying to negotiate with whomever we happen to know in Canada Employment Centres across the country, I think it would be a very helpful device, and a real promotion, for that part of the potential workforce, the 15% of Canadians with disabilities, if most of the Canada Employment Centres, and certainly the larger ones across Canada, were invited to establish that kind of database in their centre, because it's a technological service that is not costly, once it's up and running, and it simply creates greater access for that part of the constituency.
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I'm starting to make the final point. Then we can open it up for dialogue that could be far-ranging. It's the question of incentives in employment benefits.
Recently the federal government undertook a pilot project with four different departments. It had to do with case management of disability, a kind of early return to work, and the millions of dollars that can be saved in the Canada Pension Plan or the Workers' Compensation Board or by employers generally, and salvaging dignity and meaningful work for workers who are injured.
If there were some possibility of incentives for companies developing case management disability.... We have all kinds of data from the States, and we're gradually getting data from Canada now, about the fact that if a worker is injured and he's involved in a program for the first two months he's injured, there's a pretty good chance of his getting back to work. If he's not involved for six months, it's highly unlikely the worker ever gets back into the workforce. Those incentives do tie in with the people who either will or will not have to be on either the insurance side or the employment benefits.
That kind of incentive system to entice employers to start building that in requires planning and training long before accidents occur, so right away everyone knows what to put into place and into motion. With the pilot program the federal government was doing, the human resources department indicated something like a ten-to-one saving. If you put $100,000 into one of these programs, you can expect to save $1 million coming back out of it. So we're talking about very major potential savings to society. It's one of the kinds of incentives, as we move into these community-provincial-federal partnerships on the training side, that I would like to commend to you.
If I can helpful in answering questions, I'd be pleased to do so.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Mr. McCormick.
Mr. McCormick (Hastings - Frontenac - Lennox and Addington): Thank you very much for being here today, David. I'm sorry your particular request to appear here got off to a difficult start.
Certainly this is a matter that does interest us sincerely: concern for 15% of the population. I'm thinking about a year ago, or a year plus, when we had the SSR review. We had hundreds of witnesses and listened to them across the country and here in Ottawa. Many individuals with disabilities and groups representing these people appeared at that time. I think this legislation actually does address some of the requests and some of the demands we heard.
I don't know where the following comment of mine fits into this legislation, but one amazing thing we heard from many people, from this 15%, was that they didn't always need more money. They needed to have more responsibility and more choice in their programs.
I understand the pilot project you have now is in four cities. I'm going to be very interested in hearing more about that. But accessibility to the workplace was something we kept hearing about from many of the witnesses last year. This legislation, especially the wage subsidy, should help with this in particular. I wonder whether you agree with that.
But I want to congratulate you also on the skills training partnership you have with these major corporations.
Then you talked about this incentive program from the United States.
With each of these there's some overlap with the pilot projects you're doing now. I believe the pilot projects have been funded in part by HRDC, and I'm sure no one is going to close the door on you. We're looking forward to getting your reports and to people like you putting this together. I just wonder whether you agree with the wage subsidies and the fact that there are a lot of good points in this legislation that can help people with disabilities.
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Mr. Pollock: When you have limited time, you tend to focus on the gaps and what's missing in potential legislation, rather than spending the time in commenting on what looks highly attractive or useful. So it seems to me that the distinction I was making or the plea for a particular exemption for a very vulnerable group had to do with this question of the degree of attachment and the timeframe of attachment to the labour force.
We have someone in our office now who I know could not perform at 100% efficiency for two or three months. Therefore it was very helpful, when there was a wage subsidy, that we were able to access it in order to help that person get up to speed. I think other employers would also look at that as a real benefit in order to get over perhaps a difficult period.
So anything in the form of wage subsidies for those who have already been attached to the labour force is very helpful. Certainly I commend the legislation for that.
But my concern is that a much higher percentage of Canadians with disabilities haven't yet been attached to the workforce. My understanding is that enough changes are going on, medically as well as with computer technology, as well as with people being prepared to work out of their home, the whole development of home-based industries, where a person may not have been inspired to go out and be attached to the labour force when they had to leave their home, but if they can now stay at home.... So we have these three things coming together: medical changes in people's ability to move around, computer technology, and industry moving into more home-based businesses. We suddenly have a new grouping of people, many of whom may have a fair amount of training but may need more training in order to get prepared to take something on.
Let's not exclude them, because it's a public cost regardless of whether it's at the federal, municipal, or provincial level.
That's why I was focusing on that part of it. But to answer your question, what's in there is positive as far as it goes.
Mr. McCormick: Certainly there is a great need to make exceptions from the regular legislation, perhaps even in the self-employment programs that are being offered. If this could be extended to a group of people rather than just to individuals, and with a different attachment to the workforce, I look forward to hearing some of your suggestions on that when you will send your reports in.
