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Results: 31 - 45 of 79
View Louise Chabot Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you. I am mainly interested in how Quebec students will be compensated for this program.
My other question I have already asked. You are aware that the employment insurance claims of people who received money during their parental leave are caught up in an administrative maze. All these claims are frozen, sometimes for months, because of a lack of clear policy. That's what Service Canada agents are telling claimants. They are telling them to call their members of Parliament. We feel it's unacceptable.
Are you working with the department responsible to get clear instructions for unblocking claims so that people can receive assistance?
View Chrystia Freeland Profile
Lib. (ON)
The fall economic statement details our plan to protect Canadian lives, Canadian jobs and Canadian businesses, and we are moving quickly to deliver on our commitments.
The legislation I tabled last week, Bill C-14, proposes to move forward with several urgent COVID-19 related measures in the fall economic statement that will help Canadians get through this pandemic and strengthen our health response.
For example, the legislation would provide low- and middle-income families who are entitled to the Canada child benefit with additional support of up to $1,200 for each child under the age of six in 2021.
It would also help young Canadians by eliminating, for one year, the interest on their repayment of the federal portion of the Canada student loans and Canada apprentice loans.
Bill C-14 also sets out up to $505.7 million in 2021 to help long-term care facilities prevent the spread of COVID-19. Under the bill, $400 million in additional funding will also go to various measures including support for mental health, substance abuse, COVID-19 testing and telemedicine.
I hope all members will consider this legislation with the urgency it deserves. I know that we all know that Canadians are counting on us.
Mr. Chair, last week's fall economic statement also outlined a growth plan to jump-start Canada's economy once the coronavirus is under control.
The government will invest between 3% and 4% of Canada's gross domestic product, or GDP, over three years. The government will provide further details on its recovery plan in the months ahead leading up to budget 2021. The plan will be based on creating good jobs for the middle class.
This, Mr. Chair, is needed economic policy and this is smart economic policy. One of the lessons of the 2008-09 global financial crisis is that withdrawing fiscal support too soon after a deep downturn can hamper growth for years afterwards. Our government will not repeat that mistake.
That said, our stimulus, our growth plan, will be time limited and carefully targeted. Fiscal guardrails will help us establish when the stimulus will be wound down. When the economy has recovered, time-limited measures will be withdrawn and Canada will resume its prudent and responsible fiscal path.
Uncertainties about the timing of the pandemic and global economic developments mean that the timeline for recovery should not be locked into a rigid, predetermined calendar. Instead, the government will track progress against several related indicators, recognizing that no one data point is a perfect representation of the health of the economy. These indicators include the employment rate, total hours worked and the level of unemployment in the economy.
Mr. Chair, I'm very glad the committee is beginning its consultations. The federal government will launch our own pre-budget consultations in the new year. We all very much look forward to hearing from Canadians about their priorities as we design our growth plan.
I look forward to hearing Canadians' ideas on what we can do to support families and businesses, kick-start the economy and keep Canada's strong fiscal position.
We Canadians have faced adversity in the past. We've faced tough winters, and we have always emerged stronger than before. I know that we will this time too.
I would be pleased now to answer your questions.
View Jean-Yves Duclos Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would first like to thank the committee for inviting me back to speak this time to the supplementary estimates (B) 2020-21, which were tabled last October.
With me today, I have the pleasure of introduce to you Glenn Purves, assistant secretary, expenditure management sector; Karen Cahill, assistant secretary and chief financial officer; Sandra Hassan, assistant deputy minister, employment conditions and labour relations; and finally Kathleen Owens, assistant comptroller general, acquired services and assets.
These supplementary estimates (B) are the second of three supplementary estimates planned for fiscal year 2020-21. They outline new and updated spending needs for programs and services that were not sufficiently developed in time for inclusion in the 2020-21 main estimates.
The government needs to make sure that it gives Canadians the support they need during the COVID-19 pandemic, while at the same time promoting our country's economic recovery and prosperity .
We do this by investing in critical health care and supporting the safe restart of our economy. Our spending plans, the ones you have in front of you, will help Canada thrive, and remain strong and united.
The government continues to invest in Canadians and the economy, particularly in efforts to respond to the public health threats of the COVID-19 virus and to minimize its health, economic and social impacts.
These supplementary estimates (B) present a total of $79.2 billion in incremental budgetary spending. This includes $20.9 billion to be voted by Parliament and $58.3 billion in forecast statutory expenditures.
As you know, vote expenditures require annual approval from Parliament through an appropriation bill. These types of expenditures include operating, capital, and grants and contributions.
Statutory spending does not require annual approval from Parliament because that type of spending is already authorized by Parliament through separate legislation, such as the federal-provincial transfers that are pursuant to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act.
In these supplementary estimates (B), most of the $20.9 billion in new voted spending is for emergency responses to the COVID 19 pandemic, including medical research, vaccine development and purchases of personal protective gear, and medical equipment and supplies. They also cover economic responses to the pandemic, including support for small- and medium-sized businesses, salary top-ups for essential workers, and funding for provinces and territories to safely restart their economies, and bring students back to school.
Overall, funding requirements for the top 10 organizations account for approximately 85% of the voted spending sought through these estimates. Of those 10 organizations, eight are each seeking more than $500 million to support their priorities. For example, in my department, the Treasury Board Secretariat is asking for $646.6 million.
In addition, the $58.3 billion in planned statutory spending included in these estimates reflects the government's key response measures and emergency supports, including $28.5 billion for the Canada emergency response benefit, $12.3 billion for payments to provinces and territories for the safe restart agreement, $3.8 billion for medical research and vaccine development and $3.3 billion for the acquisition of protective gear and medical equipment.
These supplementary estimates (B) also include $1.3 billion in non-budgetary measures related primarily to student loans.
To conclude, my officials and I are very appreciative of the time the committee spends studying the government's spending on behalf of Canadians.
We would be pleased to take any questions you may have.
Thank you.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you.
Thank you so much, Mr. Shugart. Thanks for being here today. Thank you so much for your leadership and service to our nation, especially during this unprecedented time.
I want to start off by going back to March and April, when the severity of the pandemic became obvious and the Government of Canada was very focused on providing Canadians with as much help as possible. I just went through everything that was announced before April 22, and I literally have four pages of announcements. There was an unprecedented amount of work done by our civil servants to provide supports to the homeless, to the arts sector, to the business sector, to individuals—you name it. We introduced a whole number of programs.
In terms of students, as you just mentioned, there was a huge concern about the unevenness of what was available in terms of jobs and opportunities and the ability for students to be able to continue to have financial means to be able to support their ongoing education. On April 22, $9 billion was announced to support post-secondary students. There were four key programs. There was the Canada emergency student benefit, expanding more jobs, in addition to CSJ, with adjustments to Canada student loans and grants to make them far more generous. This last segment was the Canada student service grant, which was up to $912 million. It was meant as a way to provide an opportunity for students to not only volunteer, serve in their community and help non-profits, but also to earn a little bit of extra money.
Again, my understanding is there was a stacking element. You could actually have up to three of these components. We could give many opportunities to students across this country and give them the best ability to be able to continue to work or continue to support their community while also trying to raise some funds for their ongoing education.
There's this false narrative around the federal government setting up the Canada student service grant to provide an hourly wage for students. Can you please relate to the committee whether there was the intention to provide an hourly wage or whether it was meant as part of an overall package, some additional support, in a grant format?
Ian Shugart
View Ian Shugart Profile
Ian Shugart
2020-07-21 11:43
My understanding...and I want to underline to the committee, Chair, that I am not the file expert, and one of my many flaws is a non-encyclopedic memory. But my understanding is that this was intended to help provide for the needs of students who, because of the inability to have part-time work or perhaps the support from families that have been affected by job loss, etc., were not able to access the CERB and they could very well be in hard times in terms of their own income.
