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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Finance

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Monday, October 27, 2003

1400

The Chair (Mrs. Sue Barnes (London West, Lib.))

Mrs. Diane Tannahill (President, Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia)

1405

1410

The Chair

Mr. Glen Bradford (Chair of the Board of Directors, British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society)

1415

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Davidson (Director of Simon Fraser University Child Care Society, British Columbia Child Care Advocacy Forum)

1420

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky (Facilitator, British Columbia Child Care Advocacy Forum)

1425

The Chair

Ms. Jess Hadley (Articled Student, British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre)

1430

1435

The Chair

Mr. Ernie Mothus (Board Member, Paramedic Association of Canada)

1440

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP)

1445

The Chair

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Davidson

The Chair

Mrs. Diane Tannahill

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

1450

The Chair

Mr. Glen Bradford

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.)

Mr. Ernie Mothus

1455

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Ernie Mothus

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Ernie Mothus

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Ernie Mothus

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Ernie Mothus

Mr. Roy Cullen

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Davidson

The Chair

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky

Mr. Roy Cullen

1500

Ms. Jess Hadley

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.)

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky

The Chair

Mr. Robin Loxton (Director of Advocacy Access, BC Coalition for People with Disabilities, British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre)

1505

The Chair

Mr. Glen Bradford

The Chair

Mr. Nick Discepola (Vaudreuil—Soulanges, Lib.)

1510

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Davidson

Mr. Nick Discepola

The Chair

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky

1515

The Chair

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Ms. Jess Hadley

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Ross Harvey (Executive Director, British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society)

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Ross Harvey

1520

The Chair

Mr. Robin Loxton

The Chair

Mr. Michael Conlon (National Researcher, Canadian Federation of Students)

1535

The Chair

Mr. Daniel Hill (President, Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia)

1540

Mr. Michael Goldberg (Research Director, Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia)

1545

Mr. Daniel Hill

The Chair

Mr. Robert Buchan (Executive Director, University Colleges of British Columbia Consortium)

1550

Mr. Skip Triplett (President of the Kwantlen University College, University Colleges of British Columbia Consortium)

Mr. Robert Buchan

1555

The Chair

Mr. Bob Wilds (Managing Director, Greater Vancouver Gateway Council)

1600

The Chair

Mr. James Boothroyd (Programme Head, Communications, National Centre, Canadian HIV Trials Network, Canadian Coalition of HIV/AIDS Stakeholder Organizations)

1605

1610

The Chair

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Michael Goldberg

1615

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mr. Michael Goldberg

The Chair

Mr. Nick Discepola

Mr. Bob Wilds

1620

Mr. Nick Discepola

Mr. Bob Wilds

Mr. Nick Discepola

Mr. Brad Eshleman (Vice-Chair and President of the B.C. Wharf Operators Association, Greater Vancouver Gateway Council)

Mr. Nick Discepola

Mr. Bob Wilds

Mr. Nick Discepola

The Chair

Ms. Sophia Leung

1625

Mr. Michael Conlon

The Chair

Mr. Michael Goldberg

1630

The Chair

Mr. Skip Triplett

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

1635

Mr. Nick Discepola

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Mr. Monte Solberg

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Mr. Michael Goldberg

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Mr. Michael Goldberg

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Mr. Michael Conlon

1640

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Nick Discepola)

Mr. James Boothroyd

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Nick Discepola)

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Skip Triplett

Mr. Roy Cullen

1645

Mr. Skip Triplett

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Bob Wilds

Mr. Brad Eshleman

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Bob Wilds

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Bob Wilds

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. Bob Wilds

Mr. Roy Cullen

1650

Mr. Bob Wilds

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen

The Chair

Mrs. Kat Kinch (Legal Researcher, PIVOT Legal Society)

1700

The Chair

Mr. Peter Robinson (Community Based Full Employment)

1705

1710

The Chair

Mr. Peter Robinson

The Chair

Mr. John Nightingale (President, Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre)

1715

1720

The Chair

Mrs. Christina Davidson (Member, Mosaic BC, BC CEDAW Group)

1725

The Chair

Ms. Shelagh Day (Director, Poverty and Human Rights Projects; Steering Committee Member, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action)

1730

1735

The Chair

Mr. Monte Solberg

Ms. Shelagh Day

Mr. Monte Solberg

Ms. Shelagh Day

1740

The Chair

Mr. Monte Solberg

The Chair

Mr. Monte Solberg

The Chair

Mrs. Kat Kinch

Mr. Monte Solberg

Mrs. Kat Kinch

The Chair

Mr. Michael Kreeft (Community Based Full Employment)

1745

The Chair

Ms. Shelagh Day

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen

1750

Mr. Michael Kreeft

The Chair

Mr. Roy Cullen

Mr. John Nightingale

Mr. Roy Cullen

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

The Chair

Mrs. Bev Meslo (Member, National Action Committee on the Status of Women – BC Regional Society, BC CEDAW Group)

1755

The Chair

Ms. Shelagh Day

1800

The Chair

Mr. Nick Discepola

The Chair

Ms. Shelagh Day

Mr. Nick Discepola

Ms. Shelagh Day

1805

The Chair

Mrs. Kat Kinch

The Chair

Mrs. Bev Meslo

The Chair

Mr. Monte Solberg

The Chair

CANADA

Standing Committee on Finance

NUMBER 087

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Monday, October 27, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¸ (1400)

[English]

The Chair (Mrs. Sue Barnes (London West, Lib.)): Pursuant to Standing Order 83(1), we will continue with our pre-budget consultations here in Vancouver.

We have a number of panels this afternoon, but our first panel is comprised of representatives of the Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia--Diane Tannahill, president, and Chelsea Miller, coordinator; the British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society--Glen Bradford, chair of the board of directors, and Ross Harvey, executive director; the British Columbia Child Care Advocacy Forum--Rita Chudnovsky, facilitator, and Sheila Davidson, director of the Simon Fraser University Child Care Society; and the British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre--Jess Hadley, and Robin Loxton, director of advocacy access, B.C. Coalition for People with Disabilities. Welcome to you all.

And do we have the Paramedic Association of Canada? Ernie Mothus, a board member, welcome to you.

So we have five different groups here. You get seven minutes to do whatever you would like with your time, as far as presentations go, and I'll try not to interrupt you.

Towards the end you'll see me wiggle my pen so you'll know that you should be wrapping up. We will hear from all of you before we start with our questioners.

Two other members will be joining us. They are delayed for a couple of minutes, but I want to get everything on time and on the record, so it's important that we start.

We'll go in the order of the agenda, starting with the Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia. Ms. Tannahill, go ahead.

Mrs. Diane Tannahill (President, Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia): Thank you.

First, I'd like to explain that the Early Childhood Educators of British Columbia is a professional association that represents child care practitioners. Our membership consists of licensed practitioners, as well as instructors and students in the field of early childhood education.

In our brief you will note that we have highlighted what we currently know about child care and some of the research. However, for the purposes of today, I'd like to speak directly to the recommendations we have put forward to the finance committee.

It's easier for me if I read out the recommendations, so bear with me, please.

The first recommendation we have to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance is committing sufficient federal funds to develop and sustain a child care system that meets the needs of all Canadian children or families, regardless of their ability, culture, and family income.

ECEBC wishes to thank the federal government for allowing an opportunity for us to bring our recommendations forward.

However, we fear that the first two instalments of the multilateral dollars fall short of what we predict is the need for child care in B.C. We encourage the federal government to rethink the rollout process for these federal dollars. It is our belief that we need more earlier on than we do later, for the series of dollars that are coming forward.

I'd also like to point out that according to the recommendations of the European Union, a commitment of 1% of the gross domestic product would be necessary to sustain a universal child care system. In Canada, this would amount to a $10 billion annual commitment for child care.

The second recommendation we have put forward in our brief is to strengthen the agreements between the provinces and territories that insist that federal funds are used to build and sustain a publicly funded child care system, which is affordable, accessible, of quality in nature, and meets the diversity in the families it serves in their communities.

For the purposes of this recommendation, I'd like to quote from the multilateral agreement. In the agreement, it states that the “objective of this initiative is to further promote early childhood development and support the participation of parents in employment or training”. The multilateral agreement outlines five principles for effective learning and care that the provinces and territories have to adhere to. ECEBC wishes to comment on what we see happening for these principles in this province.

For the principle around affordability, over a three-year period B.C. will continue to see approximately $50 million in cuts to child care in this province. The direct result of these cuts is that the programs are either increasing their fees--parent fees--for services, which does not address affordability, or we see centres having to make the decision to close their doors, which does not address accessibility for child care in this province. It is our belief that this is not an affordable option for the parents in this province.

For the principle around equality, we know that licensed, regulated child care is quality child care. We know that to maintain quality, staff who work in these programs need to be well-educated, trained, and have opportunities for further professional development. We also know that retention of staff plays an important role in the quality families receive.

However, early childhood educators do not receive appropriate remuneration based on their experience and education. Until this is addressed, child care programs will continue to face problems with retention of staff.

In B.C., in 1999, during the union negotiations, there was an agreement signed by those centres that were represented by the union called the Munroe Agreement. This agreement was an agreement that was to address staff wages and benefits in the unionized sector. It was the intention and belief of the people who signed the agreement that this was a benchmark to move forward the problem around wages and benefits for child care staff in the province.

Unfortunately, this agreement had an end date of March 31, 2003. The result of that end date is that child care staff who were under that agreement have rolled-back salaries and benefits.

Inclusivity is one of the five principles. In B.C., there continues to be a separation between child care and child development. ECEBC's position is that there should not be a separation between child development and child care. Recent research stresses that quality child care for young children is healthy for their development. In fact, it is our belief that child care is the cornerstone of child development.

¸ (1405)

We know in B.C. that the first instalment of the $3.3 million multilateral amount will go to supported child care. On the surface this looks like a well-planned investment. However, the current provincial government has announced a restructuring of supported child care that will focus on child development and not child care. We feel this is in breach of the agreement for the multilateral dollars.

It is also our understanding that the provincial government will continue to allocate $3.3 million to the supported child care program.

If the B.C. government continues to separate child development and child care, we question how B.C. will incorporate an inclusive child care system for all.

On parental choice, ECEBC questions whether parents really have fair choices in this province. In B.C., those who can afford quality care will receive it, and those who cannot will have to opt for alternate methods of care. Although B.C. suggests that these may be choices for parents, we question the fairness of these choices for those parents. In fact, we question whether parents who cannot afford quality care would not opt for quality care if it was more affordable for them. In fact, we have a two-tier system for child care in B.C.

The other recommendation we have is to ensure that federal dollars are used to supplement provincial-territorial spending, not replace provincial cuts.

In B.C., we note that the new federal dollars are going to replace cuts made to the child care system. Although no announcement has yet been official, it is our understanding that the portion of dollars for 2004 will go to address cuts made to subsidy in 2002. We encourage the federal government to amend or strengthen the language in the agreement to state that new dollars cannot replace funding cuts or replace current provincial spending, but are to enhance those dollars.

Our last recommendation is to establish mechanisms for compliance with the agreements made between the federal, provincial,and territorial governments, and establish reporting procedures that give clear, accountable data, detailing progress in addressing the affordability, accessibility, and quality issues facing child care today.

The experience we have faced in B.C. around reporting procedures concerns the ECEBC. The reporting of the first early childhood development allocations of $39.9 million is the only report the community has received for those ECD dollars. We are still waiting to hear how the remaining $119.6 million will be spent. As you can imagine, this is, in our opinion, a lack of reporting for those allocated dollars.

In conclusion, ECEBC wishes to thank the federal finance committee for allowing us the opportunity to bring forward our concerns. ECEBC feels strongly that all children and families in Canada have the right to quality child care experiences.

Thank you.

¸ (1410)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now, the British Columbia Persons with AIDS Society. Go ahead, Mr. Bradford.

Mr. Glen Bradford (Chair of the Board of Directors, British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society): Hello. My name is Glen Bradford and I am a person living with AIDS.

If I were typical of many people who were diagnosed when I was, I wouldn't be here talking to you. I would have been dead five years ago.

Every day is a struggle living with AIDS.

I am the chair of the British Columbia Persons with AIDS Society, and I wish to thank the members of the Standing Committee on Finance for granting our organization the opportunity to present our views.

We are western Canada's largest consumer-based AIDS organization and we represent the interests of almost 4,000 HIV-positive members throughout the province.

Our main focus today is to increase the funding for the Canadian strategy on HIV/AIDS. Later this afternoon you will hear from a representative from the Canadian Coalition of HIV/AIDS Stakeholder Organizations, of which we are also a part.

The yearly budget for the Canadian strategy on HIV/AIDS has remained static at $42.2 million for the past 10 years. However, during that time, Canada has seen a 50% increase in the cumulative number of HIV infections: from 35,000 in 1994 to 55,000 in the year 2003, and today the epidemic is worsening.

After a steady decline in the nineties, the rate of new HIV infections has been increasing since 2001. An estimated 4,200 Canadians now become infected each year with HIV. HIV is presenting new challenges. While the virus continues to infect a growing number of aboriginals, gay men, and intravenous drug users, it is migrating to populations that were once considered low risk: heterosexual women. Women of all risk categories now represent 25% of all new HIV infections, whereas 10 years ago they represented just over 10%.

In addition, young people lack adequate education. Recent survey results of 3,500 grade 9 students showed that half of the sample size believed AIDS was curable. This survey also revealed a substantial decline in knowledge of sexual health among high school students compared to 10 years ago. This is unacceptable. Yet little more can be done without more resources than are currently available.

I'd now like to turn your attention to financial costs and savings.

At the current annual rate of 4,200 new infections in Canada, HIV disease will account for at least $600 million in direct medical costs each year. In terms of monetary savings, if the current rate of new infections were reduced to about 2,000 annually, it would save $1.4 billion or more over the next five years.

Even more dollars could be saved if Canada adopted a national drug purchasing pool. Canada could bargain better prices with pharmaceutical manufacturers because our market share sits at 2% of the world's total. It is too great for the pharmaceutical manufacturers to ignore, potentially placing Canada in a very strong bargaining position. Deal-making could be achieved.

As one example, it may be possible to negotiate a moderately higher cost on one pharmaceutical drug to achieve a significantly lower price on another by the same manufacturer. This could achieve a lower overall cost for the two new drugs.

¸ (1415)

We ask that the members of this committee support a budget increase to the Canadian strategy on HIV/ AIDS, from its current $42.2 million to $125 million, in order to provide sufficient resources to control this deadly epidemic.

We are aware that other AIDS organizations are asking for $106 million. In addition to that $106 million figure, we believe it is crucial that $20 million be invested in what we call positive prevention initiatives to curb the spread of HIV. Positive prevention is a range of initiatives that support HIV-positive people in their efforts to stop the spread of AIDS. As HIV-positive people, we are living longer and more active lives, and there are more opportunities than ever before for HIV transmission.

It is evident that slowing the epidemic requires attention to the issues and concerns of HIV-positive people. Targeted positive prevention initiatives are needed for HIV-positive women, HIV-positive aboriginals, HIV-positive youth, and HIV-positive inmates, among other groups. Of course, in addition to this range of positive prevention initiatives, primary prevention efforts directed at the general population will still be required to stem the epidemic of HIV.

For your information, you will find attached to your brief a description of our positive prevention campaign targeting HIV-positive gay men. This is just one example of what positive prevention is all about. The campaign was well received and proved effective.

I would be happy to answer any questions about our positive prevention campaign or any other element of our presentation.

Thank you again to the members of the Standing Committee on Finance for hearing our presentation.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I will ask the British Columbia Child Care Advocacy Forum to please go ahead. Ms. Davidson, please go ahead.

Ms. Sheila Davidson (Director of Simon Fraser University Child Care Society, British Columbia Child Care Advocacy Forum): Thank you. Thank you as well for giving us the opportunity to speak to you.

The B.C. Child Care Advocacy Forum is an alliance of six provincial child care organizations that bring together over 4,000 individuals, child care providers, and community organizations in B.C.

We are committed to a quality child care system that is a cornerstone of a comprehensive early childhood development strategy. It helps build strong communities and supports families in their parenting role; enables parents to participate in work, study, and community life; promotes equitable opportunities for women in society; contributes to a healthy economy; and is an essential piece of a strategy to reduce poverty, exclusion, and isolation.

We want to see a system that entitles all children to access quality child care programs regardless of their family's economic or employment status, one that offers families choices from a range of coordinated, licensed, affordable, quality child care and early childhood programs. The system would be one that provides early childhood educators with wages, benefits, and working conditions that are commensurate with their responsibilities, and it is the cornerstone of a comprehensive early childhood development strategy.

There is a case for publicly funded child care. For over three decades a growing body of research indicates that most Canadians support our vision. In 2002 a poll said 90% of Canadians want a nationally coordinated child care plan that gives all children access to quality child care. Eight-six percent of Canadians support a publicly funded child care system that makes quality child care available to all children. Eighty-eight percent of Canadians support increased wages for caregivers.

In 1999, McCain-Mustard, in the early years study,indicated that quality child care is good for children. A 1998 cost-benefit analysis of child care in Canada concluded that for every $1 invested in licensed child care, there is a $2 benefit.

Other countries recognize the value of investing. To quote a statement by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development:

Improving the quality of and access to early childhood education and care has become amajor policy priority in OECD Member countries... The early years are increasingly viewedas the first step in lifelong learning and a key component of a successful education, socialand family policy agenda.

Child care in Canada and B.C. lags behind. Except for Quebec, over the last decade regulated child care has declined. Policy incoherence has grown and Canada has fallen behind other countries.

A survey of 700 B.C. caregivers in the fall of 2002 indicates that as a result of provincial funding cuts, 57% of child care programs have fewer subsidized children, 49% have decreased enrolment, 31% have had to increase fees, 19% fear they may have to close their doors in the near future, and 52% are concerned about their future viability.

Thank you.

¸ (1420)

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky (Facilitator, British Columbia Child Care Advocacy Forum): So the question then becomes, what is the advocacy forum recommending or asking the federal government to do about this?

I just want to start by highlighting the lessons we draw out of the two recent initiatives that the federal government has taken in the field of early learning and child care.

As members of the committee will know, the federal government has signed two different agreements with provinces and territories other than Quebec. The first was in 2001, the Early Childhood Development Agreement, and then more recently in 2003, the Multilateral Framework on Early Learning and Child Care. Under these agreements the federal government will transfer over $400 million to British Columbia over an eight-year period to support a range of early development services, including regulated child care. And while the advocacy forum has been one of the organizations that works very hard to encourage the federal government to come back into the social agenda and to support early childhood services for all Canadian children, our analysis of the approach that has been used to date indicates that it is seriously flawed in three ways.

First, the federal funds that have been committed are insufficient. Under the two transfer arrangements now in place, the federal government has committed less than $1.5 billion over an eight-year period. By comparison, in 2002 the national Liberal caucus social policy committee recommended federal spending of $10.9 billion over a four-year period on child care, and as Diane Tannahill has previously said, the European Union recommends that at a minimum countries devote 1% of their GDP to the early years. In Canada this would result in a $10 billion annual investment.

Secondly, the problem with the current transfer arrangements is that provincial and territorial accountability for how the dollars are spent is inadequate. This was first apparent with the Early Childhood Development Agreement when B.C. and some of the other large provinces allocated little or none of those funds toward child care. Diane has already told you how we have been trying to get the provincial government's accounting for these dollars in B.C. To date we only have accounting for the first year's spending, and of that $39 million in the first year of the Early Childhood Development Agreement, only $6 million of it went to regulated child care.

As a result of these weaknesses with the Early Childhood Development Agreement, the advocacy forum and child care advocates across the country lobbied for additional federal funding that was directed specifically to regulated child care, which is where most young children in this country spend a good portion of their waking hours. And while the level of funding provided under that multilateral framework was very disappointing, we were initially encouraged that the agreement did say that the dollars were to be dedicated to regulated child care. Regrettably, once again in British Columbia we are learning that there are clearly sufficient loopholes in that agreement that are, first of all, allowing the provincial government to spend the dollars on programs, which, as you have heard in our brief outlines are really programs that are no longer about child care, and secondly, and more significantly, the agreement clearly has sufficient loopholes to allow the provincial government to use new federal dollars to replace provincial dollars.

Over the course of these two agreements, more money has come out of the child care system in British Columbia than has gone in. This province is using the federal dollars to fix the worst results of its cuts, and as a result of federal initiatives, regrettably we have to report to you that children and families in B.C. are worse off, not better.

So what are our recommendations? Our recommendations fall in those two areas. First of all, the amount of money that the federal government commits to early childhood and child care has to be sufficient to be a real incentive for provinces to put in place a system, and secondly, with the increased dollars, we are calling on the federal government to require higher levels of accountability from provinces and territories to both maintain or increase their current level of funding and to use the dollars to provide child care.

Thank you.

¸ (1425)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now we will hear from the British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre. Who will speak?

Ms. Hadley, go ahead.

Ms. Jess Hadley (Articled Student, British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre): Good afternoon. I'm Jess Hadley and this is Robin Loxton. We're here to make a joint submission on behalf of the seven groups that are listed on the cover of our brief.

I'd like to ask the chair if I could just take a minute to introduce the seven groups before I make my submissions. I'd like you to understand who we're representing today.

First, the B.C. Coalition of People with Disabilities is a province-wide umbrella group that provides advocacy for people with disabilities. Robin is a highly respected advocate with the coalition.

Active Support Against Poverty, based in Prince George, B.C. assists low-income people dealing with government agencies.

The Council of Senior Citizens' Organizations of B.C. is a province-wide umbrella group that aims to improve the welfare of elder citizens in B.C.

End Legislated Poverty is a coalition of B.C. groups that uses public education to fight poverty.

Federated Anti-Poverty Groups of B.C. is an umbrella organization of over 130 groups working to address poverty and social justice issues.

Together Against Poverty Society, based in Victoria, assists clients with social assistance, disability benefits, and residential tenancy matters.

Finally, the West End Seniors' Network, based in Vancouver, is a volunteer-based community organization that provides services for seniors.

These are some of the key B.C. groups dealing with the rights of seniors, people with disabilities, and those living in poverty.

As for me, I'm the articled student at the B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre. We're a non-profit public interest law office. We represent groups and individuals who wouldn't otherwise have the resources to assert their interests.

Thank you for your patience with those long introductory remarks. I'll do my best to make sure my submissions are well within the time limits.

Our message today is that the federal government's tax and spending priorities are badly neglecting the millions of Canadians who are disadvantaged by poverty. My clients have asked me to talk about three things the federal government can do to improve its track record when it comes to caring for all Canadians.

First, the federal government can tie transfer payments to the provision of services like social assistance, housing, and poverty law. Second, the federal government can create a national pharmacare program. Finally, the federal government can make the disability tax credit program fairer. In our view, each of these steps is essential if the federal government is serious about its commitment to care for all Canadians.

Our first recommendation is that the federal government tie transfer payments to the provision of social assistance. Until 1995 the Canada Assistance Plan, or CAP, made federal transfer payments conditional on the provinces meeting certain minimum standards for social programming. But the federal government, as you know, repealed the CAP in 1995, and since then the provinces have been able to spend transfer payments however they choose.

Today the federal government has no say in how federal transfer money is spent and no power to ensure that federal money goes toward caring for Canadians. Sure enough, since CAP was repealed, most provinces have made deep cuts to social programs.

Canada has been criticized, both at home and abroad, for this change. The UN has even expressed concern that we are not living up to our international obligations and has held the federal government responsible for abdicating its role as the guardian of national standards.

One area that the provinces are neglecting is social assistance. Since the repeal of CAP we have seen abysmally low welfare rates and increasingly draconian welfare schemes, like B.C.'s law that cuts people off welfare after 24 months regardless of need. This is not only placing more Canadians in poverty but is also intensifying their level of poverty.

Another area where federal leadership is needed is housing. It's well documented that Canada has a shortage of affordable housing. High rents are forcing many people, especially seniors, to choose between eating, buying the prescriptions they need, and paying their rent. Meanwhile, many more are becoming homeless, as is evidenced by the tent cities that have been springing up in Vancouver and Victoria over the past few years.

¸ (1430)

And the third area where the federal government needs to take charge is in poverty law. The federal government says that some transfer money is meant to support poverty law clinics, which help poor people with issues like social assistance, disability benefits, income assistance, workers' compensation, residential tenancy, and debt. But without any real requirement that the provinces fund poverty law clinics, some provinces like B.C. are refusing to provide any poverty law clinics at all. The result is that poor people are being deprived of access to the very programs created to assist them; people are unable to access benefits they need and benefits to which they are entitled.

In sum, the federal government's failure to provide leadership on social programming is harming poor people in Canada and increasing the gap between haves and have-nots. To address this, the federal government must tie transfer funding to the provision of adequate social programming.

Our second recommendation is that the federal government create a national pharmacare program. Through the Canada Health Act, the federal government requires the provinces to provide certain medically necessary services free of charge. However, it does not require the provinces to provide prescription drugs free of charge, except when the drugs are provided during a hospital stay. This policy may protect those who need drug therapy on an emergency basis, but it does nothing for the millions of Canadians who need medication to manage chronic health problems, like arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, depression, schizophrenia, and so on. It also contrasts sharply with the policy in most other OECD countries where prescription drugs outside of hospitals are publicly funded.

Without a national standard to guide the provinces, prescription drug financing has been inconsistent across Canada and variable over the years. According to the Romanow commission, our drug system is so fragmented that people's access to medical drugs is determined not by need, but by their income, the kind of job they have, and where they live.

As provincial governments have cut costs by reducing drug coverage, low-income Canadians have been hit the hardest. Prescription drug expenses are causing serious financial hardship for many. This is entirely unacceptable in a country as rich as Canada. The federal government must amend the Canada Health Act so that medically necessary drug therapy is included as an insured service.

Our third and final recommendation is that the federal government make the disability tax credit fairer. Tax policy is one of our most important tools in fighting poverty and caring for those in need. The disability tax credit is an issue of particular concern to our clients, and it's also one that has received some attention this year in both the House and the media. The disability tax credit is meant to provide a tax benefit to help offset the cost of living with serious disabilities.

Our concern is that both the Income Tax Act and the application form for the disability tax credit define disability far too restrictively. This means that many people with disabilities, who bear massive costs as a result of their disability, cannot qualify for the tax credit. Not only does this significantly reduce the disability tax credit's power to create greater equity for those with disabilities, but it also increases the number of people with disabilities who are living in poverty. That's why both the Income Tax Act and the disability tax credit application form must be amended to make the tax credit available to people with all types of disabling conditions.

I'm just skipping over this part of my submission, but you will see in our brief that our view is that the Income Tax Act, as currently worded, is discriminatory and violates the equality guarantee in section 15 of the charter, because it treats some types of disabilities as worthy of government assistance while others are unworthy.

Members of the committee, those are our three recommendations. As you can see, the groups we are representing have a very wide range of concerns about the federal government's role in caring for Canadians. If Canada is to invest in and care for all members of our society, then our government must focus especially on helping those in need.

Thank you very much for inviting our input on these issues.

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The Chair: Thank you.

We will go finally to the Paramedic Association of Canada for seven minutes, please.

Mr. Ernie Mothus (Board Member, Paramedic Association of Canada): Thank you, and welcome to Vancouver.

My name is Ernie Mothus. I'm here today representing the Paramedic Association of Canada as well as the Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. We are pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this national dialogue and to apprise the committee of matters important to Canada's emergency services professionals.

There are approximately 17,200 paramedics in Canada, of which 14,000 are affiliated through the Paramedic Association of Canada. PAC is a national professional organization comprised of pre-hospital care practitioners, employers, regulators, and branches of government that all exist to promote quality care through cooperative working relationships with other organizations, such as the Canadian Medical Association, the Association of Emergency Physicians, the Canadian EMS Chiefs and Directors, and provincial EMS regulators. All these organizations have national EMS interests at heart. The Ambulance Paramedics is an organization responsible for representing some 3,000 paramedics across British Columbia.

We're also honoured to have support on the issue we're going to bring before you today from the Emergency Medical Services Chiefs of Canada, representing the various emergency medical services employing paramedics across Canada, and the Canadian Police Association.

The problem we're facing is that at present the Income Tax Act does not permit an unreduced early retirement pension to be provided to paramedics at age 55. These restrictions have resulted in lower pensions for paramedics because they generally cannot keep working past age 55, and in fact there's a steep drop-off of paramedics at about age 50, given the rigours of the occupation. There's a graph that highlights this.

Although there seems to be an acknowledgement that the common meaning of public safety occupation would probably include the occupation of paramedic, it is not included in the list of those who are legislated recipients of this benefit, even though the risks we face are the same. This, in our opinion, is the result of a misunderstanding and lack of awareness among public policy decision-makers of the true nature and demands of the paramedic occupation and work environment and their link to public safety.

Just as a brief legislative background, in 1990 there were some pension reforms to the Income Tax Act pursuant to Bill C-52. At that time, the Income Tax Act created an exception to normal retirement guidelines allowing for individuals employed under the public safety occupation, or PSO, designation to retire earlier with no accrual reduction.

Currently, the PSO designation includes police, fire, corrections, air traffic controllers, and airline pilots. The criterion set out to meet the PSO designation is very narrow and was intentionally put in that way. In essence, it says it is not the riskiness of the occupation per se but the risk posed to the public that is the factor. We feel we have demonstrated that we meet that narrow criterion through the submission we put forward in March--and I've made sure you all have copies of that submission.

We have shown occupational comparisons to police and firefighters with regard to the work we do and the work environment we all function in. Again, I see some of you leafing through the PowerPoint hard copy we've given you. I think what you'll see there is a commonality of who's in the picture. It's the three agencies that are called upon during disasters and emergency situations.

Our work environments are very similar to those of police and fire. They're normally unregulated, unpredictable, and often hazardous. We have compared injury statistics between the three organizations and they are very similar. We have compared physical and psychological demands, and although very comparable, paramedics encounter far more frequency in what's classified as very heavy work.

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We've included a comparative analysis of the three occupations prepared by an independent third party, and their findings lay out further occupational comparisons to the public safety occupations.

We are more than just ambulance drivers. Not only is the scope of pre-hospital medical care increasing, as laid out in the submission, but we are involved in other things like the Hazmat teams, emergency response teams, heavy urban rescue teams, riot squads, marine response units, and search and rescue teams, to mention a few.

Although there are many similarities to police and fire services, there is one area where we are not similar, and that is in receiving the PSO designation these other organizations enjoy. Although there is a cost to government by extending to paramedics the enhanced early retirement benefits available to currently defined public safety occupations, the cost has been characterized as negligible.

The early retirement provisions would be borne out of the respective pension plans. The dollar estimate would be based upon a cost to government of 14 cents for every additional dollar contributed to the pension plan. The cost results from the fact that the employer contribution is in effect tax free.

The solution, and our request, is that paramedics be included in the legislated definition of a public safety occupation, allowing them to qualify for earlier retirement at age 55, which is afforded to certain public safety occupations, many of whom paramedics work alongside. This can easily be accomplished by adding paramedics to the definition of the public safety occupations in subsection 8500(1) of the Income Tax Act regulations.

We appreciate the time you've given us today, and we hope we can answer some questions later.

The Chair: Thank you for the material, not only your presentation but also the backup material. We appreciate it.

Now we will go to questioning. We have a half hour, colleagues, before our next panel, so you can take five to six minutes. I know it's not much, but some of these presentations were a bit longer.

We'll start with Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chairperson. This has been a wonderful panel. I wish we had longer to discuss the issues. I'll at least try to focus on first the child care issue and then HIV and AIDS.

As I said to some panellists earlier today, this has been a long battle for the child care community. We've been promised a national day care act and program for many, many years, and I guess we all thought in the last budget this was going to be it. I think there was a lot of disappointment.

It's been acknowledged as a step in the right direction, but it was quite a disappointment in terms of the amount of money, in terms of the fact it's so back-ended, back-loaded--what's the word? It's not front-loaded; you have to wait several years to get access to most of it. And the conditions aren't strong enough in terms of dealing with the issue Mr. Cullen often raises, of provinces adhering to the conditions attached.

What can we do in this round to get a better outcome for a national day care act and funding that will be meaningful and will finally address what you've been after for so many years?

Perhaps each of the child care organizations here could give me a word of advice on that.

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The Chair: Before you do, I'm going to add two more minutes to your time, because I just realized we start the next panel at 3:30. So you can actually say something here.

Okay, go ahead. We'll start with Ms. Davidson and Rita Chudnovsky.

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky: Thanks.

There are some immediate things that could be done, and we would hope that they would be seen as steps towards a broader solution. Certainly immediately, the dollars that have been allocated within the multilateral framework on early learning and child care need to change so that more of the money comes up front. The allocation in the first two years is very minimal, and we're very worried about what's going to happen after year two.

Since those dollars have already been committed, from our point of view, it seems pretty minimal to move more of those dollars up front. With the dollars moving up front, we do think the federal government needs to sit back down with the provinces and territories and relook at the issues of accountability.

Look at what regulated child care means. Look at reporting mechanisms that make it possible for volunteer groups like us, who do not have the resources, to hold governments accountable in the way the document would suggest those dollars be accountable. Require that in exchange for increased dollars in the first part of the agreement, provinces commit to maintaining the provincial spending levels that were in place when the agreement was signed, so that the federal dollars can be used to supplement rather than replace.

Otherwise, we understand from the federal government's point of view, why would you put in more dollars when we're no better off? We think if there were more dollars up front for an incentive, then it is a reasonable expectation to require provinces to make that commitment.

We do, however, think this is not yet a national child care plan or a pan-Canadian child care plan. We would want to see, within the years of this agreement, serious negotiations beginning, based on what we've learned from this agreement, that would outline a five-year incremental plan to move us to a publicly funded child care system with targets, timelines, and a cost-sharing agreement that is tied to accountability for moving in that direction.

The Chair: Ms. Davidson.

Ms. Sheila Davidson: I think I'd like to be slightly provocative and ask, why is it taking so long? It doesn't make sense.

When we look at the country that Canada is, and we look at how Canadians believe, we believe in children. Every Canadian you speak to says they believe in children. But when it comes to a national child care system, we all stand back and say we don't want to touch that. It doesn't make sense.

It's time to stop. It's time to take a good look at what the rest of the world is doing and ask, why can't Canada do it too?

I think I'm sensing a kindred spirit in you, so I'm going to challenge you to ask your colleagues to stop it. It's time to do the right thing.

Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Tannahill, do you want to add anything?

Mrs. Diane Tannahill: The only thing I want to say is that I do agree with what was said.

One of the things that always baffles me is that research suggests that for every dollar invested in child care, there's a twofold return around it, and there's even more when we're talking about supported child care. One of the things that baffles my mind is why is it taking us so long to invest in children when we know the turnaround is going to be twofold? That's the only addition I have.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: To add to that, as I understand it, for every dollar invested in child care for special needs children, there is a $6 or $7 return on investment. We are really talking about a major cost benefit to society if we invest now.

I think it is really the point you were making around increasing the spending for HIV and AIDS. I think you said there hasn't been an increase since the $42.2 million commitment in 1993. I need you to tell us a bit more about the kinds of savings we can incur by investing threefold, by tripling that amount. That's one question.

The other question is with respect to the whole issue of pharmaceuticals and patents. Given the fact that there is finally some movement in terms of the agreement that we hope will come to fruition to get generics to help people with HIV and AIDS in Africa, is that a lever that we now have to deal with it domestically? How important is that?

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The Chair: A very quick answer, please. I'm sorry.

Mr. Glen Bradford: I'll take the second question first, if you don't mind.

First, I'm really pleased to see co-panel speakers talk about the broad public support for a national pharmacare program. We didn't mention it in our brief, but we're absolutely 100% behind a broader pharmaceutical program.

Concerning the pharmaceutical patents and access to developing countries, we're very thrilled with that as well. We see it as a huge cost saving for developing countries. HIV isn't just about what happens at home, for us; it's about what happens all over the world. We're pleased to see the push that's happening right now.

As far as cost savings are concerned, all levels of government have really high expectations of bringing down the rates of transmission. Those are very honourable expectations, and we have the same expectations ourselves. If we can reduce transmission, we will save billions of dollars, as I mentioned earlier. Hospital costs for someone with AIDS are $150,000 a year. If we can save some of that by tying prevention, support, care, and treatment all together, we will save billions of dollars.

We aren't going to wipe out transmission altogether--that's an unreasonable expectation--but if we can cut it in half, we can save billions of dollars.

We can save billions of dollars if we have a better, broader pharmacare policy and program that doesn't rely on this two-tiered system that's starting to evolve right now and doesn't rely on each individual province negotiating with pharmaceuticals: one body negotiates with them and negotiates a fair price.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Now we'll go to Mr. Cullen, Ms. Leung, and then Mr. Discepola.

Mr. Roy Cullen (Etobicoke North, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to all the presenters.

First I'll go to Mr. Mothus. I just want to clarify a little your presentation for the paramedics. In the last budget Minister Manley indicated that he'd make regulatory changes related to the firefighters for the pension accrual rate, recognizing that their longevity was not as great as that of the average Canadian and that it would give them the opportunity to take their pension earlier.

In fact, my understanding is that the act already allowed that, but this was to define it more clearly. Then the firefighters would have to go to the municipalities to make their case.

It sounds as if what you're asking for is a little different. Are you aware of that provision and how it relates to what you're asking for?

Mr. Ernie Mothus:

I will give you my understanding of it, sir.

The firefighters, with corrections officers, police, air traffic controllers, and airline pilots, were given the opportunity to go back to their respective employers to negotiate earlier retirement without suffering the penalty, meaning having a 25-year combination of years of service and age equalling 75, or reaching age 55 and gone.

What happened with the last budget, the way I understand it, is that their accrual rate, the rate they can contribute every year, was increased. Even though this provision is there recognizing that these occupations present a risk to the public if they work further along in their age, because of physical or mental things that occur to them out in the field, going earlier doesn't necessarily mean their pension is going to be able to accommodate them as it might someone else who can go to age 65. Their formulas are the same as the general population's, so if they go earlier their pensions aren't going to be as great.

Mr. Manley increased the amount they could contribute, so that with that formula, at the end of the day they are getting a bigger pension that would be more representative of what the general populace would get. The firefighters are the only organization out of these five that has received it. Police, air traffic controllers, corrections officers, and airline pilots did not receive that accrual rate increase.

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Mr. Roy Cullen: Not yet, no.

Mr. Ernie Mothus:

No, not yet.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Is that something you're seeking as well, or is what you're asking for something different?

Mr. Ernie Mothus: What we're asking for is to be added on to the list under the Income Tax provisions or regulations that would allow us to go back to our employers and negotiate that same—

Mr. Roy Cullen: What you're asking for is the same thing.

Mr. Ernie Mothus: We're asking for the 25 years, or the member's age plus years of service equalling 75 years, or 55 years of age, without being penalized. The accrual rate is something separate and over and above what we've asked for. It is different.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Okay. I'll read your brief more carefully.

Mr. Ernie Mothus: If you want to give us that as well, that would be great.

Mr. Roy Cullen: The pension accrual rate is something that was initiated by Mr. Martin. It started with the firefighters, and I know we heard from the police very quickly after that, and from a few others.

Thank you. I'll study your brief more carefully.

With respect to child care, one of the things that confuses me is that I don't know why the British Columbia government, representing the people of British Columbia, isn't convinced of the usefulness of child care. It seems to me that if we look at the first early childhood development agreement, my understanding is that it allowed for child care programming but it didn't mandate it. Last year we heard that hardly any child care was going on under that agreement. Now we have this new agreement that mandates child care, if I understood it correctly, but that all it has done is to replace provincial dollars.

So somewhere along the way, B.C. governments—I guess of any political stripe—don't seem to have been convinced of the merits of child care over other child care programming. I'm wondering if they are just Neanderthal in their approach to this, or are they missing an important point, or are there other programs that other advocacy groups are making the case for with respect to child nutrition, prenatal programs, or whatever?

The Chair: Ms. Davidson, did you want to start?

Ms. Sheila Davidson: Do I want to hang myself? I don't think so. That's a loaded question.

If we could get the premier to talk with us, I think it would be quite simple for us to tell the premier what he is doing wrong. To be blunt, the premier is not listening. Why is that happening? We have ideas, but it's not clear at all.

What appears to be happening in this province is that this government has taken an “anything but child care” stance. In 1990, when Premier Campbell was mayor of Vancouver, the council of Vancouver passed the most progressive municipal policy on child care in all of Canada. This premier is very knowledgeable about what a good child care system is all about, but very clearly he has chosen not to follow it. Why has he done that? I don't know.

The Chair: Ms. Chudnovsky.

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky: To add to that, from the federal government's perspective, the money that came into British Columbia this year under the new multilateral framework was $3.3 million. Frankly, it's absolutely not enough to begin to address the child care need. So it becomes an excuse, that small amount of money at the front end of an agreement that we are applauding in its core. But that small amount of money really doesn't give us enough leverage at the provincial level to say these are sufficient federal dollars to put on the table, to really be an incentive for you to keep your provincial dollars on the table and for us to sit down and work out a plan.

We know we're not going to get a child care system tomorrow. We're very interested in there being sufficient incentive for provinces to really want to engage in building it, and $3.3 million this year and $10 million next year isn't enough.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Ms. Hadley, you talked about creating a national pharmacare program. Are you aware that in our last budget the Minister of Finance indicated that the federal government was going to start the process of a pharmacare program dealing with catastrophic pharmacy expenses? Are you discounting that completely, or do you acknowledge that it even exists?

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Ms. Jess Hadley: I'm happy to acknowledge that it exists, but it's not really what we're asking for. We're asking for a program to cover the cost of prescription drugs that are not just required on a catastrophic basis, but required for chronic, recurring health problems.

When people have ongoing drug expenses, they should be able to receive financial help with that kind of expense too. That's what we're asking the standing committee to consider including in the next budget. That's something in addition to the provision you're referring to.

The Chair: Thank you.

Ms. Leung.

Ms. Sophia Leung (Vancouver Kingsway, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to congratulate you, especially on child care. You made a very strong, interesting presentation.

I also want to encourage you. Actually, in Ottawa, my reading is that we're very, very supportive and interested in child care. Last week I think we had a strong discussion, and of course we cannot disclose everything. It's a closed caucus. Anyhow, I want to tell you that we did that, and I personally made a very strong presentation.

Obviously, we are hitting some problem of accountability. One is between the province and the federal government, and the second one is that--I think we talk about 1% of the GDP, or $10 billion--we also have to think three levels. We all have responsibility.

I suggest that we should look into, just like on infrastructure, having a shared basis. I want you to comment on that. Obviously, we can no longer delay.

Also, to Mr. Glen Bradford, you mentioned something very interesting--your proposal on $20 million for a positive prevention program. I would really like to hear a little bit more on that.

Jess, you made a very good presentation on that, especially on the legal aid or the property law. I think earlier we had a lot of discussion on legal aid. We definitely think there is a need for that, especially for low-income families.

Now I would like you to comment. Ms. Davidson.

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky: Did you want us to comment on cost-sharing? Yes?

We think there are a number of cost-shared programs in Canada that could be used as a model for a cost-sharing program for child care, and we absolutely do see this as a program on which senior levels of government need to cost-share so that child care is affordable to all families.

We would probably say that on cost-shared programs the contributions should be based on the capacity of the level of government to tax, which would be federal, provincial, and municipal. Municipal politicians would want me to say that. They are very worried in this province about downloading of responsibilities. We are very supportive of initiatives to sit down and work out that arrangement.

I just want to comment that while for over 20 years the jurisdictional question about child care goes back and forth, provincially-federally, when you look at what European Union countries are doing and at what the OECD is doing, this does have to be a concern at the national and federal level.

Our pan-Canadian approach to how we are supporting families and how we are supporting those critical early years has to be of concern to the federal government. While we think there have been some really significant steps in the federal government's re-entry, we think it is something of concern from coast to coast to coast, and it affects the health and well-being of our communities today and our future economic and social viability.

So yes, for the cost-sharing, but the feds have a big role to play.

The Chair: Mr. Loxton.

Mr. Robin Loxton (Director of Advocacy Access, BC Coalition for People with Disabilities, British Columbia Public Interest Advocacy Centre): I'd like to make a few comments around the cuts to legal aid in this province, as someone representing the disability community in particular and as an advocate working with people with disabilities in trying to access different social programs and benefits, going to court or what have you.

We have found that there has been a huge change since last year in terms of people being able to access pretty basic benefits, EI medical, WCB, Canada Pension Plan disability, all those services that used to be provided through the poverty law system that was available under the Legal Services Society.

As you may know, the Legal Services Society essentially lost all its poverty law funding. It also goes when the government is making a number of changes.

I can tell you that it has had a profound effect. We would like to see the federal government taking on more of a role in ensuring national standards, ensuring that dollars coming from the federal government go to a legal aid system, and ensuring that people do have access to the assistance they need to access basic benefits.

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The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Bradford, I think there were some questions from Ms. Leung for you.

Mr. Glen Bradford: Thank you very much for asking that question. This is something I love to talk about.

First, I want to bring your attention to the briefing you have. You also have a breakdown of what our poster campaign looked like for our gay men's positive prevention. I encourage you to have a look at it.

I acknowledge that it might be a little bit shocking if you are not used to these kinds of images, but we really took the approach that the soft sell isn't working, and it hasn't been working for a long time. Somebody needs to step up to the plate and really get in people's faces. That's really what the intention of this poster campaign was.

I want to talk about the idea behind positive prevention. It is kind of obvious in that for many years prevention has been targeted towards HIV-negative people. We took the approach that it takes a positive person and a negative person in order for transmission to happen. It doesn't happen between two negative people or two positive people. Now, that may seem like stating the obvious, but nobody has looked at that in the last 20 years.

We decided we wanted to have a look at it. We did an environmental survey and discovered that there are only three other cities in the entire world that are taking this approach: Los Angeles in the U.S., London, England, and Sydney, Australia. We decided we were going to be cutting-edge and be the first in Canada to do this kind of work.

We started with gay men because it's the community we were most familiar with and it was the easiest to access. Our next programs are going to be intravenous drug users, the aboriginal community, and heterosexual women. It's not exclusive to only gay men, but we had to start somewhere so that was the first community we picked.

The idea is that there is a relationship that goes on between a negative and a positive person. Whether it's a one-night stand or whether it's a long-term relationship, there is a negotiation that goes on there. We want to get into what is going on there. Why are people not negotiating safe sex in that moment?

This poster campaign addresses that. It's why we called it “It's complicated, Let's talk about it”. The idea is to get negative and positive people to start talking about what they are doing when they are having relationships.

The Chair: Thank you.

Now we will go to Mr. Discepola.

Mr. Nick Discepola (Vaudreuil—Soulanges, Lib.): Thank you, Chair.

I think the most revealing comment I take back home with me is, why are we taking so long? I'm frustrated just as much as you are because I think we made that promise in our first red book, and although very few people remember, it was contingent upon us being able to negotiate with the provinces. And when you said those words—I'm just writing them down—is it possible?

I'm wondering whether we should throw in the towel or not. We're as frustrated as you are. I think the crux of the problem is that we're trying to negotiate with the provinces. Everywhere we go we hear the words “accountability”, “transparency”, “annual reporting”, but the provinces want to hear nothing of that. They don't want to be accountable for the money we give them, so much so that we are hesitant.

I know in my home province of Quebec, when we increased the Canada child tax benefit, the province simply clawed it back. As a federal government I think our challenge is to be able to sit down with the provinces and essentially come up with a national program that allows for the flexibility of the various needs of the provinces. I think that's the problem.

The demographics are probably as different in British Columbia as they are in Newfoundland. The provincial premiers probably want that flexibility, so I don't know if we can negotiate with the provinces. I don't know if we can ask for reporting or accountability.

Maybe you just have to keep putting pressure at the provincial level. I don't know what the solution is. I am frustrated too. If you have any ideas for this committee, I know we're all ears. I'll leave it at that.

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The Chair: You all read our report from last year so you know how we feel.

Go ahead.

Ms. Sheila Davidson: Can you throw in the towel? No, you can't.

As an elected MP, you have a responsibility to the taxpayers of this country. How can we work with you? The provinces don't want to be told what to do, especially certain ones. We see the alliances that are being built today, and from an advocate's perspective it causes us concern.

We have to keep relating to the children, and we have to keep remembering that we're doing this work because they deserve to have quality systems in place for them. They more than deserve it; they're entitled to it.

We have a very good post-secondary education system. It's not perfect. We were talking about this at lunch today. It probably never will be perfect. It's never going to meet everyone's needs. Child care is going to be like that too.

But we have to start from a place that says we value our children. Canada has not done a good job of that. I think as elected federal officials you have a responsibility to be more firm and more clear with your provincial counterparts. Maybe it's time to ask them why. Why not? Why do we have to keep fighting you? I would love to mediate a session. Invite me. I'd be more than pleased to be there.

Mr. Nick Discepola: One of the concerns I have is that everybody looks at the Quebec model as a panacea solution, but it isn't. I want to tell you that it's a total failure, in my opinion. The Bloc Québécois members would disagree with me, obviously.

But when you talk about $5 day care, it just doesn't exist. Somebody has to pay for it. You're also pushing for a universal system. I'm wondering whether that is really feasible.

Why should somebody earning $150,000 or $200,000 in family income pay $5, or $15, or $20, when somebody else is scraping by at $20,000 or $30,000? Why adhere to the principle of universality, or should we look at the principle of a needs basis?

I know in Toronto, for example, some people are spending $1,000 to $1,500 a month for day care. I don't understand why anybody would want to work then, and quite often it's also the women who have to make the sacrifice. Would you sacrifice universality if it could be made more affordable, or why should we adhere to the principle of universality?

The Chair: Go ahead.

Ms. Rita Chudnovsky: Well, there are three days' worth of discussions about why it is we should institute the principle of universality in early childhood.

First of all, in Canada, other than children's access, hopefully, to health care through their parents, we have no universal programs any more in this country for young children. That is, from my point of view, a national shame.

I want to clarify that when we say universally accessible, we mean that a range of early childhood programs, including licensed child care, needs to be available for families who want and need it. But we're not talking about compulsory, as opposed to the school system. That's often misunderstood.

With regard to the question you raise, first of all, if you want to have a look at a community service that is delivered through a user fee system that is means tested, look at the child care system we have in this country. It is a means-tested system. It runs differently in different provinces or territories, but everywhere, other than in Quebec at this point, people are income tested in order to establish whether they're eligible for any kind of public funding, and it is a user fee system with government either subsidizing an individual family or an individual space if people meet the eligibility criteria.

And it is a clear failure. It is a failure, because no matter where the eligibility line is set, there are always those who aren't eligible. It is a failure, because the family who does make a lot of money is able to purchase quality child care and the moderate and low-income family is unable to. So it feeds a two-tier health care system, and it leads to complete instability in the system, because programs are only open if they are serving a community where parents have sufficient affluence to pay the fee. It would be as if we funded firefighters at the end of the month based on the number of fires they put out that month. That's how we fund child care.

We're also asking families to pay now—it's the same in Vancouver. People who can afford it are paying that kind of money. Child care now costs more than post-secondary education, and yet we're asking families to bear that cost at the time in their life when they are least able to: when they are at the beginning of their earning power; when, if they're fortunate enough to be able to buy a house, which in this city they can't anyway, they have a mortgage. The mother has generally lost income because she's taken some time off work. We're asking families to pay for that child care out of their pocket at the time in their life-earning power when they're least able to.

Of course, quality child care costs more than $5 a day. The question is, does it make more sense to ask people to pay for it out of their own pocket when they're least able to, or does it make more sense for us to say this is something like libraries, where we're better off to pool our resources, pay as we're able to through the tax system, and invest in a system that meets the needs of children when they need it, not when their families can afford it 10, 18, to 30 years later?

So we think child care is a classic case study in why we need universal systems and why means tested user fee systems don't work.

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The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'm going to give Mr. Solberg the floor for two minutes.

Mr. Monte Solberg (Medicine Hat, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and that's generous, considering I wasn't here earlier at the presentations, which I apologize for.

But I do have one question. I want to pick up on something Ms. Hadley mentioned, and maybe Mr. Loxton could answer it as well, or really anyone, because I think it would apply to a number of groups. It has to do with a national pharmacare program. I have a couple of questions about it.

First of all, many of the provinces already have some kind of a pharmacare program. My question is this. Could you give me a rough idea of what the design would be that you are thinking of? Are you talking about a universal program, or are you talking about rolling provincial programs into a national program? And do you have some sense of what the overall cost of this would be? We all recognize how hard it is for people who are on fixed incomes, for whatever reason, to be able to fund their prescription drug needs. I think we are all interested in ideas, but it is a difficult area. If you had a specific idea on that, I'd be interested in hearing it.

The Chair: Ms. Hadley.

Ms. Jess Hadley: I'd be happy to answer this question.

What we are contemplating in our recommendation is an amendment to the Canada Health Act, which, as I understand it, currently requires that certain medical services be provided free of charge by the provinces. What we're suggesting is that the Canada Health Act be amended so that medically necessary drug therapy, including drug therapy needed for chronic problems as well as emergency problems, is included. That would mean that the provinces would be the ones requiring it.

As to your question about the cost, I don't have numbers on the cost, and I have noticed that it would be expensive to provide these, but this is just another case where we're talking about trade-offs. Are we going to be paying costs now to provide these drugs, or are we going to be paying significant costs later when people's health problems have deteriorated immensely because they haven't been able to pay for adequate shelter, food, or they've chosen not to pay for their prescriptions and now their health problems have deteriorated?

Mr. Monte Solberg: Could I invite Mr. Bradford to comment on this, or Mr. Harvey, just with respect to treatment for AIDS? Is that generally covered by the provinces now, or what's the situation?

Mr. Ross Harvey (Executive Director, British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society): In fact, except to the degree that there's federal transfer payment money involved, it's exclusively covered by the provinces now, if you're talking about the pharmaceuticals involved.

Mr. Monte Solberg: Yes. I just meant are they actually doing it, though? Are they basically--

Mr. Ross Harvey: Well, it varies from province to province, and indeed, if there is one characteristic of the patchwork of provincial formularies that now exist across the country, it is inconsistency.

As to the questions you posed, I think you will find them all answered in the Romanow commission report and its recommendations with regard to the establishment of a national pharmacare system, far better than we could in the brief period here today. In addition, as regards costs is, first of all, you are spending all kinds of money now on various provincial assessments of administration mechanisms in each of the provincial formularies, and you are also squandering the prospect of hard bargaining that you can undertake with pharmaceutical corporations if essentially you are holding up the entire national pool of potential consumers, which a federal, a national, pharmacare program could do, but no provincial formulary can. I mean, God help poor Prince Edward Island trying to bargain on its own.

So there almost couldn't help but be cost savings in such a system. You'd have to consciously set out to squander opportunity and efficiency in order to fail to achieve cost savings.

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The Chair: I'll give you the final comment, Mr. Loxton.

Mr. Robin Loxton: One of the realities I've often run into is that you have someone, let's say on Canada Pension Plan disability, and their income is maybe that little bit too high to qualify for provincial coverage for medication by the Ministry of Human Resources. With the new changes under our pharmacare program, they may have to wait several months before they get any money back for spending money on medications. The reality for a lot of people is that they don't go out and buy the medications. I think the end result is that our health care system pays a higher cost because these people require acute care intervention or something else at a far earlier stage. The rational elements in our system seem to be breaking down, so people don't get the coverage they used to get from their provincial government.

Certainly I think a national system would help ensure that people get the medication that keeps them healthy. It would certainly be a very positive step.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to make your presentations, for coming here today, and for answering our questions.

Hopefully we're going to be allowed the time to write a report, but if not, you have your evidence there for the finance committee and the creation of the next budget. We'll do what we can. Thank you for doing what you could.

We are suspended for eight minutes.

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The Chair: We will continue with our pre-budget hearings pursuant to Standing Order 83(1). We are in Vancouver and we are very pleased to be here. We have another excellent panel.

From the Canadian Federation of Students, we have Michael Conlon, director of research, and Nammi Poorooshasb, who is the research coordinator in B.C. and an organizer too. Great. Welcome to you both.

From the Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia, we have Daniel Hill, president, and Michael Goldberg, research director. Welcome.

From the University Colleges of British Columbia Consortium, we have Skip Triplett, president of Kwantlen University College, and Robert Buchan, executive director.

From the Greater Vancouver Gateway Council, we have Bob Wilds, managing director, and Brad Eshleman, vice-chair and president of the B.C. Wharf Operators Association. Welcome, sirs.

From the Canadian Coalition of HIV/AIDS Stakeholder Organizations, we have James Boothroyd, who is the program head of communications, national centre, HIV trial network.

All of you, I'm sure, would like to use your time, and we won't delay you. We'll start in the order of the agenda, with the Canadian Federation of Students.

You have up to seven minutes, please.

Mr. Michael Conlon (National Researcher, Canadian Federation of Students): Thank you.

Good afternoon. I want to thank the committee for coming to British Columbia and giving us the opportunity to present this afternoon on behalf of the British Columbia component of the Canadian Federation of Students, representing over 125,000 students here in British Columbia at more than 20 student unions at public universities and colleges.

In our remarks this afternoon we'd like to address the way the federal government approaches the crisis of student debt and university financing and offer several constructive solutions.

We will draw particular attention to how the current policy environment affects students in British Columbia. I will begin by reviewing some of the most compelling and recent research on accessibility. I will then offer an analysis of current federal policy in the context of the accessibility challenges we face in British Columbia, some of which I think you heard about this morning. We will close by outlining mechanisms that can bring our system of higher education closer to the vehicle of social opportunity that British Columbians look to it to be.

There are several studies the committee by now may be very well aware of. The first and I think most important of these is the Statistics Canada study entitled “Access, persistence and financing”. This study documents the fact that those Canadians in the top quartile of income are twice as likely to attend a university in Canada as those from the lowest quartile. When we control for rural residency, that rises to a factor of 5.6 times.

The disparities are not quite as severe in the college sector. There still are substantial gaps in participation between urban and rural Canadians. This is of particular concern to us given that enrolment at both Northwest Community College and the College of New Caledonia is down this year, in part as a result of massive tuition fee hikes, and we have seen the closure outright of several campuses of North Island College. All three of these institutions specifically target rural and underrepresented sections of B.C.'s population. It is therefore particularly troubling to see cuts in these areas in addition to the declines in access we have already witnessed.

These results confirm that current post-secondary education policies are not effectively addressing the social divisions in Canadian society, the division between those in the top quarter and those in the bottom quarter of income. These divisions make access to post-secondary education, in our view, more about family income than initiative and merit, and all academic and Statistics Canada studies demonstrate that the two factors most determinative of a post-secondary education are family income and family education.

These findings are critical in light of what we have heard about skyrocketing admission requirements for B.C. universities, both this morning and in several other submissions. These admission requirements are putting additional pressure on the already overtaxed system of college transfer in British College as well as on the four degree-granting universities in British Columbia.

The youth in transition study, which demonstrates conclusively to us that finances are the number one issue for those who go on, has also demonstrated to us that the strongest determinant of high school grades is also family income and parental income. It is therefore critical to note that the capacity crisis of B.C. institutions is most likely to push out those at the low end of the income scale.

Simply put, we need more spaces in British Columbia, and they can only come with increased federal funding—federal funding, I should say, that is targeted and traceable.

I'd like to briefly turn to the federal government's response to the increasing individual cost of an education. As most of you know, British Columbia's economy is in the midst of a painful shift from high-paying resource-based jobs toward employment that HRDC generally suggests requires approximately three years of post-secondary education. Unfortunately, we fear that many of the federal initiatives undertaken to address the rising costs of education are doing little for B.C. families most adversely affected by this transition. Many federal initiatives either help those who need it the least or do not promote access to post-secondary education among those in the bottom income quartiles.

Two programs we want to suggest are in need of either major reform or scrapping outright are the Canada Education Savings Grant and the Millennium Scholarship Foundation.

I will just briefly cite the Statistics Canada study, “Survey of Approaches to Educational Planning”, and the C.D. Howe Institute study on RESPs. Both of these studies conclusively demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of recipients of this program come from families earning over $80,000 per year. Indeed, only 18% of the funding for the CESG goes to families earning under $40,000. I'd also refer this committee to Kevin Milligan's paper from the C.D. Howe Institute, which makes exactly the same point, although in a slightly different context.

I'd like to close by briefly mentioning the effect of the Millennium Scholarship Foundation. The foundation has had a mixed effect here in British Columbia, though less mixed across the country. The previous provincial government in British Columbia did invest most of the millennium scholarship funds as they were envisioned; that is, to reduce student debt. However, the new provincial government has clawed back one year of that commitment and the commitment the government made here with the extension of grants to third and fourth year.... In other provinces, such as Ontario and Nova Scotia, the provincial governments simply accepted the funds and invested little or no money in student financial assistance—the “no money” being in Nova Scotia.

The foundation has also embarked on a bizarre—and I say “bizarre” given its mandate to reduce student debt—$10 million research project whose conclusions thus far suggest that student debt really isn't a particularly big problem. We take issue with much of this research, and I'd be happy to discuss that in the question period. All of this also leads me to echo the concerns expressed by Dr. Peter Aucoin of Dalhousie University and the Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, who both raised serious questions about the accountability of foundations in their appearance before the Commons public accounts committee.

Given the overwhelming evidence about the exclusion of low- and middle-income Canadians from universities and colleges, we propose that the federal government create a system of needs-based grants. I suggest the need for this is particularly acute among rural and low-income Canadians.

It is our belief that students from British Columbia are going into greater and greater debt to address the increased cost, and more debt in the form of higher loan limits is not the answer to accessibility and the capacity issues of British Columbia colleges and universities.

I would end by reminding the committee, on what might perhaps be a good point of departure for a discussion, that student debt is the most regressive way to fund access to education. Student debt forces those who come to the table with the very least to borrow the most to finance an education.

We also know that those who borrow the most take the full ten years to pay off the loan, so that the average debt, which now ranges between $22,000 and $25,000, is not actually $22,000 to $25,000; it's more like $35,000 to $37,000 when amortized over a ten-year period at prime plus two and a half.

I wish I could go into more detail about a few more of our recommendations, but I'll end here. I'm looking forward to the discussion period.

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The Chair: Thank you.

Now we'll go to the Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia.

Go ahead, sir.

Mr. Daniel Hill (President, Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia): Thank you. I'll provide an overview of SPARC and introduce our thoughts on taxation and spending priorities for the next fiscal year. Michael Goldberg, our director of research, will give you some of the detail.

SPARC BC, the Social Planning and Research Council of B.C., is a provincial non-profit organization that's been active for 37 years in providing leadership in public education on the issues of income security, community development, and community accessibility. Our mission is to work with communities in building a just and healthy society for all. Our organizational values express our commitment to the principles of social justice, inclusion, integrity, and learning.

We have a regional board of directors and more than 14,000 members from around the province. Whereas we recognize the high quality of life we enjoy in Canada, and that we're enjoying economic and employment growth right now, we feel there are some services that are desperately needed.

Our priorities would be to look at child poverty, homelessness, post-secondary tuition fees, and quality, regulated child care. To fund these we look at taxation. It's our recommendation that we not reduce taxes. We believe the fairest taxation is a progressive income tax based on a life-cycle approach.

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Mr. Michael Goldberg (Research Director, Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia): In terms of taxation, I think one of the things we would argue is that we're not an overly taxed citizenry, and contrary to, I think, popular media, especially what we see here locally, we believe we generally get good value for our tax dollars. That's not to say there aren't occasions when things go awry, but in the scheme of things, they represent a relatively small amount in relationship to what we get.

Reductions in taxes simply ensure that we will eventually go back into deficit and will once again see the kind of spiral in program reduction. We really encourage the finance committee not to follow the U.S. in terms of further tax reductions. We believe the U.S. experience will lead to significant long-term deficit problems and should not be followed.

There are two critical questions concerning taxation. The first concerns the relationship between what we pay in taxes and what we get in common benefits. The second is the feeling that everyone is paying their fair share of the burden, and as Daniel mentioned, we feel it's much fairer to follow taxation policy on the basis of ability to pay. Progressive income taxes with increases in marginal tax rate as income increases is fairer, compared to the use of flat-rate taxes such as consumption taxes, and the least fair form, as our colleagues mentioned earlier, is in the form of fees.

A disconnection between taxation and fees is perhaps most clearly understood--and I think it was raised in the discussion in the previous session--if we use the life-cycle approach. Such an approach, we believe, will also help citizens understand how we all benefit from the provision of publicly funded services and how our payment of fair taxes will benefit us over the long term.

We use, for example, the discussion earlier about regulated, quality child care. It's not unusual for a family to be paying $12,000 per year for an infant or a toddler--and should they have both, they can expect to spend $20,000--and over $7,000 for regulated, quality child care for a preschool-aged child.

So prior to even entering school, a family can expect to pay over $30,000 for regulated child care for each child, assuming that the mother takes the first year off through paid maternity and parental leave. During the school years, the cost of school-aged child care would be over $3,000 per year. Such a cost makes access to quality, regulated child care extremely difficult for low- and modest-income families, as you heard earlier today.

We also know that families with school-aged children can now expect to see continuing increases in school-related fees as we go through the life cycle. Those will run into several hundred dollars per year for music fees, this fee and that fee, field trips, and so on, things that, when I was a student or when my children were students, were in fact universally provided for.

We're seeing the same thing in other age groups. They have to take more out of their pockets to pay fees. Earlier, there was mention of post-secondary tuition increases and seeing student debt on average hitting $25,000 a year. Increases in medical services premiums here in British Columbia, one of the two provinces that still collect premiums, is a form of taxes, as well as increases in prescription medical payments prior to the subsidy taking effect, which was also mentioned in the previous session.

In terms of federal spending, if you think of it as a life cycle, I think one of the speakers earlier mentioned that you can spread it out over the entire life period and then use it as you need it, rather than having to pay for it at the point when often you're least able to do so.

The provinces are consistently and constantly pressuring the federal government to increase transfer payments. While we took issue with the federal government when it reduced transfer payments to the provinces in the early 1990s, we recognize that there has been significant restoration to the provinces in the past couple of years.

One of the major problems, however, is that there is no clear transparency involving federal transfers to the provinces for programs that fall within provincial jurisdiction. We believe the time has come to bring back conditionality for federal transfers. Such conditionality exists with the infrastructure program, and exists to some extent with health transfers via the Canada Health Act, but does not exist in social programs.

For example, federal increases to the national child tax benefit were clawed back from income assistance recipients in many provinces. Similarly, some provinces have not used other funding provided by the federal government under the spirit of those agreements. We heard earlier about the early childhood area.

While provinces will argue that they have met all the technical conditions, the bad behaviour of some provinces--and it's not only B.C.--has only confused taxpayers about who to approach on the disconnect between taxation and spending.

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We believe any new federal spending on transfers to provinces must include conditions that meet clearly stated national standards.

We also believe there are four critical areas for increased investment by the federal government.

In terms of child poverty, we applaud what the federal government has done in terms of increases to the Canada child tax benefit and see this as a step in the right direction. However, the pace of the increases is not sufficient to address the problem, and the amount needs to be increased to approximately $4,400 per annum per child as soon as possible. The federal government must also ensure that all families, regardless of the sources of income, receive this benefit and that provinces that reduce their income assistance rate should see an equivalent reduction in other transfers from the federal government.

Quality, regulated child care has already been spoken about extensively in a previous session. We would just remind the panel that while the early learning and care initiative provides $935 million over the next five years, in fact the national Liberal caucus social policy committee recommended much more than that, and we think the research done by that committee is much more sound.

In terms of post-secondary education, the previous speakers have again covered a number of items. Probably what's most important here is that there's significant confusion about the federal government's contribution to post-secondary education. While the announcement that there will be a separate Canada health transfer and a Canada social transfer will help make the federal contribution more transparent, we would recommend a further, separate post-secondary education transfer, again with specific conditions to the provinces that receive the transfer.

Finally, the last thing we would point out is about affordable housing. Again, there's a tremendous, desperate need here, not only in B.C. but across the country. Over 10,000 people are currently on a combined waiting list under B.C. Housing. According to the 2001 census, over 40,000 renters in greater Vancouver spend 70% or more of their income on housing.

The federal government has committed limited funds in the last budget to affordable housing and homelessness, but nowhere near sufficient to make up for the ground lost in the past 10 years.

Dan will give a quick summary.

Mr. Daniel Hill: The summary of our recommendations is this: do not reduce taxes but use a life-cycle approach to help taxpayers better understand the connection between levels of taxation and the benefits received; all new transfer payments to provinces should come with clearly attached conditions and penalties if such conditions are not adhered to; accelerate the pace and amount of the increases in the Canada child tax benefit; significantly increase the funding under the early learning and child initiative; create a Canada post-secondary transfer program; and finally, significantly increase funding for affordable housing.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you.

Now we'll hear from the University Colleges of British Columbia Consortium.

Go ahead.

Mr. Robert Buchan (Executive Director, University Colleges of British Columbia Consortium): Just as a reminder of who University Colleges is, we're a publicly funded conference of undergraduate universities who offer a wide range of baccalaureate degree programs, including in arts, science, and business, and, soon, selected graduate degrees. Just as importantly, we offer a full range of trades and technical training, which is quite unusual for universities. Each university college now has more students attending than half the traditional universities in Canada; last year, we enrolled over 113,000 students and conferred over 6,900 degrees.

Our tuition rates are about two-thirds of those of a traditional university. We cost government a couple of thousand dollars less each year per undergraduate, and our students aren't barred from the education they need by an artificial grade level barrier based on supply.

The research done here in B.C. shows that our graduates come out with the same quality levels as those from traditional universities.

In that context, we see three opportunities to look at today. One is education support for B.C.'s future job openings, which centres around recruitment or retention of PhDs; getting better results from the government's innovation agenda project on research; and exporting education services.

Actually, B.C. has quite a rosy employment picture in the future. Dr. Rosalyn Kunin released her work in the last couple of days—700,000 new jobs. When you add in the rapid transit lines, the convention centre, and then the Olympics, up to around a million jobs in this province are going to hit in the next decade.

So backing up, they are jobs that require education. When we look at what has been going on in the province in just the last year, we left 1,700 students out of university admissions who were qualified but didn't get in. We have another 3,500 in the system who are unfunded and who are purely there on a productivity basis and funded by the school. We have a high-growth cohort among 18- to 24-year-olds. We have lifelong learning, as was mentioned earlier. We're an economy in transition, where everybody has gone back to school. And we're boosting our grade 12 graduation rates here, which all adds up to a heck of a lot of students who are going to hit the system here.

At the same time, university colleges have to replace about 34% of our full-time faculty over the next few years. Our faculty is older than the B.C. workforce. The Laurier Institution pointed out that B.C.'s traditional universities are going to have to replace 72% of their current faculty over the same time period, and they get their faculty from us, among other places.

So we're hitting lots of students coming in and lots of teachers going out. In fact, in the last couple of days, you probably saw The National Post running an article on the University of Alberta offering a lot of money to attract and retain PhDs, and to teach them there. It's aimed at getting them and keeping them. A couple of days ago, The Vancouver Sun talked about the fact that one in five PhD students we're training are leaving the country, and that we're at the lowest level of PhD students we've been in the last five years. The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada says we need about 40,000 PhDs across Canada.

So we're hitting a real influx of students and a real outflow of teachers.

Our first recommendation is that the federal government could help put more professors in the classroom to create more spaces for students. In the same manner that all levels of government have worked together to provide incentives in recruiting other scarce critical occupations, such as physicians, we recommend that the federal government consider incentives to train, recruit, and retain doctorate-level faculty out here.

Number two, regarding the innovation agenda through research and development, we believe we need more research and innovation money flowing beyond the urban B.C. footprint, where it now sits with three major universities. We think that by using federal-provincial-territorial social service funding models, you can extend the innovation agenda and other research resources beyond the urban B.C. footprint. This action would relieve rural B.C. of the unattainable matching requirements it can't meet on this stuff. It kickstarts rural economic opportunities; assists recruitment of doctoral level faculty; and extends meaningful federal innovation agenda influence into non-traditional geographic areas.

To this end, we are meeting with the Western Economic Diversification people and talking to them about community learning capacity in our communities.

Skip, do you want to give an example of some of the research we need in the rural footprint?

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Mr. Skip Triplett (President of the Kwantlen University College, University Colleges of British Columbia Consortium): Some of the things we're doing in research are quite different from traditional universities, though we're doing those too. For example, at my university college we're on the cusp of an $800,000 contract or grant in conjunction with industry to look into the application of non-toxic paints in the automotive industry, and in our horticultural operations we're looking at soil-less media in order to cut down on the problem of fertilizer and runoff. Those things are happening close to Vancouver, but in an area that typically doesn't participate in a lot of the granting, like Surrey and Langley.

Those are two examples of things that are a little bit different than you would find a traditional university doing.

Mr. Robert Buchan: A third area where we think you can help us out is in an international market for education service. We're a small open-market economy that must increasingly participate in global markets to secure our well-being. There is an important international market for education services that has grown substantially over the past year. Right now, University Colleges of B.C. accepts 3,400 international students across our five institutions. Our students are from over 60 countries, and they produce an estimated economic benefit of almost $200 million in our local economies. We also carry out contracted post-secondary work in over 20 countries.

So we think the export of B.C. education is a key point in providing some economic growth. Where the federal government can help would be to do some priority branding of Canadian and British Columbian products and services as part of Team Canada activities, look at marketing programs to all post-secondary institutions to extend their reach and influence into key emerging markets, host education trade shows through the Canadian networks of embassies and consulates in selected markets, and work with B.C. post-secondary institutions to provide development funding for e-learning opportunities. In other words, the recommendation is, in consultation with us, build on the British Columbia competitive advantage and education products and services through international branding activities, marketing grants, trade show hosting, and further development of e-learning products and services. We estimate that every four international students we can get paying full freight here add another incremental domestic student to our institutions.

In summary, we represent a world-class model of 21st century education. We are cost-efficient and we maintain quality standards comparable to any university. There's no superficial supply-based access barrier to our programs. We're relevant to a lifelong learning model, with programs ranging from adult basic education, to trades and technical training, to masters' degrees, and we're located where students most need us.

We face challenges. We face large increases in student demand and community investment expectations in a tough, competitive environment for faculty recruitment and innovation funding.

Finally, in an area of declining real budget growth, year over year we must find entrepreneurial ways to increase revenue from non-government sources while maintaining our affordability.

So we're hoping you can help us in these three areas: drive the supply of doctoral level faculty through incentives and research grants, explicitly increase research and innovation agenda resources outside the lower mainland footprint, and finally, help our students with affordable tuition and increased spaces by building revenues through our world-class education products and services.

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The Chair: Now to the Greater Vancouver Gateway Council, Mr. Wilds.

Mr. Bob Wilds (Managing Director, Greater Vancouver Gateway Council): Thank you, Madam Chair. We appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to present our recommendations for your consideration.

Our council represents the interests of the major transportation service providers in this region, including three port authorities, the international airport, five railways, the regional transportation authority, the B.C. Wharf Operators Association, the B.C. Maritime Employers Association, B.C. Ferries, and the Railway Association of Canada.

Our vision is to become the gateway of choice for North America by ensuring this gateway provides cost-effective, multi-modal, transshipment of cargo and passengers. The economic contribution of this gateway to the local, provincial, and national economies has been documented to be in excess of $10 billion per year. Our gateway provides in excess of 75,000 direct jobs and pays some $3.6 billion in wages and $3 billion in taxes to all three levels of government each year.

As a council, we focused our attention on the issues that we believe have to be addressed if we are to maintain our current level of activity and have the opportunity to compete for new business against U.S. west coast gateways.

We do appreciate the recognition of the importance in growth of urban regions and their significant contributions to provincial GDP. Their tremendous growth, however, has created numerous challenges, including poverty, pollution, and deteriorating infrastructure. Our council supports the need to enhance the quality of life and to strengthen the economic competitiveness of our urban centres.

The growth and economic importance of the Vancouver lower mainland has been well documented, serving as a major gateway to and from Asia for Canadian imports, exports, and airline passengers. The tremendous growth of our seaports and airport, in addition to a significant growth in population, has contributed to growing congestion on our major roads system. The consequences associated with congestion in this region impact all of the exporters and importers who rely on this gateway for movement of goods and passengers to and from the Pacific Rim marketplace. The prairie farmers, petrochemical industry, retail outlets, and natural resource industries are dependent on a cost-effective and reliable transportation system.

Gridlock in this region has been estimated to cost between $700 million and $1.3 billion per year. Recent studies indicate our population is expected to grow by an additional one million people over the next 20 years. This, coupled with projected growth in cargo volumes, will only exacerbate an already bad situation. Greenhouse gas emissions are negatively impacting the environment and are a by-product of the serious congestion that exists. It's our view that many of these problems have resulted from a lack of investment in infrastructure by all levels of government over many years.

We recognize and appreciate the recent announcement of federal contributions toward border infrastructure improvements and the rapid transit line between Richmond and the airport and downtown.

We've been working with many partners in this region to develop a long-term plan to address our concerns that will not only benefit our region but will affect all those relying on this region for their transportation needs. Should this gateway become uncompetitive, shippers and importers will seek alternative routes through U.S. gateways. We do not see this as an acceptable or desirable alternative, and we believe the following recommendations will go a long way to assist in keeping this gateway competitive for the benefit of all Canadians.

We believe a dedicated stream of revenue must be established for capital investment and strategic, multi-modal transportation initiatives. It should be a long-term commitment with clearly defined parameters for assessing how the money is to be spent. This could be accomplished by dedicating a portion of the per-litre fuel tax to the infrastructure fund.

Transportation is an essential component of the economic health of our country, and without a strong economic base, our social programs, such as health and education systems, will be at risk.

Second, we recommend that transportation authorities such as the airport, seaports, and the regional transportation authority be permitted to issue special obligation revenue bonds on a tax-exempt basis on their own behalf or on behalf of terminal operators and lessees. These would be repaid directly by the authority from operating revenues or by terminal operators and lessees through financial lease agreements that could be constructed in such a way that terminal operators would guarantee to pay rentals over the term of the lease sufficient to retire the principal and interest of the special revenue bonds.

Third, the unilateral ability of municipalities to establish excessive tax rates on import and export terminals, which are essential to Canada's international trade, must be addressed. We have seen the tax burden on some of these facilities increase from a ratio of industry to residential of 3:1 to as high as 12:1. This not only has a negative impact on our competitiveness, but it's also a disincentive to invest in facilities for future growth. Our industry has been working with municipal and provincial officials in an attempt to address this growing concern.

While progress has been made--and we're happy to leave a copy of some recent developments with the clerk--we believe the federal government has a strong role to play in this issue since port facilities serve the national interest.

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We recommend a thorough review of this matter by the federal government, with the view of ensuring the future competitiveness of these facilities and an encouragement for additional capital investment in existing and new facilities.

Fourth, remove the current cap on commercial borrowing power of gateway port authorities and allow financial institutions to determine limits, as with any other commercial entity.

Fifth, remove the current prohibition on public investment in port infrastructure.

Sixth, we recommend that the proceeds from the sale of port lands be retained in trust by port authorities for future investment in facilities or related transportation infrastructure.

Seventh, the Vancouver International Airport, Canada's second busiest, is a national asset. We believe the current lease arrangements that provide Ottawa with $66 million and have no cap add significantly to Vancouver's cost base and are harmful to long-term competitiveness. Vancouver was one of the first airports transferred; subsequent airports were transferred under more favourable terms.

Eighth, we also believe there's an urgent need to extend fifth freedom rights to U.S. and other carriers for both passengers and air cargo, in order to afford Vancouver the opportunity to reach its potential. Vancouver has a strategic geographic advantage over its U.S. competitors, since it's closer to Asia. However, without fifth freedom rights, it cannot take advantage of this position.

Lastly, we recommend the adoption of an incentive-style capital cost allowance system that would allow transportation sectors to depreciate equipment more rapidly. This would address the imbalance with the U.S., which has a more aggressive CCA regime. It could encourage Canadian transportation companies to buy more emission-friendly equipment such as railway rolling stock.

Thank you for your attention.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Our final presenter on this panel is the Canadian Coalition of HIV/AIDS Stakeholder Organizations.

Go ahead, Mr. Boothroyd.

Mr. James Boothroyd (Programme Head, Communications, National Centre, Canadian HIV Trials Network, Canadian Coalition of HIV/AIDS Stakeholder Organizations): Thank you.

My name is James Boothroyd. I'm the program head for communications at something called the Canadian HIV Clinical Trials Network. It's based at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.

I'd like to thank the committee for offering me an opportunity to speak today on behalf of the Canadian coalition, which represents organizations coast to coast to coast involved in prevention, treatment, and research, the three principal areas of the Canadian strategy on HIV/AIDS.

I'd like to make sure everybody has the extra page I added today, which is titled “Getting Ahead of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic”, page 3. I will be focusing on it at the end.

One member of our coalition that you heard from earlier this afternoon is the British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society. Some of their comments overlap with mine, so I will skim over some of the points in our brief and move in on things you haven't heard so far.

Keep six points in mind, please, as I discuss the level of funding we believe is required for the strategy in coming years.

First, the budget of the AIDS strategy has been frozen since 1993. You have heard that already. That level was correctly deemed inadequate by the Liberal opposition in 1993. The Liberals called for $55 million back in 1993. No change in budget has been made. A decade of inflation has eroded the budget significantly, while demand for services and requirements for prevention have become more complex.

Second, more Canadians than ever are living with HIV/AIDS—roughly 55,000 estimated today. A significant chunk of that number of people don't even know they have HIV/AIDS, and you can think about the ramifications of that. That's up from 35,000 in 1994.

There is still no cure for HIV/AIDS, and it's a fatal disease. But we do know what to do to prevent new infections.

The face of AIDS has changed dramatically. HIV is now expanding rapidly into marginal populations of people. Aboriginal people, women in poverty, youth, and prisoners are several of the groups, as well as gay men, particularly young gay men. The average age of infection in 1998 had come down to 23, so this is a young person's disease.

Each new infection, according to an estimate done in 1997, costs our system $150,000 in direct future medical costs. I would submit that this is a very conservative estimate, given the escalating costs of new medications for HIV/AIDS. Where I work, the clinicians are now looking at a drug called T-20, which costs $30,000 a year per patient. That's four times more expensive than the next most expensive medication for HIV/AIDS patients.

The more than 4,000 new infections per year in Canada cost our health care system a minimum of $600 million in direct health care costs. Basically, the choice is simple. We can spend now on prevention, or we will spend more later on health care in hospitals. We can spend relatively little now on appropriate treatments and research, or we will spend much more later on hospitals and health care.

Canada has major commitments under the United Nations declaration on HIV/AIDS in 2001.

Finally, keep in mind that there is virtually unanimous support for a significant increase in the budget of the strategy. In June the all-party Standing Committee on Health recommended that the budget for the AIDS strategy be increased to $100 million. The health minister is publicly on record as endorsing that figure, and we strongly support Paul Martin's remarks in 2002 that the AIDS strategy deserves significantly increased funding.

So our recommendation to you today is that you strongly support an increase in the budget of the Canadian strategy on HIV/AIDS to $106 million. We believe this is the level of funding that will allow Canada to get ahead of the epidemic and begin to reduce the serious human, economic, and social toll of the disease.

Have I plucked this figure of $106 million out of the air? Where does it come from? No, it comes from a keystone report commissioned by Health Canada this year entitled “Getting Ahead of The Epidemic: The Federal Government Role in the Canadian Strategy on HIV/AIDS, 1998 to 2008”. It was prepared by Martin Spiegelman Research Associates, together with an advisory board with broad representation from the HIV community across Canada. This is the most authoritative analysis of funding of the Canadian strategy from the past and into the future.

º (1605)

Martin Spiegelman put forth three options for funding of the strategy. I won't go into detail on options one and two, since I don't have time—I'd be happy to answer questions about those later—but I will draw your attention to option three, which he titles “Getting Ahead of the Epidemic ($106 Million)”.

The message he argues the Canadian government would set out in funding the strategy at this level would be that it has a clear, strong, and visionary commitment to getting ahead of the epidemic, preventing its spread, and reducing its impact on diverse populations, both nationally and internationally.

The rationale is strong. It would represent a constructive and positive response to the advice from community organizations, researchers in academic institutions, the parliamentary Standing Committee on Health, and others. It would indicate that Canada is building on two decades of experience with HIV, and importantly, recent experience with SARS and with West Nile virus.

In April, many of the doctors in the front lines in Toronto of the SARS epidemic were people who work for the network I represent, the Canadian HIV Clinical Trials Network. The experience and professionalism with which they dealt with that epidemic were drawn very strongly from their experience in dealing with HIV/AIDS over a decade. That is as a result of a Canadian government investment in dealing with the epidemic.

The implications of $106 million would include enabling the government to undertake significant new efforts for which there is strong evidence of efficacy and cost-effectiveness. It would enable the government to address social determinants that increase the risk of HIV infection—poverty the most obvious one, homelessness another one.

It would head off the epidemic before it becomes inextricably rooted in aboriginal, prison, and other populations. It would allow Canada to invest in the search for an effective vaccine, and conceivably the level of funding could be reduced in time as Canada brings the HIV epidemic under control. The other options do not allow for that, I should point out. The outcomes would include heavy up-front investment to enable Canada to get ahead of the epidemic. Here we're principally speaking about preventing the disease.

It would enable virology in HIV/AIDS sectors to attract world-class researchers and retain its clinicians and biomedical scientists in Canada. My network has lost people in the last ten years owing to that sort of attrition.

It would enable Canada to achieve its CSHA goals for prevention, treatment, and care.

Finally, I'd just like to say that in 2006 Canada will for the second time host the world AIDS conference in Toronto. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if Canada could take a strong leading role at that time and show that it is addressing the epidemic both nationally and on a global scale as well?

Thank you.

º (1610)

The Chair: Thank you, all of you.

With five people questioning, I'll go to seven minutes each, and I'll start with Mr. Solberg.

Mr. Monte Solberg: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the presenters.

It's always fascinating to hear all the different ideas and different demands for funding. In a way, it poses a very big problem for us, obviously. Over the course of the day, we've had people asking for increases in health care and welfare, universities, colleges, and infrastructure, and in the last several hearings, everything from national defence to foreign aid. So there's a huge demand for different kinds of spending. They're all worthy. They're all very good ideas, typically.

On the other hand, we also have people reminding us that Canada is in a global competition to attract investment and that taxation levels are part of the mix and we can't ignore that. That resonates with me. I think that makes sense. I think we need to try to strike a balance.

I just want to take up something Mr. Goldberg alluded to and maybe ask him to expand on it. He suggested that we can't have any more tax cuts. I want to challenge that a little bit, because there was a very interesting article in the National Post a little while ago, written by Jack Mintz from the C.D. Howe Institute, where he pointed out that the Swiss, the Dutch, the Irish, the Finns, the Danes, and Icelanders have all surpassed Canada in the last number of years in terms of standard of living, because typically they cut corporate taxes. They attracted a lot of investment as a result. Because of that, their standard of living rose, and they were able to fund their social programs more adequately. And certainly I don't think anyone would suggest for a moment that, for instance, the Finns or the Danes are inadequately funding their social programs.

I just want you to respond to that and maybe react to my challenge that we have to be attentive to taxation levels.

Mr. Michael Goldberg: The issue of taxation is always one that is a trade-off between what you collect through a pool, the tax pool, versus what is paid for privately, and what services you get for that that you don't have to pay for privately. A great deal is the relationship, and that's where the competitive advantage could possibly exist.

We're often compared to the United States as an example. I come originally from the United States, and still have family there. One of the things that shocks me is that of course we don't compare apples with apples. We compare apples with something else--I'm not sure what it is.

In the U.S. I have an identical twin brother who has a family that's virtually identical to mine. His employer pays $700 a month for medical insurance. His employer pays it, so someone's paying it; it's like a tax. If your employer doesn't pay that and you're not at a certain income level, effectively you have very little medical insurance. But that's not counted as a tax.

Here we count it as a tax, and spread it over a really long period of time. His will go down as his kids leave home and all that kind of stuff; it changes. But the point is that you spread it over a very long period of time. So whether you pay for it privately or publicly, if it is a kind of common good that everyone would have and you get better results because everyone has it, then you want to do it through what I'll call a public insurance system. We'll call it taxation.

The other part of the question is how do you do that fairly? There's a raging debate that goes on, for example, about the issue of corporate taxation. I'm now coming to the opinion that corporate taxes do nothing but transfer the cost of that to the consumer and are really sales taxes in disguise. Given that they're not highly progressive, I would want to see a much more progressive income tax at the point where money comes out of the firm, rather than at the corporate level. I think there are other ways we can do it.

The point is you have to build the pool. If you want to have a universal health care system, because in the long term that benefits all of us, and you want to have a universal child care system, which I would argue is probably the best investment we could make--we're foolish that we haven't done it in the last twenty years--then you have to put that money into the pool over the spread of the life cycle.

If you want to be able to have pharmaceuticals regardless of your income status at the end, because in the long term it saves you money, then you have to be able to build that pool. I think the fairest way to do that would be through ability to pay and a progressive tax system that also probably takes into account household income, not just individual income.

º (1615)

Mr. Monte Solberg: I want to follow up on that. Right now, we mentioned earlier today, the top 10% of income earners in Canada pay 50% of the income tax. I'm worried that if we push this too much the goose that's laying the golden egg will just fly away.

I want to point to something else you've touched on. It's true that in the United States they provide health care through private funding, so that needs to be taken into account. But it's also true that in the United States they spend more per capita on public health care than we do in Canada, although they distribute it very differently. They also spend way more on national defence, rather obviously, about 3% GDP; we spend 1.2% GDP. But they are able to do all of that and have a much lower level of taxation. How can they do that, except that they have a much broader tax base, and they have a much broader tax base because they have in place the right incentives over a period of time to attract investment to their country?

I'm not arguing that we should be like the United States in what our social safety nets look like and that kind of thing. What I am arguing is that we need to be attentive to taxation levels and incentives to invest if we want to start to provide proper funding for things that are important to Canadians.

Mr. Michael Goldberg: I think what you're raising can end up becoming a mug's game of a race to the bottom rather than a race to the top. And I'll use again the example of my brother in the United States. While they have very much lower taxation, and my identical twin brother earns more than I do and pays a lot less in taxes than I do, what he discovered--he lives in the Los Angeles area--is there's no public transportation that's worth a damn down there, so he has four cars. I have one. We know what a car costs, so he's laying out about $15,000 more a year in transportation than I am. I'm getting that covered in part through our public transit system. He pays $700 a month for health insurance; his employer pays it ,but at some point his employer won't pay it and he'll have to pay it or pay $350 when his kids leave.

Also, because of the risks associated with carjackings and other things on the freeways in California, all of them have to have a cell phone for protection. When you start adding up all the costs.... In fact Peat Marwick Thorne did this when they did some comparisons of B.C. before our tax reductions and Seattle after their tax reduction, and they found out when they added up all the apples and oranges, and everything that goes into the fruit salad, that you had a family with a $107,000 income in the U.S. being about $300 bucks ahead of where they were in B.C.

The question is what's the fair way to collect it, and then how do you deal with your investment things? That's why there's the question of what do you do with corporate taxation when it stays in the corporation and grows the corporation versus when it's taken out for individual consumption. These are the trade-offs. They are trade-offs.

Other countries do have much higher levels of different mixes in the taxation system than we have and do public goods in common more than we do, Finland being a good example.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now we'll hear from Mr. Discepola.

Mr. Nick Discepola: I don't really have very many questions. I agree with most of the presentation, but I wanted one clarification from the Greater Vancouver Gateway Council. When you say “extend 5thFreedom rights to US”, can you explain what that means?

Mr. Bob Wilds: It allows a foreign carrier who has a route--for instance, Cathay Pacific has a route from Hong Kong through Vancouver on to New York--to pick up Canadian passengers in Vancouver and transport them to New York. Air Canada has one from their flight from Vancouver through Honolulu to Sydney.

º (1620)

Mr. Nick Discepola: On recommendation number nine, quite a few people have testified in front of our committee, and we made the recommendation last year to revamp the whole capital cost allowance. Something I'm having trouble with in doing it--and I think we have to look at it--is if you took two companies, identical companies, and looked at the balance sheets, one with accelerated capital cost, one without, what would skew the two comparables?

Mr. Bob Wilds: It would probably be the age of the equipment and the ability of it to meet the newer standards and improve productivity.

If the incentive is to write the equipment off much quicker and replace it, then it would allow the companies to have state-of-the-art equipment on a much faster basis than ours allows us to do, because the depreciation is over a much longer period of time.

I have a financial man with me who can probably answer that far more capably than I can.

Mr. Nick Discepola: I've wrestled with this in my own mind. I find that it really just gives you a false representation. You have extra expense over a shorter period of time. So in essence you're making less profit.

Mr. Brad Eshleman (Vice-Chair and President of the B.C. Wharf Operators Association, Greater Vancouver Gateway Council): What it does is allow you to write off your asset over a quicker period of time, so you get a better return on your asset over the long period of time; and like Bob said, you can replace it.

Mr. Nick Discepola: I don't follow that at all. I have reasoned that if you are leasing equipment, then when you lease it the leasing company factors in the capital cost allowance and the rates and you benefit that way.

I don' t understand why everybody wants this. I am just trying to rationalize in my own mind what the pros are, because you are not the only one. We have looked at it, but I believe firmly that maybe it's a red herring; I don't think it's going to improve productivity at all.

Mr. Bob Wilds: We believe it will, obviously, but even if it didn't and it improved the ability of a railway, for instance, to buy state-of-the-art engines that would reduce emissions, or allowed the trucking industry to convert their fleets much quicker and go to state-of-the-art engines in their fleets to reduce pollution, is that not a significant advantage right off the bat? If they can depreciate equipment much quicker, then they can turn it over much quicker.

Mr. Nick Discepola: I don't have any other questions.

The Chair: I'll turn it over to Ms. Leung.

Ms. Sophia Leung: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to ask a question of Michael from the Federation of Students. We are all fully aware of the increased costs for college tuition and the financial demands on students. As a matter of fact, last week I saw a group of representatives from universities across the country who came to Ottawa and to our post-secondary education committee. We had a very good discussion.

They specially pointed out they feel the student loan is not quite sufficient to meet basic needs, and they requested an increase. Also they mentioned that the student study grant is quite low and requested an increase. Would you agree on those two points?

I'm going to ask a few questions, and then you can answer them.

I'd like to ask Michael Goldberg one. It's good to see you here.

In your recommendations, which are interesting, you suggest that you want to separate the health transfer from the social transfer. You also suggest a separate Canadian post-secondary transfer program.

This of course points to a question about accountability. It does not just depend on the federal government. There's a certain amount of agreement and negotiation. Do you feel maybe you should also work a lot more on the provincial government on that subject? I think in Ottawa we're already speculating and talking about a separate post-secondary education program transfer.

The third question I want to put to Dr. Triplett. You mentioned international educational marketing. Yes, that has been very popular. Recently I took a group of MPs to Taiwan. Almost annually there are other countries to visit. I think our local Canadian economic representative's office could help.

I just wonder in what way you feel.... Literally it's international competition. I agree it's a very good marketing goal if you can gain contracts. As a matter of fact, there's a great deal of interest from other countries, especially in Asia. They really believe Canada provides one of the best educations.

I'd like to go back to Michael. Would you comment on what I asked? Thank you.

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Mr. Michael Conlon: I'll answer the easiest and quickest question first.

In terms of the Canada study grant, we're certainly in agreement that it is a good initial first step designed to help Canadians with a disability and women studying in programs in which women are traditionally under-represented.

I think the point that needs tweaking around the Canada study grants is the income cut-off. The argument is that it's simply too low, especially for a person with a disability. The individual, by and large, needs to either be in poverty or slightly above the poverty line to qualify.

I know some of the data from HRDC show the pickup on that was lower than expected, and I think in part it was an issue of communicating that the benefit was there, but more importantly, it was that the income cut-off was too low.

We would ask for an expansion and a change in the income eligibility. I think that would make it a more effective program.

The issue of loan limits is a difficult and tricky one, one that we as an organization wrestle with all the time, because there are a large number of our members whose needs are not being met by the Canada student loan program--their basic day-to-day needs, paying tuition fees, and paying rent. I would say this is most especially the case in urban areas, in particular Vancouver, Toronto, and Ottawa, and to a slightly lesser degree in Montreal. In some of the other communities it's not quite as acute.

It's our position, to be blunt, that increasing the loan limit is essentially a safety valve that will be only a temporary solution to the real problem of underfunding. Our fear is--and certainly the position of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada doesn't give us a lot of comfort on this issue--that the increase in loan limits will be swallowed up, if not immediately, then within a year or two, by increased tuition fees. The argument made for increased loan limits is a certain fatalism about increased tuition fees.

So it's our view that increased loan limits will not really improve the lot of students.

Our position is there should be grants, rather than loans. Just to reiterate what I said in my opening remarks, it's vital, I think, to communicate to the committee that student debt, by definition, is a regressive way of providing access to those with the lowest income. Because they come to the table with the least, they borrow the most, by definition. And though it is only a small minority of students in the $40,000, $50,000, or $60,000 category, we know from how the Canada student loan program works that those are the poorest Canadians.

It's our position that increasing loan limits will not address the accessibility problem. We would ask the committee, if it has a mind to do so, to recommend it be non-repayable assistance.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Michael Goldberg: The reason we raised that is I would venture to say that if you asked most Canadians how much money the federal government transfers to the provinces, they would say, “They do?” They may say, oh, yes, for health, but they wouldn't recognize that close to 20% of all federal money goes to the provinces. And beyond health, which has grabbed everything lately, if you said how much do you think they spend on other things, like post-secondary education, for example, outside of maybe some research programs, they wouldn't be able to answer that.

So I am convinced, having watched the period from the sixties to the seventies, the virtually unconditional grants in this latter period, that we need to go back to the conditionality we had. I know the provinces are going to be really angry if you do that. They will not be happy with you. But I think the provinces have behaved badly. They are the ones not playing by the rules, and anywhere else, if you don't play by the rules, you get a penalty. The provinces need to be penalized. It's not just this province. Virtually every single province has been fudging the game, so to speak, and their argument is, well, we're already putting in so much more, why do you care how it goes?

I'm saying for those things that cross borders—that's the reason you have federal transfers—you want to know that it's being spent for the purpose it was intended, in spirit. Forget all these technical arrangements. You know, in the early childhood development, which came up earlier, the Ontario government was able to say, well, we spent the money on early childhood endeavours or early childhood development. And yes, I guess if you throw up some PR and give people information, you can say you spent it under the rules—technically—but that wasn't the spirit of what that agreement was about. They behaved badly, and they should be penalized.

Our province is doing the same, and they should be penalized. And you have the authority. Under federal spending authority you can do it. Now, whether you're willing to do it is a different issue, but you have the authority to do it.

º (1630)

The Chair: Thank you.

Dr. Triplett, for a last comment.

Mr. Skip Triplett: Thank you.

It's good to see you again.

Part of the answer to your question, I think, is on page 9 of our brief, so in the interest of time I won't go over those four items.

To be more specific about Canadian economic offices overseas, international education is a very competitive market, and I think Canadians and the federal and provincial governments need to pay more attention to education as a clean, sustainable export activity that Canada is well placed and well respected for around the world.

Where some of our international competitors have an advantage, in places like Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, for example, is the ease with which foreign students can get visas, and supplemental to that, the ease with which they can work once they are in the country and availing themselves of the education. While that's out of the purview of this committee, those are two areas we're continually working on with the federal government.

Another area that would be particularly useful to the university colleges of British Columbia is around branding, and we talked about that a little bit. Much has been said today about the rising costs of education. If you look at the university colleges of British Columbia, we are on average about $1,000 a year lower in tuition per undergraduate than the B.C. average--even farther below the national average--and we cost our provincial government around $3,000 less per undergraduate in government grants. Part of the reason we're able to do that is our product mix, if I can use that word. We are not as heavily involved in research; we're not research-intensive. We do it, but we're teaching-intensive. It's also because we're very effective at undergraduate education. So we think we are a more cost-effective answer to some of the problems of enrolment that were talked about earlier.

A second factor is our entrepreneurism. We have been pushing very hard in the area of international education, but people don't know about us. Even our colleagues at the end of the table talked about four degree-granting B.C. universities. Well, in fact there are five university colleges that are degree-granting, but we're not well known. That could help an awful lot.

Thanks.

The Chair: Thanks very much.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

I have a question that's been building all day, and I think Michael Goldberg, whose presentation I thoroughly enjoyed, is just the person to answer it.

Here's my concern. We've been talking a lot today about transfer payments. Whenever we do, the Liberals tend to jump in and start to say, “Well, there's money for this and money for that, but the provinces are the problem; the provinces won't spend the money according to the requirements of the program.”

It seems to me that the first thing we've got to deal with is the way in which the federal Liberals cut the heck out of our transfer payments back in 1995, and to start from the point of view that we've got to revisit that part of our history and find a way to convince the new government to be, the new Prime Minister in waiting, that this is the opportune moment to reinvest in social programs.

So is that not the first challenge we face as a finance committee? Then secondly, if we're going to deal with conditionality, we've got to deal with a Prime Minister in waiting who's not exactly known for being a federal centralist, and in fact is known for being a weak and vacillating champion of federal power, as some have said. People are warning that an abattoir awaits the national government under a Martin prime ministership.

So I think we've got to deal with some very serious issues here around transfers—

º (1635)

Mr. Nick Discepola: Could you cite your quotation?

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Sure, I'll be glad to. It's University of Regina political sociologist J.F. Conway, who says that Mr. Martin is the antithesis of Mr. Chrétien, that he believes in treating provincial premiers as equals. He warns that an abattoir awaits the national government under a Martin prime ministership.

Mr. Monte Solberg: I can give you some quotes about him too.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: But you get my question. Here is the concern, and maybe you can give us some advice.

Mr. Michael Goldberg: First, to be fair, the history of federal-provincial relations is a really long-term one. It was exacerbated with the introduction of the CHST. It goes back to the capping of the CAP in 1989 under the Mulroney government, which broke an agreement. When we appeared before this committee back in 1989 in Ottawa, we said it was going to have a whole bunch of unintended consequences that weren't even planned, that it was going to really fracture the role of the federal government. It has done that. You could see that coming. But it's emerged over a long period of time.

To be fair to the current government, most of the cuts in direct funding to the provinces in this last round have virtually led to.... We're now at where we were. They've restored it.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: We're back at 1995 levels.

Mr. Michael Goldberg: We're a little bit above 1995 levels.

The health area, health care--not health, but health care--has become like a black hole. It will just absorb dollars. It's just a gigantic black hole for some reason. We need to address how to get rid of the black hole.

Most of that is to make sure you do it in the prevention end, rather than at the curative end. Everything is directed at the care end, and very little is.... In fact we're seeing huge reductions in the preventive effort. I think that's backward thinking. Public policy should think in about twenty-year cycles, not four-year election cycles. It's a real problem for all politicians.

Gordon Campbell the other day, when he was down in the United States meeting with Dick Cheney, was asked whether with the upcoming federal election he is concerned there'll be a delay in the softwood lumber agreement, which is a big concern here. He made the comment that politics shouldn't override good public policy. That was interesting coming from him. I thought it was a fascinating quote.

I would say the same thing is true for the federal government vis-à-vis the provinces. The government and the citizenry need to be clear.... I think the big frustration you're hearing is that as citizens we pay the taxes and we feel like we're caught in a game where no one wants to show leadership or vision about what their respective roles are. The federal government has very clear roles it can play via its spending authority. If the provinces don't want to come into that game, given the bad history of the last 15 years, the federal government has the authority to act if it wishes to. That's good public policy. It may be bad politics, but it's awfully good public policy.

The Chair: You have two minutes left.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: I have two quick questions yet.

First of all, to the Canadian Federation of Students representatives, I think what you're saying--we've heard this before--is that we have to somehow convince the federal government to get away from funding this sort of hodgepodge boutique of programs and get back to the idea of a cash transfer for post-secondary education, which would help in terms of lowering tuition, and it should be complemented by a grant program to help deal with the escalating costs and the bankruptcies that are occurring among students with debt loads. How do we do that? Where do we start?

Then for James Boothroyd, the same question I asked an earlier presenter: What do we do about this current situation of the federal government looking at allowing generics to help with AIDS in Africa but not lifting the patent laws here in Canada? What do we do in terms of that issue?

Mr. Michael Conlon: Thank you. I have two very quick points in response to your point.

First, as we pointed out in our longer brief, one of the things that is somewhat absent from the dialogue is that the federal government is actually spending a substantial amount of money in post-secondary education. The vast majority of it right now in terms of student financial assistance is actually through tax credits. We make the argument in our paper that those who earn the most are seeing the highest benefit from those tax credits, and it seems to us an odd way to encourage access among those who are either at risk of not being in the system or who are among that very large portion of Canadians at the bottom end of the income spectrum who will never cross the plane of the door of a university or college.

So from that standpoint we feel there is money in the system that could be reallocated. But I think it would also be disingenuous to not suggest that in terms of core funding, if we are to address the capacity issues and the deferred maintenance issues that our colleges and universities are facing, we will need more federal funding, but funding that is traceable and is spent for the purposes for which it was meant.

As we make clear in our brief and in our comments, the Millennium Scholarship Foundation is a textbook example of how not to do that. It's been a disaster, and it hasn't helped nearly as many students as it was supposed to. It's really quite unfortunate.

º (1640)

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Nick Discepola): Thank you.

She does it all the time--takes up all the question time and then we have no answer time. Quickly, please.

Mr. James Boothroyd: Just in response, I'd say that I suspect that members of my coalition would applaud the Canadian government's efforts. Most members of my coalition would applaud the efforts in arranging for patent changes to allow the provision of cheap pharmaceuticals to Africa and other countries in desperate need.

I don't know whether there would be a strong consensus in dealing with the patent laws nationally, because there are different interests represented, so I can't really speak to that point. But I would say this: the Canadian government has made an unprecedented commitment to fight HIV/AIDS at the national as well as international level. To date, it has not honoured that commitment; it's rather embarrassing where Canada comes in terms of its funding for the global fund for fighting HIV/AIDS.

We know exactly what we need to do nationally to at least honour the commitments Canada has made for fighting HIV/AIDS in our own country; there's a very strong consensus on that. The Standing Committee on Health has given some pointers, too.

Thank you for your question.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Nick Discepola): Thank you.

Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the presenters.

Mr. Buchan, I'm interested in this concept of branding educational services and marketing them internationally. I wondered if you could expand on that and explain it. Are these for-profit services, or is it a matter of trying to sell more seats internationally in the university college system in British Columbia?

And why hasn't this been tried before? Team Canada has been around. Is it a matter that you need subsidies to participate? And in terms of the missions and trade shows abroad, why isn't that possible right now?

Mr. Skip Triplett: “For profit” is a bad word, because we have no shareholders who get dividends. However, we are charging full costs to international students, and those costs include sufficient revenue to make sure we're creating more seats for domestic students. So, as Robert said earlier in a general sense, every four international students we have will allow us to put one more domestic seat in the classrooms. It's partially a matter of attracting more international students to Canada; yes, that's true.

Incidentally, some research done by KPMG in Kamloops, if I recall correctly, estimates that an international student will bring some $20,000 a year into the local economy.

We are also looking at developing Canadian degrees and offering them overseas, so that people do not have to emigrate, and people who cannot emigrate, for one reason or another, can still avail themselves of a Canadian education. Again, we are charging full costs there, so that does help us to alleviate the costs of tuition to local students.

With respect to the trade shows and Team Canada, we have had some opportunity to go on those, but I think what Robert is arguing is that its priority be higher, that education not be seen so much as a tag-along, as I said earlier, but as an export industry in its own right.

Mr. Roy Cullen: I know that in my riding I've worked with Humber College, which has a very good program, with students from China. It works very well for them.

As far as Team Canada is concerned, I guess it's the amount of subsidy that should be looked at. Although we read in the papers that Team Canada missions may be disbanded, I wouldn't put a lot of merit on that. If you want to go on a Team Canada mission, I don't think there's anything inhibiting your group from going, but there is a cost, because you have to pay the freight—and it's not cheap.

So are saying that you need some kind of support for that? Is that correct?

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Mr. Skip Triplett: That's correct.

Again, if you have the money, yes, you can go on it. But the university colleges and our colleagues in the colleges, who are equally reliant on this, typically don't have the same kinds of budgets as the major universities, so they're not able to avail themselves of the opportunities to the same extent.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Okay. Thank you.

Mr. Wilds, there's been a lot of discussion—and it's been a major issue internationally—of security in our ports and airports. Is that an issue in terms of your ability to create and expand this gateway? I know there was a Senate report on our ports, which I didn't quite agree with, that said so. But how is that changing your objective and what you're trying to achieve?

Mr. Bob Wilds: Obviously security is going to be a significant issue, particularly after 9/11. Because we trade so much with the United States and many of the vessels call here, whether they call here first or call here after the United States, we are going to be bound by the U.S. rules on the required notice for containerized cargo and all those kinds of things.

The port authorities are expending considerable amounts of money, as well as the terminal operators locally, and putting in place significant security measures that will comply with the federal government's requirements. I believe most of them will have to be in place by July of next year, if I'm not mistaken.

We are making progress. One of the significant disadvantages we have here in Canada is that, as you know, the United States is spending billions of dollars on security at their port authorities, whereas here in Canada, under the current legislation, the federal government is not in a position to put any money into the port authorities, because it's prohibited under the Canada Marine Act. We have been asking for changes in the Canada Marine Act to remove that prohibition so that our federal government can do in this country many of the things that our competitors are doing south of the border.

So it is an issue for us. We are taking steps to address it. There are provisions being put in place by all the operators around the port and the port authorities in the lower mainland.

Mr. Brad Eshleman: I would just add that I'm president of the B.C. Wharf Operators Association, and one of the big things we're looking at is that on competitiveness on a global basis for our export commodities, we may have to add a surcharge or a security tax surcharge on the client who's shipped through the terminals.

In the U.S., they're getting federal moneys to pay for security costs they're facing. As Bob mentioned, here in Canada there are no federal moneys available, and the costs are being pushed down to the terminal operators, who are having to expend millions of dollars in new security measures on their terminals.

That cost will just have to be added onto our export costs, which goes to decrease the competitiveness of the commodities we export to the world market, rather than having it paid for under a national security program, which we believe should be the case in Canada, as it is in the U.S.

Mr. Roy Cullen: I gather that any changes to the Canada Marine Act are coming up within the next year. Do I have the timing right or wrong?

Mr. Bob Wilds: All the hearings have been held, and I believe all the recommendations have gone to the Minister of Transport. I don't believe it has been translated into proposed legislation as of yet.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Okay.

Mr. Bob Wilds: So it's in process, but time is of the essence.

Mr. Roy Cullen: There's a lot of legislation that's in the queue right now. That's probably one of the challenges.

Mr. Bob Wilds: Yes, the Canada Transportation Act, the Canada Marine Act....

Mr. Roy Cullen: Could I just switch gears for a moment? In budget 2000, I think it was, the federal government made it more feasible to create what I'll call “duty-free zones”, by easing up on some of the restrictions with respect to the GST. There has always been the ability to get duty deferred, but now there's the GST. That's one of the things that I'm hoping our committee can report, because even though that was enacted in 2000, the departments are still working on the regulations to allow for the operators to set up these duty-free zones.

Given Vancouver's location in relation to the Pacific Rim, is that something you've looked at that could add some value here? Is it something you're familiar with or are interested in?

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Mr. Bob Wilds: Yes, we made some representations to the federal government on that in support of the airport authority's recommendations for the free trade zones here. We believe there are real opportunities here. As I remember, the proposed legislation and our recommendations were that these be allowed to be placed on only airport and port lands in the initial legislation. I believe that's still the case.

There is a great interest in wanting to pursue those here, and we think there are some real opportunities for that.

The Chair: Did you have one final question?

Mr. Roy Cullen: I don't know how much time I have. I wanted to get into the student debt business, but I think it's far too long and complicated.

The Chair: With that, I'm going to thank our witnesses. We're very happy to have the experts who come before us and help us in our deliberations. We appreciate the time you put into your briefs, your testimony here, and answering our questions.

With that, I'm going to let you go. I thank you, not only on behalf of the members of our committee who are here, but those who are working in Ottawa today.

We will suspend for five minutes and start the next panel. Colleagues, we're not starting that panel at five o'clock, but five minutes from now, because there's an extra witness.

Thank you.

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The Chair: We will continue with the pre-budget consultation hearings, pursuant to Standing Order 83(1).

We have had a long day, but we want to hear from you in this final panel.

Joining us from PIVOT Legal Society is Kat Kinch, a legal researcher. Welcome, Kat.

From Community Based Full Employment, we have Peter Robinson and Michael Kreeft. Welcome to you.

An individual presenter, Marco-Fabio Procaccini, is not here yet. Perhaps he will be joining us a bit later.

From the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre, we have John Nightingale, president. Welcome to you, sir.

We have two members of B.C. CEDAW Group, Christina Davidson and Bev Meslo. Welcome.

And from the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, we have with us Shelagh Day, who is a steering committee member and director of the poverty and human rights projects.

We'll go in the order in which you are listed on the agenda, with up to seven minutes each for your presentations before we go to our final rounds of questioning.

Go ahead, Ms. Kinch.

Mrs. Kat Kinch (Legal Researcher, PIVOT Legal Society): Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, and thank you for hearing us today. My name is Kat Kinch, and I'm here to speak on behalf of PIVOT Legal Society's committee on the sex trade.

This year our committee initiated a project in preparation for the upcoming parliamentary hearings on Canada's prostitution laws. We collected almost 100 legally sworn statements known as affidavits from survival sex trade workers, asking them what they had to say to government about the laws that affect them.

The majority of the participants were women, most of whom live or work in Vancouver's downtown east side neighbourhood, and aboriginal people were substantially over-represented in the group.

It's important to be clear that survival sex work is distinguishable from other areas of prostitution. A survival sex trade worker is understood to be someone who sells sex in order to meet basic subsistence needs, who lives in poverty, and has few or no other options to earn enough money to survive.

It is critical that this committee understands the context of survival sex work in Vancouver, where over 60 women have gone missing from the downtown east side, where a man stands trial for 15 of their murders, where thousands of people are facing the complete loss of their social assistance entitlements in April 2004, where legal aid for poverty law and family law has been decimated, and where housing costs and conditions for low-income groups have reached unlivable levels.

What is most relevant to the Standing Committee on Finance is the evidence that sex trade workers swore about poverty and lack of housing. In effect, Canada is depending on the survival sex trade as an insurance scheme, as a source of income replacement for depleted social services.

The federal government has itself relied on the survival sex trade to meet what are ultimately government responsibilities and national concerns. This is unconscionable and is an outright violation of human rights.

This is an insurance scheme unlike any other because it is criminalized. People who need to turn to the trade to meet their basic needs face the regular threat of murder, violence, sexual assault, and lack of public protection for those dangers. One of our expert participants told us this:

“Every time you do a date, you run the risk ofbecoming [HIV] positive. You run the risk of gettingsome kind of disease. You run the risk ofsome kind of violence.You run the risk of notcoming back, period…You run the risk of gettingbusted. You run therisk every time you do a date, and now you haveto do five times as many.”

While the Standing Committee on Finance is not called upon to address the criminal laws, poverty and inadequate social services fall squarely within your power. When you're considering how to exercise your power, you might start by asking, why are sex trade workers running these risks?

A key factor is inadequate social assistance. This is not just an issue of provincial government choices. Your own documents describe your job as preserving Canada's social safety net to ensure that it remains sustainable for those who need support now. You do this through transfer payments to the provinces. More money needs to be transferred by the federal government in the first place so lower levels of government have sufficient resources to do a good job of social assistance.

In Vancouver a shelter allowance of $325 a month often doesn't cover rent. Support money makes up the difference, and then there isn't enough left in support money to cover food for the month. The following is from one of the affidavits:

“I struggle financially all the time. I am on regularwelfare, I get $490 and my rent is $450. That leavesme $40 for the whole month, which must cover cigarettes,food, and transportation. My rent is higherthan welfare would like it to be because I have myown bathroom and the place has no tolerance fordrugs. I would like to live elsewhere but cannotafford it.”

No matter how well you budget, no adult can survive on $10 a week. A reasonable person in that position will certainly take measures to ensure her own survival. In order to have food, to have a level of dignified living, working in the sex trade is a measure a reasonable person might take, even knowing the risks.

It is important to note as well that the survival sex trade can rarely be characterized as a reliable source of income. In the downtown east side a date will yield as little as $5 to $20, and prices will be driven down as more women lose their other sources of income.

As of April 1, 2004, in B.C. social assistance recipients who are considered employable will see their benefits terminated completely if they have received social assistance for two years out of every five. Recipients with other designations, such as single mothers with children under the age of three, won't be cut off but their rates will be reduced.

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Where is the government's leadership role in saying that these actions are entirely unjust and entirely dangerous? If insufficient social assistance drives survival sex trade, drastic and arbitrary ineligibility for social assistance narrows the options for more and more women.

We call upon the federal government to take a stand on how harmful, how fatal, the situation has become.

My final point today is that the broad responses to poverty that are required, which include increased transfer payments, conditions set on those transfers, and appropriate social housing measures, which are detailed in our written submission at length, must also be coupled with consultations with survival sex trade workers themselves. They are by far the best experts on their own needs. Engaging with them in an accessible and respectful manner is a key step for the federal government to demonstrate that it truly intends to care for all Canadians.

Thanks for your time, and I invite any questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now we'll hear from Community Based Full Employment.

Mr. Peter Robinson (Community Based Full Employment): Good afternoon. My name is Peter Robinson, and this is Michael Kreeft. We represent Community Based Full Employment.

CBFE is a tool for creating and sustaining a healthy economy. To accomplish a healthy economy, it is our belief that developing the potential of people at the bottom of society should be the first priority. The rest of the economy should be built on that.

We make the case that this is in contrast to the current approach, in which the power of those at the top is the primary focus. In that sense, society is attempting to be built from the top down rather than from the bottom up. It doesn't work in construction, and we suggest that it doesn't work with economies either, at least in the long term.

We are operating from a belief that a primary responsibility of government is to build a healthy economy. Please look at our diagram, which contrasts the top-down and the bottom-up approach.

I draw your attention first to the yellow band in which we talk of basic government expenditures. This band is being squeezed from both the bottom and the top at the present time. The difficulties that we have experienced in the past are only going to be made worse in the future unless something significant comes as a change within the pressures that exist in squeezing this sector.

I'd now point to the return on investment for political contribution. These come in the form of tax cuts, government contracts, loans, grants, and favours. Tax cuts are said to be a step toward economic health. This has not been proven yet in either the U.S. or British Columbia. The return on investment from political contributions is escalating, and for most exceeds any other way of investing money.

Another point about the return on investment is that it is intended to attract investment. If the economy is healthy, that will be strong enough to attract investment, so we don't have to rely on providing a return on investment for political contributions. Opposite that, we note that within this in the bottom sector, focus is put on criminals, non-taxpayers, and terrorists.

Now, use this drawing to think of any government worldwide. Obviously, our focus is on Canada. Our terrorists are not severe, but the criminal element is not unknown in Canada, and many of the leaders in the criminal element can well be in the top economically. But their primary focus is on recruiting people who will carry out their beliefs in either criminal or terrorist activity. They are fed well when we leave a significant level of unemployment available for them to pick from, and as unemployment takes place they build up their health.

So what happens is that as this gets squeezed, as unemployment builds, this circle of criminal, non-taxpaying, and terrorist activity grows healthier. If you look at other countries, you can see where this circle at the bottom is just about the whole of the economy.

In British Columbia we have “B.C. bud”, and that is a very significant activity within this corner of the world, a major player in our economy. And it is all down in this corner. We are involved in providing education and medical care for these people, but the taxes are not there to meet them.

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As this builds, we start spending more and more money in what we refer to as the extra military and security costs, and that one starts to grow and push on the centre.

The underemployed and unemployed become greater as the economy goes down. The difficulty in this is that an awful lot of people who are involved in this section down are young people. So we're building a tomorrow that isn't all that attractive.

I'd also point out that the answers to the economic difficulties within this drawing come in the form of deficits, which in the United States will equal half a trillion dollars in the coming year. This is a primary issue in the increased value of the Canadian dollar.

What has happened is illustrated well. If you think in terms of Bill Gates moving his wealth to Canada a year ago, if he had, he would have $12 billion more today because of the increased value of the Canadian dollar.

That has come about as a result of deficit structuring, to a large part, in the United States economy. We can't talk in terms of deficits being the answer, and neither is the more current practice of selling future revenue sources a big answer for solving shortcomings in the budget.

So it does do the job in the short term. We had a period of time in the summer when we thought we might be losing the Kokahala Highway as a future revenue source. That, fortunately, has gone by. But for example in Washington State, immediately to our south, they sold ten years of tobacco revenue for a bond that produced money for their budget last year. That is just a fancier way of borrowing money into the future, and it is not an acceptable way of balancing a budget.

I just want to go back to the text of what I was saying. It's essentially our argument that with the top-down approach, you will continue to deal with the difficulties that come with a squeeze on basic public expenditure. Adopting a bottom-up approach would in the long run relieve that pressure and benefit those from the bottom all the way to the top.

Now, for the real-world examples of the potential and successes of bottom-up thinking, you don't have to go any further than British Columbia itself. The rural summit, held in Clearwater this summer, was a conference of representatives--small-business owners, local politicians, first nations representatives, and concerned citizens--from rural communities across the province who got together to discuss how to invigorate their struggling economies. The summit's guidelines for the future demonstrate strong bottom-up values, such commitments as--and I take this from their website--involving the marginalized in our communities at the outset and removing competition from our “moving forward” vocabulary. As a whole, the summit cast aside ideology of left and right in favour of commitment to an underlying set of mutual values, starting with the most in need.

In an international context, you may be familiar with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which offers micro-credit, very small loans, in order to give the poor some assets on which to build legitimate economic lives. This program has been highly successful, with some 2.6 million Bangladeshis currently involved.

In Peru, priority was given to a bottom-up approach in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and membership in the terrorist organization the Shining Path declined from 80,000 to around 200. Since then, a top-down approach has been readopted, and unfortunately the Shining Path has regained influence in the country.

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The Chair: Mr. Robinson, your time is a couple of minutes over already. I'll give you one sentence to wrap up.

Mr. Peter Robinson: I'll make reference then to three books that I believe would really build your understanding of the importance of the bottom-up approach. They are The Other Path and The Mystery of Capital, both by Hernando de Soto, and Modern Jihad, by Loretta Napoleoni, in which she argues that as the legitimate economies weaken, the new economy of terror becomes stronger.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Now to the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre. Mr. Nightingale, this is your turn.

Mr. John Nightingale (President, Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre): Thank you.

I'm John Nightingale, the president of the Vancouver Aquarium. I want to thank the members of the committee for this opportunity to present our thoughts on the aquarium and its role in Canada.

I'd like to focus on three areas. The first is the aquarium's vision for conservation, one we think we share with many Canadians. The second is our focus on multi-level partnerships, including those with government. Then I'd like to address planning for a future in which thriving institutions like the Vancouver Aquarium play an increased role in society.

Simply put, our vision is one of the sustainable use of our aquatic and ocean resources. We foresee government working with non-profit institutions such as the aquarium as we endeavour to ensure future prosperity for all Canadians while at the same time striving to ensure the highest quality of life for all of us. We believe that both economic prosperity and the quality of life will be improved by ensuring a sustainable future for Canada's vast aquatic resources.

Our vision is one in which more and more citizens take part and take pride directly in preserving the country's natural legacy, while those same natural environments provide a sustainable living for more and more Canadians.

Recognized by the Canadian government as Canada's Pacific national aquarium, the Vancouver Aquarium is the only institution of its kind in Canada, a country with the world's longest coastline. Simply put, we have more ocean than any other country in the world.

As Canada's Pacific national aquarium, the Vancouver Aquarium has assumed a tremendous responsibility to Canadians. As a world-recognized leader in education, marine science, and direct conservation, we help make Canada a country known for our vast, unparalleled natural resources. We simply are the envy of the world to many other countries.

In 2006, the Vancouver Aquarium will be 50 years old. The institution was given life initially in 1956 by the relatively small capital investment of $250,000, shared jointly by municipal, provincial, and federal governments. Since then more than 30 million people have visited the aquarium--more than any other environmental or cultural institution in western Canada. Since then, the aquarium has become a unique example of a non-profit institution receiving no annual operating funding from any level of government. The aquarium is self-supporting.

The resulting entrepreneurial culture has allowed our non-profit aquarium to accomplish many things. We've created educational programs that are admired and used in institutions throughout the world and aquatic research that provides major breakthroughs directly benefiting species, habitats, and societies.

We specialize in providing exceptional opportunities where Canadians and visitors alike can connect with living animals at our facility in Stanley Park, inspiring them to begin taking better care of our ecosystem.

The Vancouver Aquarium is working in partnership with many government agencies and corporations, particularly agencies like DFO and Parks Canada, in establishing marine protected and marine conservation areas.

Our specific role is to develop some of the new sciences needed to monitor and maintain MPAs and the communication skills and infrastructure to communicate the importance and necessity for them to the general public. We work with Environment Canada on many levels, including recovery plans for species at risk, species such as the leatherback sea turtle and killer whale, and on climate change programming for public awareness.

Working together, the aquarium responded to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans last year by helping in the rescue of Springer, the orphaned killer whale, transporting her from the U.S. to Canadian waters and successfully reintroducing her to her family.

Working together with our partners, we try to bring life to education and conservation programs that positively affect our marine and aquatic environments for generations to come.

Our partnerships extend to corporations such as B.C. Hydro, Alcan, TD Canada Trust, and other Canadian corporations that realize that education and understanding are the greatest tools we have in establishing a way of life that works in concert with our environment. Those programs include things like the B.C. Hydro salmon stream in Stanley Park, which opened in 2000. It's a fully functioning salmon stream in the midst of Canada's greatest urban park. Four million people a year get to walk by and learn about the salmon's lifestyle and begin to think more about its role in B.C.

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After eight years of growth, the great Canadian shoreline cleanup is poised to become Canada's largest environmental event. Because of the leadership and innovation developed by the aquarium, each September tens of thousands of Canadians from coast to coast and in all provinces and territories turn out to help clean up the shoreline. This program, supported by TD Canada Trust, sets records year after year, and this year saw more than 600 shoreline sites and over 500 kilometres cleaned up. As important as the marine debris cleaned up, and what is really important, is that 20,000-plus Canadians got off their sofas and stepped out and started to make a difference.

In 2006 the aquarium will celebrate its 50th birthday. As I noted, we are a world leader in conservation, education, and environmental communication. However, we are also the single largest tourist attraction in western Canada, with 900,000 visitors annually. In our most recent study, in 1996, which we are currently updating, the calculation shows that the aquarium contributes over $80 million each year to the local economy. In addition, we provide 220 full-time jobs and a volunteer program for about 600 people, including 175 youth volunteers, and work experience for innumerable students in high school.

We have conducted an extensive study to determine the extent and costs of the physical plant renovations and renewals needed to ensure that the aquarium is viable 25 years in the future. A team of architectural engineers working with a construction firm was asked the question: how can we rebuild and revitalize the aquarium while we stay open and operating and financially viable? They have come up with a program to do that in a series of phases. I'd like to share with you some of the highlights from that document, which I think you have in front of you.

A new research wing, for example, will provide us the opportunity to continue our pioneering research, but it will greatly expand our ability to showcase our science-based discoveries at the same time. The resulting new environmental solutions, many of which have an industry application, will be applied increasingly to aquaculture business development, for example; so, too, will a new discovery education centre and a vibrant B.C. coast exhibit, and so on.

In conclusion, I think we have proved over 48 years that the aquarium's financial model works. We don't need operating funds. What we do need is some assistance with capital revitalization, because while we are excellent in the community at raising funds for new exhibits and new programs, most of what needs to be revitalized is one and two storeys down and is simply not attractive to private donors. It's basically the basement, if you will.

So we are working diligently with the federal government to address those needs, and wanted to bring them to the attention of the committee.

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The Chair: Thank you very much for that presentation. We have your deck also, on the priorities there.

From BC CEDAW Group, Ms. Davidson, please go ahead. The floor is yours.

Mrs. Christina Davidson (Member, Mosaic BC, BC CEDAW Group): Good afternoon.

My comments this afternoon are going to be brief, because you already have our written submission that outlines our position.

The federal government has a special duty to the women of Canada. The Charter of Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, and Canadian human rights legislation legally oblige the federal government to ensure and protect women's equality throughout Canada. The equal treatment of women in Canada is a guarantee that the federal government made to all the citizens of this country and to the international community. This guarantee is paramount and supercedes any jurisdictional issues or boundaries for legal, if not moral, reasons.

At the heart of the federal government's undertaking to women and equality is the understanding that substantive equality or real equality is only truly achieved by developing and sustaining initiatives, services, and programs that create the opportunity and capacity for women to be equal citizens. To think otherwise is to pay mere lip service.

Since the repeal of the Canada Assistance Plan, social programming that enhances and protects women's equality has significantly eroded and created vast disparity across the country. The resulting backwards slide of women's equality is recognized not only by women and men in Canada, but also by the international community. The United Nations committee that oversees compliance with the convention recently expressed concerns about the adequacy of key social programs, their impact on women, and Canada's compliance with the treaty.

In my work, providing legal services to low-income immigrants and refugees, I have seen an increasing number of women living in poverty who have no access to services and benefits, either because those services and benefits no longer exist or because the requirements to get such services have become seriously restrictive. For example, I have seen women who have been physically abused by their partners unable to get legal assistance for obtaining restraining orders, custody, and support since legal aid in British Columbia for family matters was drastically cut.

I have also seen many more women who are clearly disabled denied disability benefits from the provincial Ministry of Human Resources. In fact, two of my recent cases involved women who are victims of terminal cancer. Neither have financial resources, and yet they have been refused not only disability benefits, but regular income assistance. To add to this already desperate situation, they are not able to get adequate home care support to assist them with daily living tasks or sufficient medical support. I honestly fear that these women will die alone in their misery as a result of Canada's lack of compliance with its treaty obligations.

No one can take comfort by thinking this is a problem of a few unfortunate women falling through the cracks. Let me be absolutely clear. This is about an ever-larger number of women living in poverty without access to advocacy, social benefits, and programs, or such limited access and levels of assistance that survival is their only occupation. This is about an alarming number of women who will not have the capacity and opportunity to become equal partners in Canadian society, because there is nothing in place to help them do that. This is about Canada's failure to comply with its promise of women's equality to Canadians and the international community.

The federal government can give real meaning to their promise of women's equality by devoting increased funding to women's programs, by attaching conditions to transfer payments to provinces that reflect their obligation and commitment to the women of this country.

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The federal government should also designate funds specifically for effective national monitoring of Canada's compliance with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

Thank you.

The Chair: Now I'd like to hear from our final panellist this morning, Ms. Shelagh Day.

Sorry, this afternoon. It has been a long morning.

Go ahead.

Ms. Shelagh Day (Director, Poverty and Human Rights Projects; Steering Committee Member, Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action): Yes, I know, it's hard to tell what time of day it is or what day it is, but this is Vancouver at five o'clock.

I appreciate your fitting me in at the very end of the day. It's very kind of you.

First of all, I'd like to say I'm here for the Canadian Feminist Alliance for International Action, a coalition of 40 women's organizations from across the country. Our goal specifically is to ensure that Canada complies with its international human rights obligations to women, and to everyone else in the country. We consider these human rights obligations extraordinarily important because they express the values of Canadians and the ones that all Canadian governments have embraced.

In 2003 the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women reviewed Canada's fifth report on its compliance with the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. FAFIA submitted a report, and so did the BC CEDAW Group. I recommend both of those reports to you, copies of which have been given to this committee, because they set out in detail the areas where there are deficiencies and the major concerns of women across the country.

The committee issued its concluding comments at the end of January and has made 24 recommendations to Canada. We have given you copies of those recommendations in French and English, which we ask that you look at with concern, in terms of thinking about what should be in the next federal budget.

The CEDAW committee has found Canada to have a long list of deficiencies with respect to compliance with its treaty obligations. These range from a very high concern with the situation of aboriginal women, to deficiencies in immigration law; to concerns about refugee women; to inadequate unemployment insurance provisions; to the continuation of the live-in caregiver program, with its requirements that women live in the houses of their employers; to inadequate legal aid for civil law and family law; to inadequate social housing; to lack of access to constitutional rights; to inadequate measures to combat violence against women; and to inadequate anti-poverty strategies to address the high rates of poverty among women. I might say, these poverty rates are shocking to the CEDAW committee, considering how wealthy a country Canada is.

At the centre of the concerns of the CEDAW committee and, I must say, other United Nations committees that have recently reviewed Canada, including the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Human Rights Committee, is the question of the impact of the diminishment of social programs in Canada specifically on women.

For just for a minute, I want to say why the diminishment of social programs is an issue of particular concern to women, and why it must be thought of as a women's equality issue.

Over the last 50 years, social programs in this country have been an extraordinarily important egalitarian force. It is still the case that women are assigned the role of being the unpaid caregiver for children, for older people, and for people with disabilities; they take up a lot of caregiving slack in society. When we have public programs, they shift some of that responsibility onto public programs and give women a greater opportunity to engage in education and employment. It gives us women more autonomy, more independent income, and the ability to make more choices freely. When we take those away, we shift back that greater burden of unpaid caregiving. In addition, we are also cutting good jobs that women have had in the public sector, which are caregiving jobs with good salaries and benefits attached to them.

So we make a very big contribution to women's equality by having solid social programs, and we make a very significant impact on women's situation in the society when we in fact begin to diminish those and say that our commitment to social spending is different now, and we are taking it away.

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I want to point out to you two recommendations of the committee in particular. At paragraph 351 and 352 in the CEDAW concluding comments, they recommend specifically that the federal government reconsider the changes in the fiscal arrangements between the federal government and the provinces and territories and reattach conditions to the transfer of moneys so that in fact there can be national standards set that will ensure state-wide compliance with the treaty obligations Canada has and that will in fact ensure that there is a provision of social programs consistent across the country that actually meet the commitments we've made to women's equality.

The second recommendation I would point out to you is that in paragraphs 357 and 358 the committee comments specifically on high rates of poverty among women in this country and recommends that there be anti-poverty strategies directed specifically at women. I think this is important, because in terms of federal transfer payments, it's very important to ensure that the moneys that are being transferred actually go to dealing with the vulnerability of women and the high rates of poverty among women.

So let me just close by making these five recommendations.

First of all, we are not interested in tax cuts. Tax cuts are not an equality-promoting measure. Tax cuts at this point in fact will crystallize in place the diminishment of social programs and the negative impact that has had on women. It will keep, then, the diminished level of social contributions to social programs in place.

Second, tax cuts don't have the same benefits for women that they have for men. Women's incomes are significantly lower than men's. It was mentioned earlier in the day that the wage gap between men and women is increasing. That is true. We are now, on a full-time, full-year basis, making about 73% of what men earn, but if you look at women's and men's incomes from all sources, women's incomes are still only about 58% of men's. I think that's a really significant thing to understand in terms of what women's incomes actually look like in Canada.

The third thing I want to say about tax cuts is that if you give us tax cuts we cannot go out with our tax cut dollars and buy equality. We can't buy a regulated child care space. We can't buy another nurse who helps us not have the burden of unpaid caregiving. We can't buy the things that actually make a difference in terms of equality for us. We can go out and buy a television set, but we can't go out and buy a social program that we actually need.

The second recommendation is that we do need investment in social programs. It's really important right now.

Third, we do want conditions reattached to the transfer of payments. B.C. is a perfect example of what happens when in fact those conditions are not there. We have seen social programs in this province destroyed in the last two years, and women are suffering terribly.

I've been here a good part of the day. You've heard only a tiny part of it. It's a real devastation, and it has a terrible impact on the lives of women.

If there aren't conditions attached to those transfers, women suffer. We need those conditions reattached.

Fourth, we want to see money set aside in the upcoming budget specifically to deal with the deficiencies that have been identified by the CEDAW committee. Canada has obligations. It cares about being seen internationally as a country that is sensitive to human rights. In order to deal with these deficiencies, we need money that actually is allotted to dealing with the deficiencies that have been outlined in the CEDAW concluding comments.

Fifth, as has been said before, we need funding for an adequate process to monitor Canada's compliance with its international human rights obligations, both in the short term and in the longer term.

Thank you.

» (1735)

The Chair: Thank you for your presentation, and thank you also for supplying the CEDAW report. I think that's very instructive. A lot of MPs, even though we know we're there, never get to see the finished results after the fact, so I appreciate that.

Now we'll go to rounds of questioning, starting with Mr. Solberg for seven minutes.

Mr. Monte Solberg: Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to all the presenters.

I want to start by asking Ms. Day, Ms. Davidson, Ms. Meslo, or Ms. Kinch perhaps about a very specific point. It has to do with aboriginal women. My understanding is that even today, aboriginal women are not always equal in the eyes of the law with respect to property rights in the breakup of a marriage.

That's not in your brief--at least I didn't see it. First of all, maybe you want to give me a bit of background on that and tell me why on earth that has not been addressed. Why is this not a higher priority? To me, it's just amazing that this is not an issue.

Ms. Shelagh Day: It actually is a part of the report we made to the CEDAW committee, a major part of it. It also appears in the recommendations of the committee.

I'm trying to find the paragraph for you. I think it's in paragraph 361.

The committee specifically said to Canada that they believe Canada is in violation because of this failure to deal with the division of matrimonial property on reserve. We do have some very specific things--this is not the only one--where in fact the law overtly discriminates against aboriginal women, and we haven't cleaned this up.

