Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 15 - Evidence - Meeting of February 15, 2007
OTTAWA, Thursday, February 15, 2007
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 7:59 a.m. to examine and report on rural poverty in Canada.
Senator Leonard J. Gustafson (Deputy Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: Good morning, honourable senators and witnesses. Good morning to all those who are watching our committee. Last May, our committee was authorized to examine and report on rural poverty in Canada. Last fall, a number of expert witnesses gave us an overview of rural poverty. On the basis of that testimony, we wrote an interim report, which we released in December and, which, by all accounts, really struck a nerve. For too long the plight of the rural poor has been ignored by policy-makers and politicians.
We now begin a second phase of our study. Our goal is to meet with rural Canadians, rural poor and people who work with them. We want to hear firsthand the challenges of being poor in rural Canada, and we want to hear firsthand how we can help.
To that end, the committee is holding preparatory meetings in Ottawa ahead of its plan to travel to rural communities across the land.
This morning, witnesses bring to the committee a wide range of perspectives on the plight of the rural poor and measures to help them. With us this morning, we have Charles Cirtwill, Acting President of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies; and also we have Ishbel Munro, Executive Director of the Coastal Communities Network. Welcome to you both.
Charles Cirtwill, Acting President, Atlantic Institute for Market Studies: I want to start first by applauding the committee for this work. There can be no argument that this subject has been lacking in serious study and exploration and I think that you are absolutely correct in suggesting that your interim report has galvanized various communities around this issue to take a serious look at the issues.
Second, I will tell you about the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies. We are an independent social and economic policy think tank based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. We cover the full gamut of public policy agencies and we also deal with local, regional, national and international issues. Again, we cover almost anything that comes into the fray.
I will start with the standard refrain that rural demographic trends in general are going in the wrong direction in Canada. Our population is aging, fewer babies are being born, fewer people are coming to our shores and, in rural communities in particular, we are making less money and generating less wealth.
The odd piece to that puzzle is that this news is actually good for the poor. This news will improve the opportunities for the people who are least engaged, receive the least benefit from our economic boom and who we turned our minds to in the last stage. These people, in the next 20 years, have a staggering opportunity to change their lives.
People in government, at all levels, need to get out of the way or at the least, not make trouble when they try to help. This point does not mean that government does nothing for the poor. Maximizing the benefits for people who will never be able to take care of themselves fully needs to remain a priority of government. The key is to recognize that the policies of the last two generations have failed, particularly in rural communities. Trying to sustain an idyllic past in place of an uncertain future has done immeasurable harm not only to our country, but to those people who we set out to help.
The future of government action on rural poverty is in transition. That action does not mean government policy is in transition, although that is the case, but government policy should help people in poverty move on to something else.
The bad news for rural farmers is that Canada is losing its ability to compete in bulk, unprocessed agricultural commodities. As most of you know, commodities have been the basis of most of our trade surplus for some time.
The good news is we actually want to get out of producing those things. This story has been repeated across the globe. At one time in New Zealand, the government offered subsidies to produce wine, and farmers produced mass quantities of poor quality wine. When the economic downturn happened the government eliminated those subsidies. Farmers responded by saying that eliminating the subsidies was the end of a traditional way of life, which, in fact, it was. Today, New Zealand wine is a prized commodity. It is a high value-added exercise. New Zealand farmers learned they could make more money producing a higher quality product and less of it.
I see this at home. In Nova Scotia, an apple farmer has started making pies and selling them directly to Wal-Mart for a significant profit. Ice wine is another example. We also see organic varieties of apples selling in U.S. marketplaces and that market will grow. We also see the wired and wireless world allowing rural communities to parlay their quality of life into a sustainable standard of living by attracting an increasing number of internet-based industries. I was talking to someone recently who operates a travel agency in the basement of their home.
Closer to home, farmers have a market for fresh local products. However, the products are not sold only at the local farmer's market, but at major retailers such as Sobeys, for instance.