So in the form of a grant, as you say, this was intended to meet that financial need, but as part of an engagement putting students who would otherwise have been studying to work in ways so that they could make a contribution through non-profits and support to the community and so on during the pandemic.
I might point out that one of the criteria, one of the requirements, of the WE Charity was to be able to support this kind of thing in a safe way, so that the public health goals of limiting the spread of the pandemic would be supported and attended to through this vehicle.
View Julie Dzerowicz Profile
Lib. (ON)
So it was never meant to be an hourly wage, just an additional support, and one of many numbers of different things that the government was introducing to try to support the students.
Ian Shugart
View Ian Shugart Profile
Ian Shugart
2020-07-21 11:45
Well, I stand to be corrected by officials in the relevant departments, but that is my understanding. You're correct.
Chris Aylward
View Chris Aylward Profile
Chris Aylward
2020-07-21 12:24
Thank you. No problem.
My apologies, especially to the interpreters in the booth.
Students may actually end up making even less than $10 an hour. The grant will be calculated using 100-hour thresholds and will be rounded down. Students need to work a full 100 hours to get any money at all. If they work more than 100 hours, but less than 200, they are providing free labour for the additional hours. It is also ironic that the federal government has brought in regulations under the Canada Labour Code to restrict the use of unpaid internships, yet it is expecting students to work unpaid hours under the student service grant program.
Paying students to carry out volunteer work means that they are no longer volunteers. Simply calling them volunteers will not protect the government or the organizations employing them from violating provincial labour standards. PSAC agrees that students need support during this very difficult time. What they don’t need is a program that shortchanges them for their labour.
The government could have organized the program to pay students to work for non-profit agencies and charities, carrying out duties that volunteers could not do, or to perform work that would not be done due to a shortage of volunteers. They could have been paid at least minimum wage for their work, but ideally a wage more closely aligned to the type of work they would be performing, and they could be paid for all their work. For that matter, why introduce a grant program that emphasizes volunteer experience as opposed to job experience? The government could have taken immediate action to bolster existing summer student employment programs, including the federal student work experience program.
Finally—and let me conclude—if the government had either used existing programs or asked the public service to set up a new student work and payment plan, it would have avoided the conflict of interest issues that have come to light since the WE Charity announcement, and it would have been able to deliver both pay and work experience to students.
Thank you.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
Thank you.
My question is for Mr. Aylward.
First of all, Mr. Aylward, thank you to you and your members for the extraordinary work the public service has done during this pandemic. It is a real testament to their commitment and professionalism. Though we don't always agree with the government's policies, we do commend those who have taken an oath to loyally deliver the programs, and your members have done that, so please give them our thanks.
Are you aware of any federal program that provides students with some compensation for working at non-profits and/or charities?
Chris Aylward
View Chris Aylward Profile
Chris Aylward
2020-07-21 13:09
There are a number of programs for students that are currently being administered by the federal public service that do that type of work. I would defer to my technical expert who is with me, my technical resource, Mr. West. If he is on the line, he could provide a better answer to that.
Howie.
Chris Aylward
View Chris Aylward Profile
Chris Aylward
2020-07-21 13:09
Okay, maybe Mr. West is not with us. That's okay.
Mr. Poilievre, I can't give you specific programs that would do that, but as I said, I do know there are several programs administered within the federal public service that address student issues.
View Pierre Poilievre Profile
CPC (ON)
Are there there any programs that basically provide some federally backed compensation or wage subsidy for students to help not-for-profits or charities?
Joshua Mandryk
View Joshua Mandryk Profile
Joshua Mandryk
2020-07-21 13:10
Yes, some of the existing programs do that. They'll provide subsidies to the not-for-profits and charities for the full value of those young workers' wages in order to hire them as employees.
Results: 31 - 45 of 79 | Page: 3 of 6

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