Mr. Allmand: Mr. Pollock, since you weren't able to get a brief in to us, I think it's extremely important that you get a written brief on behalf of the very important community you represent. You should check with the clerk to see that it will get in before it's too late.
I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for the disabled in the last session. In reference to your comment at the beginning in which you asked whether this bill had been screened to see how it will impact on the disabled, in that committee we made a unanimous recommendation that all legislation be screened to determine its impact on disabled people. We haven't had a response from the government yet, but I think you're correct: I don't think this bill has been examined with respect to its impact on the disabled.
I want to ask you some questions. If you don't have the information today, perhaps you could get it for us. It relates to the points you're making.
You say that 15% of the Canadian population are disabled. Could you tell us what percentage of that 15% are unemployed?
Mr. Pollock: What I'd say today for the record is that it's roughly double the unemployment level in the rest of the population. However, I would like to get you some further, more detailed data that we have available on that.
Mr. Allmand: Under the current unemployment insurance legislation, with the 15-hours-per-week rule and all that, what percentage of the disabled community work enough to qualify for unemployment insurance?
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Mr. Pollock: You're formulating some good questions for me to put into my brief.
When it comes to statistics and data like that, rather than shoot from the hip...I don't want to put on the record something that's.... But I'll get that information for you as soon as it's available.
Mr. Allmand: I'm going to list some questions I'd like to have the answer to in evaluating this legislation as it would impact on disabled people.
My next question would be this. Once we know what percentage qualify for UI at present, I'd like to know how the 15% earn their income; in other words, what percentage earn their income from UI, what percentage earn their income from social welfare, what percentage earn their income from work or other types of investments, profits from business, and so on. Also, I'd like to know what percentage, under the present system, are in government training programs.
Having known how that operates under the present law, I'd like to have your assessment of how it will be under the new legislation. Will it be more difficult to qualify for UI or less difficult? Will more people be in training or fewer? Will more people be on welfare or fewer?
If you don't have those answers.... I appreciate you may not have them today, but if we're going to answer the very first question you put to us, how does this impact on the 15% of Canadians who are disabled, we have to know some of those statistics.
Mr. Pollock: I will do the best I can in providing specific written answers to those questions, but I would comment on the one area without a precise percentage amount.
In everything I have seen about amounts that were available in the past for federally sponsored training for people with disabilities and what will be available this year, there's a substantial decline in what is available. My understanding is that in the past there's been access to the consolidated revenue fund for some of that training. That has increasingly been on the decrease. Even for organizations that are in the business of supporting people with disabilities to get into the employment field, what the department has proposed for any kind of core grants is that those would decline from 100% of last year's to 90% to 70% to 50% to zero over a four-year period. That may have been signed off now, but it's certainly a proposal and gives one indication of the changes.
I need to do some homework on this and pull it out for you in detail. I'll do that in as short order as I can. I would need to check with the clerk to know what your actual deadline would be.
Mr. Allmand: That's good.
By the way, the committee on the disabled also recommended that a guaranteed percentage of the funds for training be set aside for the disabled community. As I say, we're still waiting for a response to the report. I would hope in the brief you send us, in your analysis of how things will change under the new legislation, under the hours versus the weeks, etc., you will try to analyse.... If we keep spending less and less on training the disabled and providing opportunities for work for them, I suppose it means they'll just be on welfare for the rest of their lives, whereas they could be earning money and paying taxes.
Mr. Pollock: Absolutely.
The other point about this is that I would want to argue that we want to have some standards across the country that won't be up for grabs according to the whims of individual provincial governments, where you have to enter into a successful negotiation at each stage, so you could end up having a fairly unbalanced program where a group of people with disabilities in one part of the country are quite severely discriminated against and in the other part there are entirely separate standards. The question of not losing sight of national standards when it comes to some of these basic issues that really affect vulnerable members of society is a really important question in all of this.
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The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Allmand. Madame Lalonde is next.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: Good afternoon, Mr. Pollock. I would like to start by telling you that Bill C-12 is identical to Bill C-111. Otherwise, under the Standing Orders, the government could not have brought it back to committee in the same state it was in prior to the House's proroguing. It would have had to start the procedure over from scratch. So nothing is changed.
I would also like to say that you're right in asking that the government appoint someone who would be responsible for examining bills and screening them according to the needs of people with disabilities. However, I would wish this person better luck than the Secretary of State for the status of women who either did not examine the bill, or was not listened to.
Thirdly, the Human Resources Investment Fund will, in the end, only contain $200 million in new money. The documents obtained from senior officials clearly indicate that the unemployment insurance fund will contribute more, that is $800 million more, but in reality, there will only be $200 million in new money.
It is important to realize that, because you would like to see a lot more money for people with disabilities, and I understand that. But there is no guarantee in the announcements that were made.