Even the flight of our young people from the farm is not the end of rural life. The family farm will not so much die away as the kind of family that owns and runs the farm will be different in the future. What is happening across the country is exemplified by what has happened in the Fraser Valley. That land, long ago, passed out of the hands of the traditional Canadian farmer, if there ever was such a person. We talk about the traditional farmer or farm values as if the farmer has always been the same type of person and, in the generic sense, it has been the same type of person. However, each generation sees a different type of family come, take over the land, make it profitable and turn over a new product. In the Fraser Valley, for example, the traditional Canadian farmer was originally replaced by Chinese. Now the Sikhs are making farming a business and raising their families in that fertile, profitable land.
The first challenge for government is to avoid the temptation to manage this change, because that involves picking winners and losers, and we know that government has a poor track record at that.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s we embraced post-secondary education and, in particular, universities. It is not that having a university degree is a bad thing. The problem is the unintended consequences of convincing everyone that they should have a university degree. We started with the assertion that everyone could go to university. Then we switched that to everyone should go to university. This assertion was a direct if unintended attack on rural communities. It devalued the skills and expertise needed to fill many of the trades-related tasks common in rural life. It created an environment where it was okay to see critically important work as demeaning because that work did not require a university degree. It even allowed us to devalue the skilled trades, which require a lot of training, because somehow taking that training meant people were less intelligent than those who went to university. This effort to encourage people to take university training is part of the reason why we find ourselves with a skills shortage and a gap. We have convinced our young people that having these skills is not of value. They listened and now we do not have those skills.
We have tried, in education, to pick winners and losers and we have failed again. Yet, with our immigration policy, we do the same thing. We try to target particular types of immigrants to fill certain jobs and certain skills. Labour shortages are already negatively impacting economic opportunities in agriculture and the skilled trades, both traditional strengths of rural communities. We have focused our efforts in immigration on attracting economic class immigrants and defined skilled workers by a point system that considers truckers to have no skills at all.
Even when we talk about encouraging entrepreneurs to immigrate, we forget who entrepreneurs tend to be. The worst thing a student applying for a visa to attend university can say is that they might consider staying here after completing their studies. If they say that, we do not let them in. We want them to come here, spend their money, receive their education and go home. If young people with fresh ideas are sent packing, where will our entrepreneurs come from?
We can take full advantage of another opportunity that has a direct impact on rural communities. Our agricultural sector needs cost-effective labour to compete in the global marketplace. Many countries have flourishing guest-worker programs. We have, within the NAFTA umbrella, a ready pool of labour, yet we spend little effort to set up the screening and marketing opportunities to take advantage of that. Former Mexican president Vicente Fox has already been to Canada advocating a guest- workers program for Mexican workers. Many of those workers would find their way into rural communities, creating opportunities not only for themselves but also for rural Canadians. We need to get on with that idea.
Letting these opportunities speak for themselves is the second and larger challenge for government. In the post-war period we made a series of mistaken policy choices that have trapped a whole subclass of people in conditions of poor education, low income and blighted life chances. The good news is that we will have no choice but to reverse those policies. In the 1960s and 1970s we were awash in surplus labour and we created effective public policy to deal with that. We created those policies in response to demographic forces that were too powerful to ignore and too overwhelming to change. We are now faced with an almost equal inverse situation that will force us, however unwillingly, to reverse those policies.
A labour shortage is a poor worker's best friend. It does not matter if the workers work only part time, have never worked a day in their lives or are only temporarily out of work; a labour shortage will create opportunities for them and will deliver incentives sufficient to encourage them to take advantage of that opportunity.
In 2001, my institute estimated that by 2020 Atlantic Canada would have almost 80,000 fewer workers. The demographic trends that led to that prediction have become worse in the intervening five years. Currently, in Nova Scotia our unemployment rate is the lowest it has been in 30 years. By one estimate, in another 10 years unemployment in Nova Scotia will be near zero. With a zero unemployment rate comes a severe disruption in the economy. Goods are not made, crops are not picked and product is not delivered. People who do not work now will need to work.
Consider what has been achieved in Ontario and Alberta. As the labour supply dried up, it became necessary to find ways to employ people quickly that were considered unemployable previously. For example, in the United States, McDonald's invested a great deal of money to design a cash register that can be run by people who are functionally illiterate. As huge economic opportunities opened up, government changed its policies to encourage people to be trained and return to the work force, and it worked. They now have jobs and income to which they had never previously had access.
