Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs,
Science and Technology
Issue 24 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, February 10, 1999
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 3:47 p.m. to consider the dimensions of social cohesion in Canada in the context of globalization and other economic and structural forces that influence trust and reciprocity among Canadians.
Senator Lowell Murray (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Today we are considering the role of voluntary organizations in social cohesion. We have before us a panel of three witnesses. Each of these highly qualified and highly experienced witnesses has a brief opening statement to make. Then we will open the floor for a dialogue with senators.
Reverend David Pfrimmer is Chairperson for the Commission for Justice and Peace of the Canadian Council of Churches. He is a minister of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. What he has to say represents his personal views rather than the official position of the Canadian Council or indeed of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. He is currently undertaking a study of the expectations of public policy-makers concerning the role of the church and faith groups in making decisions. Perhaps we can help him and he can help us today.
[Translation]
Vivian Labrie is coordinator for the Carrefour d'animation pastorale en monde ouvrier and has helped organize and provide community-based education. Ms Labrie has been involved in literacy, job creation and regional economic development. In 1995, she was a member of the committee on income security set up by the Quebec government, and cosigned the report "Chacun sa part".
[English]
Mr. Danny Mui is the Executive Director of the Centre for Information and Community Services of Toronto (CICS). Until fairly recently, CICS stood for Chinese Information and Community Services of Greater Toronto, but because its constituency, if I may put it that way, is broader now and includes more than the ethnic Chinese community of Toronto and the Municipalities of Peel and York, they have changed the name to Centre for Information and Community Services.
I welcome all three of you. I will call on Reverend Pfrimmer to speak first, followed by Madame Labrie and Mr. Mui.
David Pfrimmer, Chairperson, Commission for Justice and Peace, The Canadian Council of Churches: It is a pleasure to be here. I want to thank you for the opportunity to be able to address you today and speak about the issues of globalization and social cohesion and how they relate.
You have my comments, and I will basically highlight some of the arguments and concerns that the churches and faith communities have. I will use some illustrations from examples that we have been working on as faith groups. Although my comments do not represent the organization, I hope that they are representative of the faith groups and churches that I work with quite extensively on a range of issues.
Globalization used to be a description of how the world was changing. For many faith groups today, globalization has become a norm under the ideology used to assert how the world should be. For us, this has led to a kind of economics of despair, as opposed to an economics of hope. We often see globalization as a failing ideology that is corroding the institutions of civil society precisely because it undermines community solidarity.
I want to share also that among the faith groups, there is a rareness of the sacredness and value of human life. This is undermined by this kind of economics of despair where, in fact, we relinquish to some invisible market forces decisions and moral responsibilities that more properly rest with all of us.
To facilitate and nurture social cohesion, we within the faith groups believe that there are three elements. First, there is a shared identity; second, a shared experience; and third, a shared vision of the future. Poverty is one of the major causes of social exclusion today. This is a social debt. It is profoundly disturbing to us because poverty today is increasing not in a time of economic recession, but in a time of economic growth.
We held multi-faith hearings across Ontario and published a report. The clerk has copies of this report. I will mention some of the findings from that process. We received over 300 testimonies mainly from low-income people and their organizations. The report is entitled "Our Neighbours' Voices: Will We Listen?" It addresses some of the issues that concern you in terms of what pushes people to the margin.
First, we found, not surprisingly, that the poor are poor through no fault of their own. Second, we were concerned by the response of governments that essentially seem to be blaming the poor for their own condition. Third, we were troubled by the growing sense of civic cynicism among the public. Four, governments seem to be abandoning their responsibilities to safeguard the people's well-being. This was another troubling concern.
How do we reconnect those who have been pushed to the margins? We would say that there is a reservoir of optimism among the public based on Canada's recent tradition of social programs. A first step should be to counter the view that governments have been ineffective in addressing these problems and have no role to play. Second, we need to balance social insecurity of globalization with some form of human or community security, which is vital. Governments need to regain public confidence by pledging formally to safeguard the place of people in our communities. We have often suggested that Canada needs a kind of social covenant to address.
What are some of the ways of increasing participation between governments and citizens? We suggest that we need to provide places for those people in positions of leadership to listen to the stories of those who have been pushed to the edge of our society. Religious leaders heard again and again the testimony of poor people who are fighting a very courageous struggle to support their families and make a living for themselves.
Economics needs to be restored to its proper place. Economics should not dominate all our public decisions. There needs to be a greater role and support for the median family institutions, as well as for non-governmental organizations and charities, organizations that are not governed by the principle of competition, but by the principle of cooperation.
We would argue that Canada does have an international social responsibility and that it needs to look for greater accountability by governments in transnational corporations in the international economy. We have also suggested an increase in overseas development assistance, untied aid, and that Canada be more vigilant in its defence of human rights. We cannot speak of social cohesion without facing the issues of the continuing injustices done to the aboriginal peoples in this country.
You asked if Canada's social justice tradition is at risk. We find it deeply disturbing that we have been moving more and more towards reliance on charity, not social justice, in addressing many of these issues. Hopefully, through the work of this committee and other institutions in our society, we can reverse that trend.
The Chairman: Thank you very much.
Madame Labrie, please proceed.
[Translation]
Ms Vivian Labrie, Coordinator, Carrefour de pastorale en monde ouvrier: I have been working at the Carrefour de pastorale en monde ouvrier in Quebec City for about ten years. This group has been active for about 20 years in the Quebec City region. We have been involved in a number of grassroots and activist initiatives in the Quebec City region to promote social justice. In particular, I would like to mention some of our recent activities: a fast in 1996 to protest poverty, a street parliament in 1997, and since 1997 we have been associated with an interesting adventure that we should discuss with the committee, that is, the movement for a bill to eliminate poverty.
The Carrefour has developed an innovative practice that deals with some of the questions that you are asking today, and this practice involves what we call "knowledge networks." People living in poverty and social exclusion act as experts in discussing issues with researchers, decision-makers and other players and thereby contribute to the advancement of knowledge on issues that are directly or indirectly related to social justice.
It happened that Bernard Landry was the last Quebec MNA to come to the street parliament in December 1997. We challenged him to hold discussions with people living in poverty. The Quebec Minister of Finance accepted this challenge. As a result, the knowledge network on public finances has been in place for a year now. I have brought the documents that we prepared during the first year of this dialogue in case you might be interested in knowing more about this rather innovative experience of bringing together for discussions those representing the billions and those representing the pennies.
If I am here today, it is because of the movement for a bill to eliminate poverty. Since 1998, I have been freed up to take charge of this movement, which includes the Carrefour and a number of Quebec groups, grassroots groups, unions and feminist and religious groups. The aim of the movement is to promote the idea that Quebec should adopt framework legislation to eradicate poverty. This is a further development in the process that has been going on for the last few years in Quebec and involves grassroots and community groups, unions and many other people. We realize that according to the non-egalitarian logic of the market economy we are living in, which is exacerbated by globalization, the tide cannot be turned unless societies around the world adopt comprehensive anti-poverty policies and commit their governments to working toward solidarity with milestones along the way. Steps must be taken to initiate, build, monitor and develop collective practices to better redistribute wealth, reduce gaps in the social scale, ensure everyone has a place at the table and is treated with dignity and respect and as a full citizen. This goal has given rise to the idea of having framework legislation to guarantee such policies.
I will table with the committee the information kit that we have developed to promote this issue in Quebec. My remarks to you today are presented in this context.
I wondered if I had something to contribute by coming today, given that our initiative is squarely aimed at the National Assembly of Quebec. But I was assured that I should come. Although we are really targeting the Quebec government, our objectives are very similar to those of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation with its common program.
The United Nations Development Program and its approach to the elimination of poverty are in line with our initiative. The recommendations of the 1996 Despouy report to the UN Economic and Social Council on the attainment of economic, social and cultural rights call for an approach like the one we are promoting.
You should know that the women's world march in the year 2000, which was initiated by women from Quebec, has included in its international demands the idea that each country should adopt umbrella legislation to eradicate poverty. Canadian women taking part in the march will be calling the Canadian government to account on this issue.
In our opinion, an intelligent approach to eliminate poverty requires that partisan and ideological interests be set aside. Without taking a position in the debate on the future of the Canadian federation, I can say two things about why I am here today. First, Canada's financial and tax policies, along with its decision to fight the deficit through structural adjustment in line with globalization, have seriously jeopardized the achievement of social justice in our community over the past few years.
For example, we are very much aware that the constraints imposed on the provinces in the area of social policy through the withholding of billions of dollars in transfer payments have had a dramatic impact on funding for social assistance, in particular, and on those living in poverty and suffering its consequences.
We are also aware that the federal government's attitude, in downgrading the protection once offered by unemployment insurance by changing it to employment insurance and now threatening to skim off the surplus of a fund that does not belong to it, is responsible for major injustices, affecting in particular vulnerable workers who pay premiums without ever being entitled to the benefits that should be available to them.
When a government reduces the taxes of the highest income earners at a time when Statistics Canada has shown that the gaps between rich and poor are widening, it is acting in a structural way to increase the disparity. Poverty cannot be eliminated by getting poor people out of our field of consciousness.
Our federal and provincial governments, including Human Resources Canada, can change the way of calculating poverty lines all they like to bring down the numbers and the rates, but they will not change the situation on the ground.
The second point I would like to make is that we feel that discussions on the future of the country should not prevent the provinces from bringing to the fore programs and policies that would effectively fight poverty and exclusion and that take into account the realities of, for example, Quebec and the character of that society.
Quebec has its own traditions with respect to social action. Unionism, feminism and cooperation, for instance, have generated many innovative practices in this area. These experiments should be facilitated rather than shut down or taken over.
I also had a question I would like to ask this afternoon: If a province in Canada was progressive enough in promoting civil solidarity that it had its own social and financial pact that went farther in redistributing wealth, reducing gaps and inequalities through a more generous combined child allowance, innovative job or education assistance practices or more forward-looking ideas on guaranteed personal income, would the federal government allow this type of positive thing to exist?
These are questions I was asking myself in preparing to appear here. I have also tried to answer some of the questions you have raised. I will keep that for the discussion we will have afterwards. I have some preliminary answers to a number of the questions that you asked. So I will stop here and wait.
[English]
Danny Mui, Executive Director, Centre for Information and Community Services: Mr. Chairman, honourable senators, on behalf of all the staff and members of CICS, I want to express my greatest gratitude for inviting me here to present a perspective of my organization on the issue of social cohesion in Canada and the role of volunteer institutions related to it.
In the previous committee's hearings, Mr. Broadbent defined social cohesion as the willingness of citizens to really stick together. To do so, they must have a sense of trust. Mr. Michael Adams said that social cohesion means that Canadians have trust in each other and their institutions. We agree. Being an agency that has served the immigrant community for more than 30 years, we firmly believe that social cohesion is the end product of successful settlement and the integration of the immigrant group. Immigrants cannot have those "haves" when they are still making their transitions to life here. Only when the gap between the "have-nots" of the immigrant groups and the haves of the so-called mainstream group is narrowed and named can our citizens begin to build up trust in each other, and only then can their institutions stick together.
Let us look at the haves and have-nots. Our experience with the ethnic Chinese community is that they are being described as well-off, self-contained, self-sufficient and well-organized. This seems to pertain to the groups of haves within the community. Of course, you and I know very well that it is not all true. Money is not the only term to define haves and have-nots. If other measures like political influence, employment opportunities, equality in education, quality of social life, and other elements were counted in, many immigrant groups, including the Chinese, would be easily categorized as the have-nots.
I would like to embark on a discussion of the role of institutions in building the bridge between the haves and have-nots, but due to time limitations, I shall focus on one of the primary institutions, the school, and a more sophisticated institution, the mass media.
Immigrant children literally live in school these days. Most of the parents of these children are working long hours and have language difficulties and hence cannot communicate effectively with schools in order to have a thorough understanding of their children's education. Moreover, there are definitely cultural differences in their expectations of the education process and the outcome between the parents and the schools.
When the parents find themselves trying to grapple with their own settlement needs during the early years of transition, they rely a lot on the school system to take care of their children's education needs. On the other hand, when the teacher finds that the parents are not interested in either attending school council meetings or consultation meetings, the teacher may begin to feel disheartened and may question whether the parents actually support their children. In fact, the support is there but is being expressed in different forms.
CICS is fortunate to be able to link up with some schools to address the communication gap and facilitate understanding among the key players. The effort is still small, considering the needs across all the schools with similar situations. We hope that all parents can have the same desire to grow and learn in a more perfect environment.
The mass media is regarded as the most effective and powerful tool to influence the decisions of Canadians. Similar to the influx of immigrants, we have seen an equal amount of growth in third-language media. In Toronto we have three major local newspapers in Chinese, one Chinese TV network, and numerous Chinese radio stations and magazines. The growth and increasing effectiveness of the Chinese language media is nonetheless a paradox in the settlement and integration for the Chinese immigrant community, and it may apply to other groups of the community as well. Although it has increased efficiency in delivering crucial news and information to those Canadians with language barriers, it has also increased the burden on the communication and/or information providers to add Chinese media as an additional responsibility. Again, though it helps to create a channel for cohesiveness within a sector of Canadians by providing a common media experience, it also creates alienation within the Chinese community by limiting the mainstream media experience and isolation of the non-Chinese community by a separate Chinese media experience. Though it helps to facilitate settlement for the new immigrants by providing a media of familiarity, it also increases their duration for a fuller integration into the society by allowing a detour for backtracking.
CICS admittedly has been getting excellent support from the Chinese language media. However, due to this ambivalence expressed above, CICS has not pursued a closer partnership with the media. Mainstream media are not yet at a stage when a multicultural approach is viable. It may yet be some time before a verdict on the media strategy of an agency like CICS can be made. It is our hope that two artificially segregated media could work together in a more harmonious existence and that CICS may yet help to enable this.
Those are the points I wanted to highlight to the committee today. I am willing to share with the committee my ideas and experiences during the rest of the session.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Mui.
Do any or all of you have an opinion on the agreement of the social union signed by the federal government and nine of the provinces last week? Madame Labrie?
[Translation]
Ms Labrie: In fact, I am not very familiar with the details of the social union. I would like to express a concern: in the development of agreements on social policies since the end of CAP -- the Canada Assistance Plan -- you get the feeling that the time of a person's being entitled to a decent income has ended.
There is an increasing tendency in Quebec toward an approach based not on guaranteed income security by entitlement, but income security based on the ability to find income from employment. The development of the concept of entitlement in the direction of "employability" is disturbing to many Quebeckers. A number of us feel this way. We are disturbed with the disappearance of a right that was affirmed and consolidated in the previous decades.
This is something we have a fair number of questions about. We are not changing this trend, but have reinforced it in recent decisions. I cannot comment on the social union as such, but on the trend that we see emerging on this side.
[English]
Mr. Pfrimmer: There are a number of serious problems with the social union. I am not sure it will achieve what it is supposed to be aimed at achieving. I do not think it assures people, especially low-income people or vulnerable populations, any greater degree of security. That is one of the issues here.
Many of the provincial governments, for example, have cut back on all the programs -- income security, support services, all those kinds of things -- and, in fact, in some cases have put in very punitive programs. The idea of a social union or, at least, the discussion of one, may entrench many of the things that have led to greater levels of insecurity in society already.
It is deeply troubling when we should have learned from previous examples that we need to have a process that engages the public more and is more transparent and open with participation. For people who are already cynical about leaders doing things behind closed doors, it is not adequate to have a meeting where we do not know what is on the table, nor the details, and where we are told this is going to be the best thing for Canada. On that point alone, it should be troubling.
Many of the people I work with would not be very optimistic, but would be very hostile, in fact, to the idea of a social union as it stands now, unless it is more participatory and unless it safeguards people and ensures their rights and well-being. Those things do not seem to be satisfied yet by this proposal.
The Chairman: Do any of you have a view about the changes made to the Canada child benefit in recent years? I know that Quebec did not sign the recent changes.
[Translation]
But Quebec can easily adapt to the new regime.
[English]
The purpose of that, as you know, is to remove disincentives that apparently existed for people on welfare to get off welfare and to join the workforce. Have any or all of you made a study of that? Do you have a view about it? Madame Labrie.
[Translation]
Ms Labrie: I wish to make sure that I fully understand the terminology. Does "Child benefit" here mean La prestation des enfants?
The Chairman: It means a tax credit. The tax credit for all children which endeavours to encourage people who depend on social assistance.
Ms Labrie: Two things must be separated: We were used to income security systems where the question was dealt with at the family level. There is a tendency at this time to separate adult income security from child income security. This can be of some value, but we must also understand that problems can arise.