I am completing the questions that you asked, but there may not be an answer to that. Do you believe that this bill will be advantageous or disadvantageous for people with disabilities?
[English]
Mr. Pollock: You've heard me raise the issue of those who would be left out of the bill. Unless there are some exemptions built in to improve their protection or, as Mr. Allmand says, unless some of the recommendations of the other committee on the status of disabled persons are included that set aside some specific amounts, then I think we're really doing a disservice to that community of persons.
Clearly, though, there is also a number of Canadians with disabilities who are in the workforce presently. Sometimes they are afraid to go back into the workforce because they're afraid their employer will eliminate them on the grounds of job rationalization, even though it may be because they think they're not quite as efficient as someone else. So they are often afraid to go back in. To the extent that this bill is allowing for fewer weeks, for example, and for a lower percentage of the workforce than ever before to qualify, then the disabled are affected negatively by it.
But there are a number of measures in this bill that I really do think are improvements over the previous system in terms of to whom it makes the insurance available. I think the hourly change is a very desirable change, and I would support that.
Mrs. Lalonde: In what sense?
Mr. Pollock: I simply think it includes a fairly significant number of persons who otherwise would be excluded by the present criteria. That's my understanding of it.
Mrs. Lalonde: You should explain that to me, because those who work less than 15 hours won't be eligible unless they work 62 weeks. If they work 14 hours, then they have to work 62 weeks. This means that they have to have a steady job.
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My understanding is that for some disabled persons the steady jobs are possible when you and the people with whom you work negotiate with companies and all of that, but that a lot of people have problems in getting to a steady job. If it is so, and they work a short work, then the problem will be a very big one.
The other point is that when the persons who actually work more than 15 hours, or around that, become employed, they have more weeks than they will be able to get, because if they work only 15 or 16 weeks, they will have to work double what they are working now in order to get the same benefits. So I don't know where the gain is.
For those who work on a stable basis it is a very traditional bill, because it is good for those who have a steady job and a good boss and who work a lot of overtime.
Mr. Pollock: I don't feel able to come down in an authoritative position on this, because it is going to depend on which category you fall into overall.
A number of people in the disabled community, for example, have steady jobs, quite predictable jobs, but can put in only a certain number of hours each week. There may be some advantage for the people for whom the jobs are steady and predictable and the hours are not as much as full time; but as you say quite rightly, for the person facing a situation.... I've just come from Newfoundland, so I could refer to that situation. Where getting the number of hours that would add up to eligibility and where the jobs are vulnerable, it may be more difficult. I agree.
Mrs. Lalonde: It is not better if they have to double the time they work in order to get the same benefits.
Mr. Pollock: I'm simply saying that I think it's an analysis of where people fit into the different categories.
Mrs. Lalonde: We'll need to talk.
The Chairman: And listen.
Mr. Pollock, do you have any further comments?
Mr. Pollock: Not in response to that question.
You can approach it from various perspectives. If you want to be critical or you want to be supportive, it depends on which situation and which category. You'd have to do a broad statistical analysis of the overall workforce in order really to know what the overall advantage or disadvantage is. I'm not in a position to do that.
[Translation]
Mrs. Lalonde: If the objective is to cut $1.9 billion per year, there might well be more people who are worse off than better off.
[English]
Mr. Allmand: Mr. Chairman, that's why I asked my original questions. When they send the brief to us, would they make an analysis of legislation to answer that question, considering what all of us have said?
The other important question is how the employment equity legislation interrelates to this, because as far as employment equity is concerned one of the target groups is the disabled community and it is supposed to give it a better chance at training and other things in the workforce.
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Mr. Pollock: If I look at the participants, the companies, which have had the closest ties with our organization for quite a long time now, it's changed over a twenty-year history. But it's undoubtedly true that at any given seminar or training event there's very strong support from those organizations that fall under the federal equity requirements, such as the financial institutions or transportation, for example, and those that fall under large federal contractors. When you find provinces begin to pull away from equity legislation, you also see a corresponding decline in the amount of support and interest and sense of urgency in being involved in various training programs and so on.
So without a shadow of doubt the federal equity is a very important aspect of the interests employers have shown over the years in training and improving the lot of those who have one form of disability or another. There's absolutely no question about that in my mind.
The Chairman: Seeing no further questions, I'd like to thank you, Mr. Pollock, for your presentation. I look forward, of course, to receiving an expanded version through a brief. The deadline for that is March 22. That's this Friday. If there's anything this committee can do to help you obtain copies of bills or what have you, kindly contact the clerk and we will do our very best to make sure we can facilitate the process that will result, I'm sure, in receiving a brief from you.
Mr. Pollock: Right. I might want to make use of some people at the parliamentary library.
The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned.