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Results: 1 - 15 of 27
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 14:36
Thank you very much.
I would like to thank all the members of the committee for inviting our organization to appear today. It is truly a pleasure for me to be with you. This is the first opportunity for our organization to be heard before you. I look forward to the opportunity to interact with you.
I would like to introduce myself. I am Simon Telles, president of Force Jeunesse. I have been involved with the organization for over four years. Coming out of a crisis like the one we've been experiencing for a little over a year, it's especially important to get involved.
Force Jeunesse is a nonprofit organization that was founded in the early 2000s to improve working conditions for young people, but the organization's mission has expanded greatly over time. It is made up of young volunteers, mainly between 18 and 35 years old, who come from different backgrounds. Some are young professionals in the health and education fields and others are students. In short, Force Jeunesse is a coalition of young volunteers who want to get involved and present concrete proposals to improve public policy.
Our mission hinges on three main axes: defending the rights and interests of youth, ensuring a certain intergenerational equity in public policy, and promoting youth engagement and the place of youth in decision-making spheres.
On a daily basis, we hear a lot of prejudice expressed about young people. In my experience, however, our youth are quite supportive, determined, and engaged.
It is true that, coming out of the COVID-19 crisis, our youth are weakened. Therefore, it is important to show special concern for them in all policy and program decisions put forward. One need only think of the very significant job losses experienced by young people, who often work in more precarious fields. In addition, compared to the rest of the population, youth have much more worrisome mental health indicators and higher rates of psychological distress. In short, young people already face many barriers in their daily lives, and these are even higher for minority youth. The crisis we just went through only accentuates these inequalities.
We are not experts on all the areas addressed in the federal budget, but we looked at it through the lens of intergenerational equity. There were four items that particularly resonated with us, and those are what I'm going to talk about today. They are mental health, federal health transfers, the environment and climate change, and finally housing.
Let's start with mental health.
As I mentioned in the introduction, young people have been particularly affected. So we are pleased to see that the budget has provided $100 million over three years for those most affected by COVID-19, including youth. The challenge now will be to get that money on the ground quickly and to increase access to psychological health care for young people, because that's what we're finding to be most lacking right now.
What we are concerned about is that youth group insurance, whether for students or workers, determines whether or not a young person has access to mental health care. For us, this situation is not acceptable. We must find solutions that will guarantee all young Canadians access to mental health care.
Many proposals are possible, but the one we favour is universal access to psychotherapy. In Quebec, we already have access to universal drug coverage. In Canada, we have access to universal health care almost everywhere. For us, it would be completely consistent and logical for mental health care to also be covered for all Quebeckers and all Canadians.
The second topic that is of great concern to us is the issue of federal health transfers.
This topic has been the subject of much discussion in the news over the past few months. We note that across the country, the population is aging and health care costs are rising faster than other government spending and the economy. In addition, the COVID-19 crisis has exacerbated the situation and exposed the vulnerabilities of our health care system. Additional investments in health transfers are therefore urgently needed.
We note that health care spending is placing increasing pressure on provincial public finances. The federal government's share of funding for the system is declining, because the growth in federal transfers is not keeping pace with the growth in provincial health spending. We are therefore disappointed that the budget did not provide for an increase in health transfers, even though this is a unanimous demand from all provinces. There are few issues that bring us together to this extent, but this is one of them.
This is a real issue of intergenerational equity. You might think that young people are less concerned about health because, statistically, they have fewer health problems, but it's quite the opposite. If we don't take steps now to ensure that the health care system is adequately funded, it is our generation that will be faced with agonizing choices later on. Access to health care is one of the foundations of our social model.
The other topic I'm happy to talk about is the environment and fighting climate change.
When young people are asked what issues matter most to them, the environment and fighting climate change often come out on top. That really resonates with me. So we're very pleased to see that in the federal budget, a significant amount of funding has been dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There is a $5 billion investment over seven years. This is a step in the right direction.
That said, we believe even more needs to be done, particularly to reduce greenhouse gases, but more importantly to put in place eco-tax measures that will truly change consumer behaviour. In our view, we need to subject pollution to consequences, largely financial, and ensure greater accountability of stakeholders and polluters, whether consumers, citizens or businesses.
Finally, the last topic I would like to address with you in a general way is the issue of housing.
We are facing a real shortage of affordable housing just about everywhere in Quebec, and this phenomenon is not limited to the big cities as one might think. It affects young people in the job market particularly, because they generally have a slightly lower income at the beginning of their career. We find that the portion of their budget that goes to housing is continually increasing, which impacts other aspects of their lives and other equally basic needs.
We believe that the overheated housing market is jeopardizing the ability to afford home ownership. Young people can no longer afford home ownership, or they have to wait much longer than their parents to do so. So it's also an issue of intergenerational equity.
We find it interesting that the government, in its budget, has proposed a 1% tax to reduce foreign speculation in the market. On the other hand, for us, this is not the crux of the issue. It is a measure, but it is not the most important one. What the government should be doing is building more affordable housing, helping young people get into home ownership through tax credits and subsidies, directly assisting young people who are most in need and don't have enough income to adequately house themselves, and most importantly, rethinking programs to make sure they meet the objectives.
One example I can give you is the famous HBP, the Home Buyers' Plan, which allows young people to withdraw a certain amount from their RRSPs as a down payment for their first home. Intuitively, we tend to think that this is an interesting measure, but most young people have not yet accumulated enough money in their RRSPs. So it is a measure that is available, but it only helps a small portion of the population. We thus need to find direct ways to make housing more accessible for all young people.
Of course, in its strategy, the government really needs to ask whether every person who needs housing assistance is actually receiving assistance. What we see in the budget right now is that there are several blind spots, and we think there should be more help.
There also needs to be more federal collaboration, in our view, with provincial and municipal governments to ensure that efforts are coordinated, to avoid duplication, and to ensure that no one is left behind.
In conclusion, we find it very interesting that the government is assessing the intergenerational impact of each of the measures in the budget. For us, this is a very inspiring exercise, because it makes us aware of the impact of our decisions on future generations. Provinces and municipalities should even take a similar approach.
That said, to make the exercise even more interesting, rather than simply identifying the target population, i.e., whether the measure is aimed at youth or seniors, we should ask what the real impact of the measures put in place is on intergenerational equity. We believe that this would allow us to go even further and implement more structuring and sustainable measures.
I'll close by saying that we young people want to contribute to the work of commissions, committees, and decision-making entities in general. Please feel free to consult with us in advance of the various programs. It will always be our pleasure to contribute to the work of the committee.
Thank you for listening. I remain available, should you have more specific questions.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much.
Thanks so much for being here with us again. I hope you don't have to come back, because then we will have been doing things to satisfy the industry.
I'm going to go to Mr. Telles.
Thank you for your presentation.
I don't speak French very well, so I'll speak to you in English.
I want to say thank you for being here. I have a nephew in university right now, and I follow his progress all the time. I want to say a huge thanks to you and, through you, to all youth for everything you do. I know it's the youth who step up in our coffee shops and who step up to help us in a lot of the short-term and more contractual jobs that are in our society, and I just want to say a huge thanks to you.
In our budget, we've put an additional $5.7 billion. There's a very deliberate desire to make sure our youth are not going to be the lost generation. Mr. Telles, it's really important if you could let us know if the measures we've put in here are actually helpful or a complete miss.
For us, we have increased the threshold of when you actually have to start repaying the federal student loans to $40,000. I've been told this is a game-changer. Can you let me know whether this is actually helpful to youth?
We've also doubled the Canada student grants, so that's an average addition of around $2,600. Is that helpful? Also, we've continued to suspend the interest on the federal student loans until March 2023. Is that helpful? Last, we've put a lot of money into making sure we have a lot of job opportunities available for youth. Is that helpful? In my own riding, I have only 12 square kilometres, but I have 400 jobs available for youth right now. Is that helpful?
Perhaps you could address those, and then I'd like to talk to you about climate change.
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 15:10
I thank you for the question. I will respond to it briefly.
With respect to the massive investments that have been made in post-secondary education, these are welcome and impactful dollars. You may know that in Quebec we have a student financial assistance program. The money is transferred to Quebec and then they distribute it. These are important amounts for us. The federal government must continue, in our opinion, to invest in students.
On the other hand, these investments only affect students. We're concerned about what's happening with young workers between the ages of 18 and 35, who aren't necessarily in school anymore. The budget kind of forgot about that segment of young people, or at least devoted fewer measures to them.
You talked about job creation, which is one of the main concerns of these young people. There is a new generation coming out of universities, trained and ready to contribute to society. However, these young people are not necessarily able to find a job in line with their skills or their fields of interest. So, this is a particular concern to monitor.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to begin by congratulating you on your masterful chairmanship of the committee.
Ms. Hnatiw, Ms. Grynol, and Mr. Telles, I welcome you and thank you for your presence and your presentations. You have addressed extremely important topics and critical issues.
My questions are for Mr. Telles.
What is the situation among young people? Since we've been in a pandemic for over a year, how is their morale and what are their economic challenges? You were talking about mental health, for example. How are things on the ground, for young people?
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 15:12
Thank you, Mr. Ste-Marie.
That is an important question. I can tell you that things are better than they used to be. The Canada Emergency Response Benefit and the Canada Student Emergency Benefit are among the things that greatly improved the situation for youth, of course, and provided direct financial assistance to young people and students in need. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, young people are often employed in particularly precarious fields, such as the service, restaurant and tourism industries. Young people have lost their jobs at a higher rate than the rest of the population, and needed this emergency federal assistance. This mattered a great deal in the lives of young people.
Vaccination prospects also make a big difference. For perfectly normal reasons, established by public health departments, young people are often among the last groups to get vaccinated. They are beginning to regain some hope for a return to normal life. On the other hand, the crisis has done significant damage.
There are two specific topics that I talked about in my speech where there is still work to be done: housing and mental health.
Already, under the mental health aspect, there was a sense on the ground that there was a lack of investment, long waiting lists, and a complicated process to access psychotherapy; only a small portion of the population had access. Now the demand is even greater. The pandemic has brought out problems, has brought out new, quite significant stress related to personal life, work, prospects, employment, the projects of young people, which have had to be put aside. So they need some extra help.
Housing is not just a one-time issue; it is a very pressing concern. Young people sometimes have to move from one area to another in order to get housing. Often, housing is going to make up more than half of a young person's total budget. It's too much. It prevents them from meeting their other basic needs.
There is still a lot of work to do. There are some positive things in the new budget, but we shouldn't stop to analyze the programs and measures that are being proposed and wonder how they will affect young people. They will certainly still need to be supported as they emerge from this crisis, to make sure they have all the tools they need.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Indeed, the housing situation is appalling, given the explosion in prices. For a young person who needs to find housing or wants to buy a condo or a house, it's appalling. Many economists will say that what is needed is to build more housing, but in your presentation you named measures that could be targeted to help young people. Can you repeat those for us, with more explanations, please?
I think I have two minutes left, so you can take them to respond.
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 15:15
Thank you very much. I will be happy to respond.
As you mentioned, new affordable housing needs to be built. In practical terms, the federal government could subsidize construction projects, along with the provinces and municipalities. Initiatives at all levels of government are being put forward to build housing. This is the case in Quebec and I am sure it is also the case elsewhere in the country. The federal government can play an important role in subsidizing these projects and coordinating with all the players to ensure that the projects are carried out properly, while ensuring that the housing remains affordable. The goal is not to build housing that will be subject to speculation, but to have rents remain affordable for young people and others in need.
With respect to home ownership, there is another idea, which I didn't have time to present. I think we need to start thinking about taxing or putting a tax on the sale of buildings, even those that are used as primary residences. There is still a lot of construction, purchase and renovation going on, and prices are rising so fast that young people are no longer able to buy a first property. So, we think that an interesting solution would be to tax the profit generated when selling a residence, even a principal residence. The money raised could then be reinvested to help young people buy a first property.
I was also talking about grants to people in need. We need to continue to directly target younger people with lower incomes to allow them to adequately house themselves. This can be done through the various programs already in place, but we really need to rethink our programs, like the Home Buyers' Plan. We really need to re-evaluate whether it is an effective tool, how many young people have used it and how it has contributed to home ownership. We need to try to re-evaluate the programs that are in place and ask if we could create new programs that would have a more direct effect.
View Peter Fragiskatos Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you, Chair.
I'll have to go back to the record afterwards. I think I heard Ms. Jansen say that she may not be voting in favour of the budget, which stunned me a great deal. I think we're all very surprised by that.
I would also point Ms. Jansen and Conservative colleagues, if they wish to take a look, to the most recent data, which has regularly for the past several weeks put Canada in the very top tier—either first some days, second other days, third other days, but no worse than third—in the G20 for vaccinations per day being administered.
It's really something that I think needs to be corrected here. Yes, we can do better, of course, but we're doing extremely well right now. The effect of that rhetoric, Chair, is that it generates a sense of concern and I would say even fear that is not well placed. If we're going to be seized with issues at this committee, let's focus on the facts rather than contribute to these myths that opposition colleagues have been peddling recently.
It's a different issue altogether, but we've seen what has happened with Bill C-10, concerning which Facebook has been alive and well with conspiracy theories about censorship in recent weeks, and we all know they're not true.
I will, however, focus on the issue at hand here, Chair. I just wanted to put those points of view on the record.
Mr. Telles, thank you very much for representing youth here today. Thank you very much for being an advocate.
Ms. Dzerowicz took my question, unfortunately, which was to ask you about student debt. It was great to see that there were a number of measures put in place in budget 2021 to help students with debt. That matters a lot for me, because prior to taking on the role of a member of Parliament, I taught at Western for a number of years, where I saw students really impacted in such negative ways by student debt.