It's one of those things where family law about the division of matrimonial property is provincial law. Reserves are federal jurisdiction. The federal government has not picked up the responsibility for ensuring there is law that applies on reserve. So in fact, aboriginal women living on reserve are the only women in Canada who do not have access to the division of property at the time of marriage breakdown.

Mr. Monte Solberg: May I ask a question about that? Bill C-7, I think it is, the native governance bill, which I think is probably going to die now, did not address that, if I remember correctly. Were you able to appear and address that issue before the committee?

Ms. Shelagh Day: We did not specifically, but others did. As I understand it, the governance act simply required the band to put some regime in place within a certain period of time. But that doesn't necessarily mean that aboriginal women are going to get a regime that actually respects their equality. So what aboriginal women are now saying to the Senate committee, which has taken up this issue, is that the federal government has a fiduciary duty to aboriginal women and that it must exercise that fiduciary duty in such a way as to ensure that aboriginal women on reserves actually have the same access to matrimonial property law.

» (1740)

The Chair: Just as a point of information, Mr. Solberg, that Senate committee is sitting now. That's an area that they are examining.

Mr. Monte Solberg: Thanks very much.

Time is so short.

The Chair: And I will give you that time back.

Mr. Monte Solberg: I was counting: there were seven or eight seconds there.

There are so many issues, but first of all, just one small point with respect to tax cuts. You touched on this to a degree, but I do want to make a case at least that when people are being taxed at $8,800 or whatever it is now, obviously if you have an annual income of $13,300 for aboriginal women, or $19,350 for non-aboriginal women, you are still paying tax on $10,000 worth of income that could be used for important things, such as the purchase of food.

I take your point, but I wanted to simply make that point: that the basic personal exemption in Canada is not where it is in other countries, and as a result people on the low end of the income scale are the ones who pay the highest price. Relative to their incomes, the amount they could get would be a lot of money to them. So I only make that point.

Ms. Kinch, maybe you can address this, or whoever would like to jump in. You talked to us today about social welfare and how difficult it is for people on the low end of the income scale. The flip side of that is unemployment. We have an 8% employment rate in Canada today, which is relatively good to where it was a decade ago, when it was like 12%. But still millions of Canadians are unemployed and underemployed. What that means is the rest of us do very well--we put money in RRSPs, and everything goes along swimmingly--but people at the low end of the income scale, and this starts.... Maybe Mr. Robinson would like to comment on this as well. The problem is that 92% of people do well, so people tend to forget about these people at the low end.

If you come from a privileged background or have all kinds of academic skills or whatever it is, the unemployment rate being 9% or 10% doesn't really bother you. You do well. These other people just can't get out of the hole they are in.

I'm wondering if you could address that, and talk a little bit about what we could do to ensure that these people not only have a social safety net in terms of welfare when they need it, but also can get a job, so that they also are able to go and express themselves through their work, which I think is important to the dignity of every person.

The Chair: We'll start with you, Ms. Kinch, and then maybe Mr. Robinson and then Ms. Day.

Mrs. Kat Kinch: I have a couple of points. The first is that we really noticed in doing our project that there is no question about how hard the women we talk to are working. They are working all day. They have to make a big effort to get their food in their life. I just want to make very clear that this is a tough job. The only difference between the source of their income and the source of yours or mine is that ours isn't criminalized. So when you are working in the survival sex trade the possibility of being targeted, being vilified--not just even being forgotten, but being condemned for the very work you do--is extremely real.

Mr. Monte Solberg: Well, I guess if they had other options that would be a good thing, right?

Mrs. Kat Kinch: Right. I think we should look at the reason other options aren't being fruitful. This economy, as it's currently constructed, has big systemic trends of gendered and racialized poverty. We need to look at how discrimination operates. We need to look at how harassment operates. We need to look at how stigma operates.

If you're identified even as a welfare recipient, you're going to have a pretty tough time walking in the world as an equal citizen. If you're also identified as a survival sex trade worker, the degree of social marginalization you experience is extreme.

I would really hesitate to make too much of an issue of the individual wherewithal being a problem here. I think we need to look across the country as much as possible at what we're doing to push these people to the margins. The criminal laws are a big part. The lack of a federal leadership role in social programming is a big part too.

The Chair: Mr. Robinson, did you want to add something?

Mr. Kreeft.

Mr. Michael Kreeft (Community Based Full Employment): I just want to say that the basis of where we're coming from, the bottom-up thinking idea, is to address these people's needs first, which you might argue is a fundamental idea behind how a government works in any case. We think the first thing you need to do is recognize that these people have potential as people. They aren't a problem; they are humans just like all of us, with good and bad. What we want to do is focus on giving them hope and building up their potential.

The way we see it happening now is we approach a problem such as this and we say, well, here's some sort of tax break or some sort of social program, which typically comes from a mindset that says we have an answer to this problem, and then we present it to the people who are affected by it and try to make the problem fit the answer. What we're saying is let's go to those people and try to make the answers fit the problem, as opposed to the problem fitting the answer. That's what we're saying.

Some sort of tax break or something like that may be a band-aid cure for them, but it doesn't address the emotional problems they have, which is the fundamental thing that brings these people down.

» (1745)

The Chair: We're significantly over time, Ms. Day. I'm going to let you make a brief comment here.

Ms. Shelagh Day: Thanks. I'll be quick.

I think there are three points here. One is, as you said, we actually have structural unemployment in Canada, which means there never are enough jobs for everybody. One of the things I think is really unfortunate is that instead of saying that's the case, what we do is blame all the people who don't have jobs as though they are somehow bad. They are disposable people because they don't have jobs. But we have a society that is based on structural unemployment, so 8% 10% of people--it goes up and down--are going to be unemployed. Why do we think they're bad, when in fact we have constructed our economy that way?

That's point one.

Second, having a job in this country doesn't get you out of poverty. If you make minimum wage for 40 hours a week, you can't make in any jurisdiction in this country a poverty-level income, right? So we say to single mothers, “Go out and get a job. Don't be on welfare. It's a bad thing for you to be.” She goes out and she gets a minimum-wage job, and she still can't support her children on that job.

The third point is that one of the things we're doing right now, which just seems to me so bent, policy-wise, is we are saying to people who are social assistance recipients that they can't receive social assistance and go to school, when we know--I mean, all the studies show us--that the best way to get yourself out of poverty and off social assistance is to go to school. In this province, the number of people who are taking adult basic education is going down. So people who care about the things that actually bring people up to a position of being more able to find a job that's more suited to their skills and talents...those things are going away. And we are telling the people who are on welfare: (a) you're bad, and (b) we are going to punish you and we're not going to do the things that will actually make a difference in your opportunities.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Cullen.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the representatives.

I have a couple of questions.

Mr. Robinson, on this idea of a bottom-up approach, I suppose you could call the pre-budget consultation process a bottom-up type of approach to budget building. I don't know if you'd agree with that or not.

When I read your material you mentioned a Mr. Hernando De Soto. In fact, I've read The Mystery of Capital and I met him when he was in Toronto not too long ago. I haven't read The Other Path, but I'm going to put that on my list. But the example there surely is more for a developing economy where you're looking at property rights as being a way to lever capital and start businesses. I think the point he makes is that this is an untapped source of capital that is actually huge. I'm wondering, how did that apply to an economy like Canada, or are you using it just as a proxy for a bottom-up approach to dealing with public policy issues?

» (1750)

Mr. Michael Kreeft: Yes, that's the primary thing. De Soto's examples are very centred on the developing world, and it shows how bottom-up thinking works in that context. Our problems are different. We are developed in different ways. What we are saying is in the long run a bottom-up way of thinking will improve our economy. I think just by talking to people I know, and from what I see in the media and everything, the general feeling is that things are more on the downturn than the upturn. This points to a systemic problem, and what we are saying is what we need to do is change our mindset in initially approaching the problems across society as a whole, which we have elaborated on as bottom up and top down.

So to conclude, De Soto does talk about the developing world, but what he has done is taken the bottom-up thinking and applied it to that model, and what we'd like to see is that we take bottom-up thinking and then apply it to the western Canadian model.

The Chair: Mr. Cullen, you have more time.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you.

Mr. Nightingale, you talked about your capital program. Who are you talking to, which department, and where are those discussions at?

Mr. John Nightingale: We've been talking to our B.C. MPs, who very correctly pointed out that capital doesn't just magically appear out of thin air, even in Ottawa. It comes through various particular programs, many of them federal-provincial programs.

We have worked with, and are continuing to work with, CFI, and we have worked with the federal-provincial infrastructure program. What we need to explore is some way to deal with a larger block amount over the next few years as we need to rebuild piece by piece.

Mr. Roy Cullen: Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Wasylycia-Leis, and then we'll go to Mr. Discepola.

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

I enjoyed all the presentations, but I would like to focus on women's equality issues, or, as someone said at an earlier panel, the equality deficit in the country today, and perhaps Paul Martin's focusing on the democratic deficit might take a turn at the equality deficit with the same enthusiasm.

I think FAFIA's contribution to our debate has to be acknowledged in our report somehow, somewhere, whenever we do it, not only because it gives us a way to help address Canada's lack of compliance with this important UN convention but also because I think it gives us a way to get back some sort of focal point within the federal government on women's equality issues, something that is gone.

We had so much hope and optimism back in the seventies and into the eighties around the women's equality agenda, and it just seems to have disappeared. We have tried to get gender parity on reproductive technology support. We couldn't get it. We tried. We tried to get the new immigration and refugee legislation to consider the gender impact. We couldn't get it. There's just no driving force right now within the government to do that.

First of all, my question to you, Shelagh Day, is, is there a chance that through the mechanisms you suggest we can accomplish that kind of focal point within government, and what are the reasons for the loss? Is it that the right-wing agenda has succeeded in convincing the world that women's issues are a special interest concern? Is it that the federal government thinks equality has been achieved and therefore the job is done? I don't know. Or is it the women's movement? Have we failed in any way? So that's one question.

Then I'd like Bev Meslo, who is here representing NAC, to talk about the loss of funding for NAC and what that has meant for creating that extra-parliamentary voice, and how will NAC survive the present crisis, or what can be done?

The Chair: I think we'll start with Bev Meslo because Ms. Meslo hasn't had a chance to talk yet.

Mrs. Bev Meslo (Member, National Action Committee on the Status of Women – BC Regional Society, BC CEDAW Group): They gave me a really big one, since I haven't had a chance to talk yet.

I am here actually representing the National Action Committee on the Status of Women – B.C. Regional Society, but in that capacity I would be more than happy to talk about the devastation of NAC and the devastation of a voice at the national, international, provincial, and community levels for women.

Number one, the lack of financing, the cuts to finances, the lack of accountability by governments to women, the lack of interest and concern around the fact that women have never reached equality in Canada, and with a narrow neo-liberal agenda have in fact started running very quickly in reverse, just add to the frustration of women and women's groups. Add to that the information you have received so beautifully from Sheila, so wonderfully from the FAFIA group, and through to the B.C. CEDAW group, and it proves to you that women right now are in dire straits. They're in devastating straits. Right now they are so concerned about survival, about not losing the jobs they have or trying to acquire one they can't get access to, not losing their children, not having their children apprehended because they can't afford to keep them even if they are a member of the lucky working poor, that what is left over, the actual energy that is left over, for them to speak and to argue and to fight at a provincial or a national or an international level, with no support from the system at all, with no financial support from governments or NGO organizations at all, is almost non-existent.

They're absolutely devastated. As Kat has mentioned, from women on the street right through to women in other countries, women are being actively pursued, actively quieted, actively hidden away with the neo-liberal agenda.

My specific point here today is because the NAC B.C. Regional Society is in a very unique position. I left the downtown east side this afternoon where I was handing out clean socks and warm coats to women who are working the streets, which Kat was talking to you about--actual human beings I can name you, that I handed clean socks to today. I left that meeting to come here because the NAC B.C. Regional Society is also a member of the CEDAW group, which is also then a member of the FAFIA group, which also goes to the United Nations and speaks of this on an international level.

So the NAC B.C. Regional Society's position is that we know intimately, from an individual homeless woman's perspective on the streets of the downtown east side through to the United Nations level, that women are suffering in the world, in the country, and specifically and especially, as pointed out within the CEDAW recommendations, in the province of British Columbia. We need the federal government to take back responsibility for its obligations through treaties, conventions, and agreements signed at the United Nations. We need the federal government to prove to women that that wasn't just a mere opportunistic photo op, that there are going to be teeth in these agreements.

They have to take back the responsibility and quit side-stepping it by handing over money to provinces with no ties or obligations attached to them. Without those ties and obligations, women suffer; women and girls and children will die without a forced obligation on the provinces from the federal government to comply with agreements that were signed by the Canadian government on behalf of the people of this country at the United Nations level.

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The Chair: We're out of time, but, Ms. Day, I'm going to give you an opportunity to add if you wish.

Ms. Shelagh Day: I understood one question to be whether the FAFIA reports and the CEDAW concluding comments can be a focal point for starting back on the road of dealing with the matters of women's equality. I believe they can. I don't think they are the total answer, but I think it's very important to respond to what a United Nations committee says to Canada.

As I say, I think we take our status in the world as a human rights supporter seriously, and one of the things that's really important about that is that we take it seriously in fact, in terms of living up to it at home.

Through Minister Augustine we have said to the federal government that a cross-departmental, cabinet-level process is required here. The recommendations cover a huge range of subjects; consequently, there needs to be a cabinet-mandated process to begin to respond to this adequately.

Of course, the budget is maybe the most significant part of how the federal government responds to this. If it doesn't respond by putting dollars behind its obligations to actually begin to fix deficiencies, then it's clear there isn't a commitment there. So I do think it's a beginning on this.

What are the reasons for the loss of commitment and the loss of action on women's equality issues? I don't think I can answer that. I think it's a very multifaceted answer that we have to give to that. But it is very obvious and of extraordinary importance that for a number of years we have not heard women mentioned and we have not heard in budgets that commitments are being made to women's equality and that decisions are being made with women's equality interests in mind.

I think that's a very important step that can be taken.

¼ (1800)

The Chair: You have the final comment, Mr. Discepola.

Mr. Nick Discepola: Thank you, Chair.

You may not have heard it, Ms. Day, but I can tell you quite honestly, there's an awful lot of discussion in caucus, and I don't think there's one budget where an awful lot of colleagues don't get up and clearly dictate to the Minister of Finance that any budget impact always be viewed through the lens of women's equality. So it may not be visible, but I know he is very aware of it, and I just want you to know that.

I'd like to touch on one theme that has resonated all afternoon--all day, as a matter of fact. Surprisingly, it's coming from out east. We don't hear it in Quebec too often. I think Ms. Meslo was more eloquent than not. That is the requirement that any new funding given to the provinces be tied conditionally. I agree with it. The trouble is, as a politician, I have a hard time with how to enforce it. I'm not sure how to enforce it, because as we saw with the Romanow report, the first thing was that the provincial premiers all got together and said, no, they condemn this or that because the federal government is encroaching on provincial jurisdiction.

Another presenter before you said we should actually even invoke penalty clauses if they don't meet their commitments. I don't know how we can do that. Until one of you spoke and said there should be no reduction in taxes, I thought maybe we could do it through the tax system, whether it's increasing the national child benefit, increasing the GST tax credit, increasing the exemption, or I don't know...something.

But I'm not sure we can actually dictate to provinces. Maybe the best thing for us to do is just give them the money and then, through public pressure such as your groups, ask for accountability and over time we will achieve it.

I don't know if you want to make some comments on that.

The Chair: Who would like to start?

Shelagh Day, and then Ms. Kinch.

Ms. Shelagh Day: I guess my initial response to this is that the federal government used to do it, so the question is, what has changed?

You can do it. You did it under CAP, and you do it under the Canada Health Act.

Mr. Nick Discepola: But under CAP it was easy. One dollar was matched for one dollar of expenditure, so it was a very easy, tangible amount. We had no real conditions.

Ms. Shelagh Day: Yes, you did have conditions. In fact, there were conditions in the Canada Assistance Plan that said what the money was designated for and what the national standards were with respect to social assistance, and they were very clearly laid out. It also provided an ability, because it was a piece of legislation, for people in provinces who knew that in fact those standards were not being lived up to, to go to court and to sue under that piece of legislation. So it makes a very big difference.

The federal government has done it and can do it again. I think the problem here is a matter of political will, and that's what we're trying to speak to here. It's not that it can't be done.

One of the things we're concerned about is that in fact the federal government and the provincial governments now seem to be speaking to each other, but not necessarily speaking to the people.

I know provincial premiers won't like what we're proposing at all. They will object on precisely the grounds you're talking about, but I think you need to hear what women are saying. We're saying, don't listen to our provincial premiers about this particular thing, because we have interests at stake that we think are more important than federal-provincial jurisdictional lines.

We think the federal government has a leadership role to play here with respect to certain values and standards that have to do with our commitments to equality, that require you in fact to do more battle with the provincial premiers than has been done over the last decade about these specific things.

¼ (1805)

The Chair: I have to give you a couple of minutes, and I'll let Ms. Meslo wrap up at the end of the time. Go ahead.

Mrs. Kat Kinch: I just have two points, and I'll try to be succinct.

You said over time, but I think time is a luxury that maybe we enjoy and that there's an immediacy of need that cannot be denied. If you want some inspiration for the political will to go into battle with the provinces, I think you should really consider consultations with the people who are directly affected by our whole social service regime.

We met women who were feeling extremely empowered by the possibility of offering legal statements and being treated as experts; they want to talk to you.

We just found out that the committee considering the solicitation laws has decided not to come to Vancouver. We have something like 100 legally sworn affidavits, and we have a good proportion of those people who want to sit down with parliamentarians to explain their needs. They know what they are talking about, and if you don't feel inspired after sitting for a couple of days with them and hearing what they have to say, my optimism would be shattered.

I'm not an expert, but they are the experts, and I would urge your colleagues on the other committees to really make an effort to have accessible grassroots consultations. You'll have no problem feeling inspired to enter into the battle with the provincial governments.

The Chair: Ms. Meslo.

Mrs. Bev Meslo: Sheila has done an excellent job of explaining to you that there once were regulations, stipulations, and obligations for the provinces. They have gone missing; the teeth have been removed. So I won't even bother with that.

And Kat has told you there is an absolute need to listen to the voices right down on the ground, because these people can't get up to this second floor.

What I will say above and beyond that is that the federal government seems to do very well when it wants to reach the people with a federal plan it supports and wants to see done. The millenium scholarships managed to get down to us grassroots folks at university, and so did the aid plans for fires and floods and everything. When the federal government wants to connect with people and get a photo op, they seem to find a way to do it; so there is no excuse for them not to find a way to support women.

Above and beyond that, one of the quite simple things the federal government could do is to afford women in provinces a challenge program that would support them in challenging their provincial government at a provincial legal level, as they can and should be doing at the federal level. That is one of the things the government could do.

The Chair: Thank you very much, and that's the end of our session today.

Mr. Monte Solberg: Before we conclude, I just want to congratulate Mr. Nightingale on his aquarium. I know I had a chance to say this before, but I ran out of time.

I just want to say, as an Albertan and a Canadian, it's a fantastic aquarium. I hope you are able to acquire the funds you need to continue doing what you do so well.

The Chair: With that, I will adjourn for the evening.

Colleagues, we have extended your checkout time to 1 p.m. tomorrow. We'll be back here at 9 o'clock.

To the panellists today, I also want to thank you on behalf of the colleagues who are in Ottawa. We cannot afford to bring everybody out, but it was important that we got our money in a budget.

Just so you know, part of the reason is that chairs like me actually have to fight for their share of a small pool of money to take their committees on the road. When bills, like tomorrow night's bills...and there are votes going on now. We don't always get to do everything we want to do either. There's a budgeting process around everything, and consultation is one of those things. We think it's pretty important to come and do the outreach here. We're glad we're here.

We are adjourned for the evening. Thank you, everyone.