The first problem concerns the idea of getting children out of a poverty situation, which we find disturbing. We do not want children to emerge from poverty unless the parents are going to also. Otherwise it doesn't make sense. There is a hidden agenda in a policy addressed to children which consists of diminishing the number of households on social assistance. If some households no longer have access to social assistance but have only a child credit or allowance, it technically can bring down the number of people on social assistance. And that is not the purpose of a child benefit.
There is cause to question the purpose of this benefit. If we think about it, we can visualize a system that makes sense and that is easier to understand for families and parents, but which also meets the needs. One of the problems we are encountering right now is that the total allocation, which is being addressed by the federal and provincial governments, is not sufficient to cover the real needs of children in families. As long as it falls short of covering the essential needs, we cannot say it is an effective measure. That is my concern.
There is also a concern about simplifying people's lives. When I took part in the external committee to reform social security, we felt that it would be useful to have one source covering all the needs of children. This raises the problem of a discussion between the two levels of government. We all know the difficulties this can involve. Our fear in transforming old social policies into new ones is quite often that of seeing standards lowered. And that is often what happens.
The idea of protecting the families of low-income workers more fully is new in our concept of social policies. It's a praiseworthy objective in the sense that families without employment which had access to a measure of income security previously are not being sacrificed.
In Quebec for example, I feel that in terms of daycare services policy, medical insurance and the child benefit, families without jobs are losing out in the development of the social policy regime.
[English]
Mr. Mui: I appreciate that the Chairman is talking about "encouraging women back to the workforce," but the Ontario government is not encouraging women to go back to work, they are forcing them back to work. Going back to work is mandatory.
In Ontario, when you are on welfare -- it is now called family benefits -- if you are a single parent with children over the age of six you have to go back to work. The government is not trying to encourage and assist women to go back to the workforce. I have experience as a social worker, as well as a family benefits worker. Most of the clients I am in touch with are willing to go back into the workforce. However, when they have been at home for six years, 10 years, 14 years, they need encouragement and support. The policy is changing so drastically, they are being pushed out into the job world. They have to survive in that world, even though they do not have enough skills and preparation.
We also have to consider the child care and job-skill support. We should not forget other groups in the community like the immigrant groups. They do not have sufficient language skills; they do not have the job skills; they do not even have job-finding skills. Whether or not they are on welfare, they do not have the opportunities to look for a job. Even if they get a job, they will not get equal treatment from their employer. That is my observation.
I appreciate that the government is encouraging them back to work, but we are now pushing or forcing them back.
Mr. Pfrimmer: This is a very important issue. In our hearings we heard a lot about the new child tax credit. It has pitted people on social assistance against the working poor.
The Chairman: But nobody on social assistance loses anything.
Mr. Pfrimmer: What happens in the situation is quite interesting, at least in the Ontario example. Many welfare recipients receive the benefit through the tax rebate program. Then the province, in terms of the welfare administration at that level, claws back the money. In the interim, there is an expectation that people have more money than they do. So, in one sense they get the cheque, and then by the end of the month they find that they are not only short that money, but they owe more money back. This creates tremendous problems, especially among women who rely on social assistance benefits. We say that this claw-back provision is absolutely the wrong way to proceed.
The other part of the problem is that there were supposed to be new programs under the program. In federal-provincial bargaining, you take what you can get. The money that was clawed back or that was saved in terms of the welfare payments was supposed to go into new programs, and it has not happened. It may have happened on paper, but on the street, there are no support services. Coupled with that you have punitive work programs like Workfare, which places us in violation of international agreements and introduces a whole new level of fear and anxiety among the people who are on assistance.
It is a very serious issue. I understand it is a modest first step and in that sense it is one to be welcomed. But we have communicated with Mr. Pettigrew on this and other matters, and have said that it has to be much more inclusive, integrated and holistic, and must provide an adequate income security. It is not that people are not willing to go to work, there is no work out there for them to go to. They cannot make it in terms of the kind of wages that they are being offered. It is a catch-22 for all of these people.
Senator Butts: Reverend Pfrimmer, I am fascinated by your notion of exclusion. Is there either cohesion or exclusion, or is there anything in between?
Mr. Pfrimmer: There are certain degrees of people feeling a part of society. It is not all or nothing; you are neither in nor are you out. The levels of exclusion today should be alarming to all of us. Poverty is one example, but let's look at other indicators. Fortunately in this country, participation in elections remains relatively high. However, in other parts of the world, the UN estimates that only 10 per cent of the global population participates in any form of democratic kind of decision-making.
A whole range of things can lead to exclusion, but we should work to avoid the levels of alienation people feel in this country.
Senator Butts: But your explanation of it is poverty?
Mr. Pfrimmer: I chose the example of poverty because we held the hearings and did this extensive report. It illustrates how one looks at including people who have been marginalized. But there are a whole lot of other things -- racism, the elderly -- that you could also look at as indicators that lead to exclusion as well. I would not want to say that it is just poverty, but it is a big indicator for Canadians today.
Senator Butts: How does an organization such as yours help to do something about this, or are you expecting the government to do it all? I am struck that the whole paper on exclusion is about poverty and governments' problem with poverty.
Mr. Pfrimmer: That is a good question. I certainly would not ask governments to do it, but governments have a responsibility under the voluntarily international agreements they have signed to safeguard the well-being of all people living in society. Historically in this country we have had a partnership between civil society and government to ensure that those things happen.
I was trying to highlight in the paper that in many senses governments have walked away from those responsibilities. They have launched an outright assault, in some cases, on the poor and have abdicated their responsibility. They have told us that globalization is such an inevitable thing that we cannot address our social debts. If you look critically at that, you have to say that we have to work against that. The government must accept its responsibility and determine its role.
Senator Butts: Could you give me an example of the government blaming the poor? Which level of government is blaming the poor?
Mr. Pfrimmer: It is not an outright attack. It is more subtle than that. For example, in the last election, no one challenged the notion or the popular misconception that somehow people on welfare did not want to work, that they were lazy and that they all lived in subsidized housing. No one challenged that. In fact, one of the main election points of the common sense revolution was to reform welfare, to make it tighter in order to eliminate the dependency and the disincentives to work. We are going to get people back to work, and those kinds of things. The government, in fact, brought in very punitive programs.
Let us take Work-for-Welfare, for example. How is that an assault on the poor? It basically assumes that the poor do not want to work. Then you have to compel people to work; you have to put in punitive measures. For example, you can be disqualified from welfare; you cannot have an effective right to appeal decisions that are made by your caseworker. These kinds of things tell poor people, "You're lying to us. You're telling us you don't want to work." The international agreements say that we will not have compulsory labour practices in this country.
What can be done about that? We have had discussions with the provincial government. We have said, "All you have to do is make Work-for-Welfare a voluntary program and put in place some support services like child care, language training, and other services that recognize that these people are trying and working very hard." But the government, in turn, has not put money into those kinds of initiatives and has cut welfare benefits by 21 per cent. At the same time they are raising the tax benefits or cutting taxes for people at the very upper echelons of the income scale. The government is not making a blatant, outright statement against the poor. The more implied, the more subtle measures have been taken. That is probably one of the most vivid ones for me.
The federal government has not done that so overtly, but in introducing the Canada Health and Social Transfer, they cut $7 billion in transfers. That added pressure on the provinces to cut funding and put in place more punitive programs, which they are talking about keeping for some years. There is no talk of how that is going to help poor people.
Those are the kinds of things I mean, Senator Butts.
Senator Butts: You said that there should be a greater role for charities and families and NGOs. That is what I would like you to spell out for me.
Mr. Pfrimmer: Our society undervalues the great role of charitable giving. All these sorts of mediating institutions in civil society are things that people feel are important in their life and that they believe in. In fighting the serious problem of the deficit, we have lost the historic partnership that directed resources to help civil society and the social sector engage in some of these things. This was also complemented by individual giving and charity and all those kinds of things. Many of those institutions are now in distress and cannot provide services. They have lost funding and there is no funding available for them. They are expected to totally rely on charitable giving or corporate sponsorships. This is not working. So we are seeing the disappearance of many of those institutions in civil society that are vitally important.
We need to look at how to rebalance things in terms of the economic sector that generates wealth. We have to have economic growth and those kinds of things, but some of that wealth has to be redirected by governments towards civil institutions in the social sector so that they can provide some of these things within the community. These are being decimated across the country as many of these agencies are not able to cope with the financial pressures.
Senator Butts: To summarize, the church institutions are not able to do it, so they ask the government to do it?
Mr. Pfrimmer: Although I am a church member, I work with the Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist communities. They are all saying the same thing. You cannot expect us to pick up the slack left by governments that have walked away. We raise approximately $40 billion in charitable donations, and yet governments have cut back overall in this country $200 billion. If you cancel out all the sports teams and everything else and have only essential services, there is no way the charitable sector can pick that up.
Many of the people I work with in the faith community are giving generously of their time. They support food banks, counselling services and all those kinds of things. They are a little tired of being called on to do even more than what they are doing and watching governments give tax breaks to other sectors for things that they do not think are as important as basic services.
[Translation]
Senator Gill: Ms Labrie, you say that the federal government's reductions in Quebec have caused considerable problems from the social aspect. We often hear this in Quebec. I come from Quebec, from an Aboriginal background. Do you not think that this language is used in Quebec, and elsewhere? I wonder how much this takes away responsibility from people who are in need. Those who are really in need do not find justification in their leader when these kind of things are emphasized. There have been some problems on the social and budgetary side, et cetera. Everyone acknowledges this. Regardless of the organization involved, when you do this, you are not showing people how to fish, you tell them that you are going to give them fish. It would be better to say: Yes, we do have social problems and problems with poverty. But those who are best equipped to help solve problems are the people who actually have them. I would like to know what you think about this.
Ms Labrie: When a government has reduced its budget by so many billions at a time when the gap between rich and poor has increased, it continues to raise some major questions. We must ask whether the most wealthy one-fifth of the population during that period is even wealthier, and the poorest one-fifth is poorer; when billions of dollars have been taken out of public funds, the question is: Who has paid for the zero deficit? It is a frequently asked question. I will give an example concerning the federal government.
When people are contributing to employment insurance but are never able to get enough hours to derive any benefit from it, are they not helping to pay off the country's debt in the place of people better equipped to do so? This type of thing is shameful.
In my circles I daily encounter people who are doing their best to make it. I cannot speak for the people who are getting fish given to them. I see people who are always trying to fish, but who cannot get access to the lake!
It is a serious problem. If we are going to give people a chance to make it, we must have sound employment policies and employment promotion policies. When creating jobs for people who do not have them, we must avoid putting them into jobs where there is a minimal difference between working and receiving social assistance. Otherwise it does not make sense.
If you wish to know more about this, visit my district and have a look at what is going on. This afternoon we are talking a good deal about social cohesion. I wish to point out one thing. When we allow the gap to increase, as it is doing, a portion of the population will slip into another type of economy. When people cannot make ends meet, what do they do? They seek out community assistance, they look to the local churches, where they are offered a faint hope. These people fall into what might be called the infernal economy, a vicious circle that is very difficult to escape. It is a tremendous weight. Why are we placing it on some of our people, when we have the opportunity to do otherwise?
I do not accept the explanation that it's an excuse. Where I come from, the people are doing everything they can. I was opening a little parenthesis; we could get back to it if you wish. Another question arises: Should we look at the people of our society solely from the angle of employment? In the 21st century, should we not also think about full participation by people in society?
There are hordes of people who cannot keep up with the pace of work and who will have work-related illnesses. They are like fishermen who have gone fishing but cannot become experts because the pace is too fast. What about them? Are we going to give them fish? Perhaps there is a more humane approach. We could respect the potential of technology, the sharing of wealth and take an intelligent approach toward human activity.
Senator Gill: Everyone agrees that the gaps are widening and there are real problems. The governments must do things at all levels. On the other hand, in this movement of awareness-raising and assistance that is certainly not without merit, I wonder whether we are not getting into another form of excess in the sense of overprotection and justification. For example, saying that things are difficult, and people should do everything for you.
I am afraid of falling into that, because I have had such experiences. People can get into this kind of thing. The job you are doing must also make people responsible.
Ms Labrie: In order for people to get involved in society, we often present the problem of getting out of poverty by putting the person at the centre. As soon as you put people rather than money at the centre, three things must be considered.
To begin with, a person must be able to meet his or her needs. Second, he or she must be able to carry out activities which give recognition, whether it be employment or something else, and third, the person must be able to influence society.
It is very difficult to ask a person to be a producer and a consumer of wealth without asking him to become a participant in the mechanism of reflection on wealth redistribution. What you are looking for is possible only if citizenship is exercised at the lowest economic level. People with poverty problems must be able to feel that their opinion and their view of the world makes sense and can help to change policies. Once this is done, the effort will be there, because the person has found a meaningful place in society.
That was one of the answers I presented; one of the issues is not simply the redistribution of wealth, but making it possible for the poorest people to exercise citizenship. When this happens, and I see people getting involved in groups every day, if the person sees that the group is taking his opinion into account, he will come back. I think it is the same thing in society at large.
The movement toward passivity that you talk about can also be seen as a sort of resignation. People resign sometimes when they feel they do not fit in, that there is no place for them, they are seen as just providing labour. We have consumers and active people, but the citizen must be placed in the forefront of our society. It is quite rare. Who makes the decisions that influence the lives of Canada's poorest people? Those who belong to the top one-fifth of the population. There is a problem here. When those who are poor start contributing to decision-making, the decisions will be different and I believe many things will change.
[English]
Senator Poy: Mr. Mui, you spoke about the difficulty of integrating immigrant communities in terms of education and the media. How do you think the government can encourage integrating the mainstream media to a media of other languages?
Mr. Mui: The major problem we have to tackle is that the government has never given us a clear definition of what integration they are looking at. There is no specific expectation of what integration is going to be, so there is no measuring stick of what integration is. If we use our common sense and say that integration means that someone is really involved in and is contributing to the community, the growing numbers of Chinese involved in the so-called third-language media are helping to give information about the so-called mainstream society to the immigrant community. But this is not a two-way street. The so-called mainstream media is not really too interested in what is happening in the local immigrant community group.
How are we going to encourage it? It is very difficult. While the mainstream media does have some interest in so-called immigrant markets, it is only in the economic sense. We have Maclean's magazine and Toronto Life in Chinese, but the major motivation is that they want to sell the products and obtain more advertisements.
The government has to encourage the mainstream media to communicate with the minority communities or the immigrant communities and they have to recognize the fact that when we talk about the so-called immigrant community, it is part of the mainstream community and is not a separate sector. In my paper I said that while the growing numbers of so-called third-language media may further hinder the development, the major media or the mainstream media may depend more on the third-language media instead of integrating both media.
I do not have a quick fix for this problem, but right now the information is only moving one way. The mainstream has information coming in through the so-called third-language media, but the point is that the immigrant group cannot communicate with the mainstream through the media. This is a fact.
Senator Poy: I am quite aware of that, but I cannot think of a solution, either. I know that it is only one way at the moment. I am wondering whether the government can do something about it because there are so many third languages in this country. For social cohesion, it is important that the government be the leader in this respect.
Dr. Labrie, you mentioned drafting a law to eradicate poverty. That is very idealistic. I do not quite understand how one could do that. One can draft a law to redistribute wealth, but how do you eradicate poverty? The only thing I can think of is that you start from education. If people are better educated, then they will be economically better off. But beyond that, what is your suggestion?
[Translation]
Ms Labrie: The objective might seem somewhat comical at first. In passing, if we were working together, I would take out a working tool. Your idea is to talk about education, and so we would work to include this idea in the search for content for the Act. There are tools whereby people can express their opinion on what should be done in legislation to eliminate poverty, as you have just done.
I am going to try to situate what we are looking for with this idea. To begin with, the concept of eliminating poverty is not new. The United Nations introduced this vocabulary with the International Year for the Elimination of Poverty, and then with the First Decade for the Elimination of Poverty. They took precautions, and said, this is just the first decade. However, in the world's conscience -- and I think that it is connected with the whole question of market globalization -- the idea is emerging that this is a major issue for the coming century if the world is to remain cohesive. In the past generation, the gap between haves and have-nots doubled. So there is the challenge of seeing how we can reduce poverty, or in fact eliminate it, ideally, and take the right approach. I am simply talking about the spirit of the project.
But how will this take shape? The first step is perhaps visualizing a framework law. In other words, as a society, saying that we are aware of the difficulty involved, but we are going to take up the challenge. We are taking the first step in the right direction, and we will set a departure point. We will do it in stages, and gradually try to improve our approach. I agree with you that it will be difficult to eliminate the problem, but by setting some goals, we can certainly pave the way.
The problem we are facing today is that of fragmented and incoherent approaches toward poverty reduction. If we try to get a global vision of the problem, we have a greater likelihood of finding common policies and progressing. That is the spirit of what we are doing now.
An initial stage in this kind of project might be this -- and here I am talking in strictly economic terms -- we know that poverty is more than just economics. A society might set a goal of zero impoverishment, and say that from now on, none of its new policies will further impoverish the poorest one-fifth of the population. This is achievable. We could start from this, and have a foundation.
Let me suggest a second stage. Covering essential needs for everyone. Making sure that our employment and income security policies cover the essential needs for the people in our society. It is a question of honour and dignity, and once again, it is doable.
A society that can achieve a zero deficit, as it has just done, is certainly capable of keeping its people above a basic level in terms of what they need to live on. Especially when we consider that a society where some of the people are below this threshold is generally getting poorer. It is going to cost more in terms of health care, quality of life, et cetera.
This is a good objective for everyone. Let us imagine that for the second stage, we make this our goal. Immediately we improve the quality of life in our society. What we are aiming at with this project is to increase the awareness of our capability to work in this direction, if we really wish to.
We must eventually have legislation that is not a finality but a departure point. Legislation will provide a framework or a beginning, and then we must use evaluation techniques, as is often done in the humanities. We must assess the errors, learn from them and make sure that we do not remain in systems that are not working.
Let us imagine that the law's objective is to begin a dialogue, every year, with people who are living in poverty, in order to see what is wrong and what could be improved. We immediately have an opportunity to go farther.
Let us say that the objective is to have all the policies voted on examined in light of their effect on the poor. This will give us new guarantees.
Let us say that an article is added whereby the law can only be amended to improve its objectives. You cannot go back. That can be both idealistic and realistic.
This year France passed a law against exclusion. It may be interesting to examine this experiment, which is quite different because it opens the door to other laws. The Philippines have also adopted some anti-poverty laws that are quite interesting. Some of the world's countries must begin working in another direction if anything is going to happen. Why should we not do so?
[English]
Senator Wilson: Mr. Mui mentioned the role of the media. Certainly the mainstream media does its part in creating a climate that blames the poor. In the last year, The Globe and Mail had three editorials starting with "The poor you have with you always." Then they went on about how it was all the poor people's fault. That makes me so angry that even I would wish to respond to them at some point. You also have to look at the media's role in creating this climate, and people buy the arguments. At the last meeting I mentioned the importance of the media as a participant in building social cohesion.
In all these dismal things we have been talking about this afternoon, many of which I agree with, do any of you have any stories or experiences -- concretely, I mean, models -- in breaking down the barriers for full participation in economic, social and political life?
[Translation]
Ms Labrie: Let me give you a very simple example. Something that actually happened in the focus groups on public finance that I have talked about a moment ago.
To begin with, it is quite unusual for a Finance Minister to agree to talk to poor people. It is unusual for a Finance Minister to think that his clientele might include people who do not pay taxes. In the dialogue between the poor people of my district and the senior officials of the Quebec government, it was said that a change would be detrimental for those affected.
Let me outline it from a technical viewpoint. In a recent budget, Quebec increased its sales tax and, through a sales tax credit, made plans to reimburse low income earners. In the social assistance benefit, there was a reimbursement in the monthly payment, and in view of this change, they planned to remove the reimbursement for the sales tax and add the rebate -- the new supplement -- and pay it twice yearly.
In other words, a benefit of $490 per month for a single person would decline to $477 effective January 1999, and there would be two payments. There was no loss in income. As you can imagine, it is far better for a very poor family to have a regular income and be able to budget it, compared to its receiving two gifts per year that it would be tempted to spend on other things. We pointed this out in a direct way. They were told that it was impossible, that they would make people poorer. You cannot make it with $490. It does not cover essential needs. Far from it. It is a crime to lower the benefits.
Simple dialogue in this case made it possible to overturn a decision and have the tax reimbursement supplement introduced into the social assistance benefit. This is a simple example of how through dialogue change became possible. This having been said, I should point out that the decision had very little financial impact. Before we can do anything more substantial, I think that society must become more open. Last year, in the street parliament, we had a very significant experience.
[English]
Mr. Pfrimmer: I have just two examples. One came out of these hearings in the Ottawa-Carleton region. The regional municipality here, in response to some pressures from the religious community that hosted the hearings, set up a task force comprised solely of low-income people to advise them of the services they could provide. That has been very effective. It is an example that has been looked at elsewhere around the province. There is a concrete example. There is more that I could say, but that will suffice.
Senator Cohen: Dr. Labrie said that we must empower poor people and help the poor become full citizens because they will stop participating when they do not feel valued. The first step is to stop discrimination against the poor because they are poor. As the gap widens between the haves and the have-nots, discrimination is far more rampant than it ever was. Corporations have tunnel vision; they do not want to know about it until you start to talk to them.
Religion used to play a very important role in creating that glue, that togetherness that was social cohesion. The church family is still working in that area, but it is really not enough. What else is needed when it comes to forming or creating partnerships or alliances with other groups in society to help fight social cohesion? How do we get corporations involved in those alliances to open their eyes and start making a difference?
Mr. Pfrimmer: You want a short answer to that question, I assume. If I had it, I would be delighted to give it to you.
We cannot assume that everybody belongs to a church, synagogue or temple today, that is true. But the religious values are still there. People still believe in something. It is distressing that so much of our social policy legislation has no kind of reference to those kinds of values. We need people who are comfortable talking about things like human dignity, social justice. We have lost those things in the lexicon of our public discussion, and this is very problematic.
People are open to a different vision. If we are talking about how we get other sectors of society involved in this, we must buck the trend. This steamroller of globalization is not inevitable. We do not have to sacrifice the social choices we make. Quite frankly, if you ask what makes you happy or what is most important to you, it is often not your job or your political party. It is rather the things you do that answer the social questions in your life; the things that you are prepared to invest yourself in. The church will go on, but I am more concerned about those institutions that do not have the kinds of support that we have. Somehow we need to get at those institutions that give people some profounder sense of meaning for their life and something that they want to commit their lives to.
I will quit with that because there needs to be a longer discussion about that question.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: Do we have three categories of people on social assistance? Those who are on it for life, who wish to be excluded from society and do not feel like getting back into the labour market. The second group is on social assistance because of illness, and the third, because of job loss. Thus they are on social assistance for a year or two, but during this period they lose contact with the labour market. When the head of the family loses his or her employment and requests social assistance, the government must have specific programs to enable the person to remain on the leading edge of new technologies until he or she gets back into the labour force. As you know, there are abuses. Someone who has been on social assistance from a very early age will not feel like going to work.
I have been in charge of a community centre for the elderly and for cultural committees for over 25 years. We ask everyone who visits the food bank and others if they wish to do two hours of community work. They say, Yes, I'll be here on Friday to do the meals on wheels, and they do not show up.
We might say to someone else, here is a cheque to pay your electricity bill, here's some food baskets, but if you haven't done at least five hours of volunteer work next month, we will not give you anything. The person might not show up for months. These are people who are very aware of their situation. They are excluded because they wish to be.
What do you think of that? Is that the society that we live in?
Ms Labrie: Senator Ferretti Barth, would you like me to categorize senators?
Senator Ferretti Barth: You can do as you wish, but my categories are actual cases. I live with people on the street. I am not here because I have done special studies or made special recommendations to become a senator. I have worked very hard, madam, I have set aside my social position to work with the poor, and I still help them. I am saying that there is resistance among those on social assistance. You said that you lived in a very special kind of district. Tell me where it is, and I will be quite willing to visit it. I would like to talk with the people who you say are poor.
Ms Labrie: It is very difficult to reply to your intervention. You can get an understanding by the way in which I replied. We are making a serious mistake categorizing people who live in poverty. When we do this, we open the way to categorizing everywhere in society. If we start examining whether human beings are good, less good, active or lazy, we have to open this up everywhere on the social scale, and you know where that will lead to. Quite honestly, I think it's a bad way to go.
Clearly there are people living in poverty who see no hope other than doing the best they can in their situation, without believing that it will change. We are making a mistake by focussing our whole concept of what changes are necessary on employment only.
In recent years, the idea has developed -- and this is an inherent part of the globalization of markets ideology -- that there are good poor people and bad poor people. The good poor are those who want to work but cannot find work and whom we should help, and those who cannot work. The bad poor are those who do not wish to work, but who could. This is not how I see things. Very often, people who are jobless and receiving welfare are discouraged; previously they were in the labour market. Very often, the people who have given up went to ask for help in an employment centre and did not receive help, but were greeted with suspicion and the prejudice that somehow they had committed an error if they were appearing there. The result is that when people see that they have been rejected by a hand that should have been stretched out to help, they draw their own conclusion. They withdraw from society.
Will charity and food banks solve the problem? I highly doubt it. This brings me back to a point that you introduced a while ago. The churches and charitable institutions cannot be asked to fulfill the functions of a cohesive State. One of the characteristics of the State is that it makes all citizens, without exception, responsible for a redistribution of wealth that covers all citizens without exception. The idea of universality makes the State an instrument for social cohesion that charity can never become. Charity is based upon those who give and those who ask. The hand stretched out is always humiliating. It leads to all sorts of reactions including those that you have described because the relationship is not egalitarian.
I will give you an example: clothing. We are used to the idea that people who are poor can go to a clothing bank to receive clothes and, therefore, they should not be too fussy. It is the poorest people in our society who will recycle clothing. The rich go to buy new clothes and after a year, they stop wearing them and bring them to the clothing drop-off. Is this the kind of society in which we want to live? And then, we will criticize people who do not want to do volunteer work before getting clothes. Perhaps we could change our approach. If we lived in a society that wanted to recycle clothes, but where everyone recycled them at the same time, our approach might change. We have seen that when there are community kitchens where people do the cooking, and clothing exchanges based on a more ecological approach, attitudes change because people feel that they are participating fully.
As long as we maintain a hierarchy and distinguish the haves from the have-nots, the have-nots will react as best they can.
I would like to read you the two last paragraphs of my presentation. I will read the second last paragraph, on page 6.
I will conclude with a statement from Lucienne, a very poor woman burdened by a large debt and on social welfare, and her interest is growing more quickly than the cut to her monthly benefit. We discovered that she is technically indebted for life to social assistance, and destined to see her debt increase each month.
Her cheque was cut by $112 and her interest is $116 and more. So you see what I mean. She is like a third-world country. Lucienne tried to commit suicide a few days ago. She told me:
I have been under pressure my whole life long, and I still am. They are calculating this as though I had committed voluntary fraud. At night, I have nightmares, as though I was being locked up. It's very hard to live like this. In fact, I am not living, I am existing. Why do I exist? Will it be like this my whole life long? If that's the case, I might as well be dead.
Lucienne feels that she is a responsible citizen, she feels she is a burden on the society that could not do anything better than to indebt her for life under the social assistance program.
I asked myself the Shakespearian question: "To be or not to be?" Why is Lucienne existing in a society that is being globalized? That is the question. I would invite you to think about it and to answer. You might meet her if you come to my neighbourhood.
You may have the oportunity to speak with the witness, but for the moment, we must thank our witnesses.
[English]
Thank you very much to our three witnesses.
The committee adjourned.