What I also saw was the mental health challenges that young people faced. I think we all know—we've heard the stories in our own communities—about the way the pandemic has exacerbated that challenge for young people. Could you speak to that? I know the budget provides a very sizable investment for mental health in this country and for improved services.
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 15:33
Thank you so much for the question.
I would like to clarify that the assistance given to students was very welcome. However, the young people in the workforce, fresh out of college, seem to have been forgotten. In our view, this is the blind spot in the budget.
With respect to mental health, there is already a lot of awareness and taboos are being broken more and more, which is very positive. However, when young people ask for help, they are told that the waiting lists are long and access to professionals is difficult. I'm talking about the public system, of course. When they finally get help, their therapy is terminated after a few sessions, even though they still have needs, because the number of sessions is limited. Public access to psychotherapy is truly deficient. Additional support to improve funding for the public system would be more than welcome.
The other concern we have is that access to the private network is limited to young people who have insurance that covers psychotherapy, through their education or employment. We need to find a way to make that care available to all young people, whether they have insurance or not, and that's where provincial and federal governments can play an important role in increasing accessibility to care.
View Peter Fragiskatos Profile
Lib. (ON)
I also saw that for my community in London—and I know we're at a distance, Mr. Telles—there is an investment that will secure placements and workplace opportunities for young people. I know university associations and other youth advocacy groups have been calling for this for a long time.
I have just 30 seconds with you, but could you put on the record your thoughts on that?
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 15:35
Certainly.
We're very pleased with this investment. In the past, this sector has sometimes been forgotten. It's true that we need to create employment opportunities for young people. This isn't only about regaining opportunities lost during the pandemic, but also about creating new ones. We welcome this measure in the budget. We hope that there will be more of these measures in the future.
View Peter Julian Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My questions are for Mr. Telles.
Thank you for your very eloquent testimony.
For the first time in our history, in the middle of a crisis, the government is encouraging excessive profits. Billionaires have made over $80 billion during this crisis. The banking system and the major Canadian banks received $750 billion in liquidity support measures, while the banks made over $40 billion in profits. These are huge amounts of money.
You're talking about extremely important issues that should be considered emergencies, such as housing and mental health. We should put youth first. Unfortunately, our government is doing the opposite. It's putting billionaires and banks ahead of youth.
Given the needs that should be met, do you find that young people are receiving crumbs?
Would you like to see a shift in the government's approach to helping young people thrive in our society?
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 15:40
Thank you for the question.
While significant investments have been made in youth, these amount to a small portion of the overall budget. We can see and recognize the specific impact of the pandemic on youth. We appreciate what has been done, but we believe that it's possible to do even better.
Of course, taxing billionaires and companies more is one way to better redistribute wealth. However, we must try to target young people more in our strategies. My comment about intergenerational equity at the start of my presentation touched on this.
At this time, we assess the intergenerational equity of the various measures in the budget by specifying whether the measures affect youth or seniors. For us, this goes much further. We should be able to determine that a recurring investment made over several years is more robust, in terms of intergenerational equity, than a one-time investment made over one year. We believe that, by developing this type of tool and by further assessing the impact of the measures on intergenerational equity, the government could better target its investments in youth. In our view, this would be the real change in approach needed.
View Gabriel Ste-Marie Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to congratulate Mr. Fraser on his vaccination. We're on the right track.
Mr. Telles, a number of economists and analysts say that the economic recovery and the end of the crisis will be a K-shaped process. Some will come out ahead or will benefit from it, while others will have difficulty recovering or will take longer to do so. One example is the industry that Ms. Grynol represents, where it will take longer to get back to full employment levels. We need to provide all the support needed for this industry, because we can't do without such important industries.
Mr. Telles, it seems that many young people aren't part of the group that will emerge from the crisis the fastest. What are your thoughts on this?
Simon Telles
View Simon Telles Profile
Simon Telles
2021-05-18 15:55
Thank you for the question.
I share your thoughts. I know of few, if any, young people who have improved their living conditions during the pandemic. Instead, we've seen young people who had to study remotely throughout the year; young people who lost their jobs; young people who had to temporarily put their life plans on hold, such as buying a house, starting a family and travelling; young people who lost job opportunities; young people who are struggling to find housing now; and young people who have mental health issues. That's the reality. Young people haven't benefited from the pandemic. On the contrary, the pandemic has exacerbated all the vulnerabilities that come with their life situation, where they're at a bit of a crossroads, facing many opportunities. All this has worsened over the past year.
So, no, the situation of young people hasn't improved. That's why we're asking for a particular focus on them and a targeted strategy to help them in all the programs implemented by the federal government.
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