This new way of thinking is already taking root in Atlantic Canada. I recently had the pleasure of addressing the annual meeting of the Nova Scotia Trucking Human Resource Sector Council, which represents rural truckers across Atlantic Canada. They launched an impressive exercise to target non-traditional employees in their industry — women, Aboriginals, African Nova Scotians and disabled people. By implementing new technologies and new attitudes, they are drawing in, for the first time, groups that have never before been involved in the industry. As a result, the council creates opportunities for these workers and meets the needs of the industry.
These changes will not be easy. Two generations of Atlantic Canadians have been trapped by various social policies. The trap is baited by Employment Insurance, a social insurance that effectively withdraws people from the labour market and gives them little incentive to work or be trained. Employment Insurance — or unemployment insurance as it was called then — was designed in a time of labour surplus. It allowed people to have income while we tried to find room for them in the work force. With access to rotating benefits and regionally differentiated EI, we were able to string that out for some time. We no longer have that luxury; we need those people in the workforce.
In the mid-1990s, the federal government started to make the necessary changes to adjust the EI program — reducing benefits, making it harder to qualify and adjusting benefits for repeat users of EI.
Voters, particularly in Atlantic Canada, rewarded the government by tossing many of their members out of office in 1997. Politicians are nothing if not responsive to losing their jobs, and many members were returned to their seats in 2000 after the changes to the EI system were softened or, in many cases, reversed. However, in this instance the politicians were right, and we need to make those adjustments again.
EI is not the only barrier that we put in place for the poor to move from poverty to work. The interaction of the tax system and our social welfare programs in Canada is such that the highest marginal tax rates in the country are paid by people earning $13,000 to $20,000 annually. These people often try to transition from poverty to work. If they earn money, we tax back their benefits versus their income, dollar for dollar. In effect, we tax them at 100 per cent for the gall of having a job.
We also place barriers before older populations. Those of us who have reached the pinnacle of 65 years find ourselves fired the day after our birthday on grounds that in almost any other circumstance would be considered illegal. Mandatory retirement takes active, able and enthusiastic workers out of the workforce.
The labour shortage will provide the opportunity for people in poverty, whether rural or urban, to transition from poverty to prosperity. The key role of government at every level is to facilitate that change, but we cannot choose the ways in which this will happen. We cannot pick the opportunities that will work or not work. We cannot pick winners and losers. The transition is already happening. People are taking advantage of this labour shortage, and the role of all governments, the federal government in particular, is to facilitate what is happening already.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you. You have raised many questions for us.
Senator Oliver: Thank you for your presentation. You are from a major think tank. I want to hear your definition of rural poverty. After that, I want to ask you questions about poverty, because many of the comments and recommendations you made deal not so much with poverty but with economic incentives. Help me to understand what you mean by ``rural poverty,'' which is the essence of our study.
Mr. Cirtwill: With regard to poverty, it is important to understand that there are two key groups. There are those who will never be able to take care of themselves fully and those who can either only partially take care of themselves or need a little help in transitioning from one job to the next due to a significant event in their lives.
My remarks are focused on the second group. For the first group, the ones who will never be able to help themselves, our objective should be to find as many resources as we can to help them. One way to do that is to have the rest of the people contribute for to their maximum capacity. Every dollar that we free up from that group is a dollar that we can expend on the first group.
Senator Oliver: What is the percentage breakdown of those who can never look after themselves and those who can look after themselves? Is it 50 to 50 or 60 to 40?
Mr. Cirtwill: The last data that I looked at from Statistics Canada indicated that about 30 per cent of people in poverty at any one time will likely transition out. They are replaced. Approximately one third of people listed in those statistical categories are no longer in the same category by the next year or the year after. The total number of that group is surprisingly constant at 30 per cent but the people who compose the group transition nicely. When we set a goal based on the notion that the single individual in poverty is a bad thing, we need to recognize that some people will always need assistance. The question remains: How do we help them? The goal is to ensure that the people who always need help receive it, and the people who need transition help have the barriers removed that slow their transition. I am uncertain of the numbers of people who stay in property. I believe the split was 30-30-30: 30 per cent who transition reasonably quickly within a two-year time frame; 30 per cent, who will always need help; and 30 per cent, who fall between the first two groups.
Senator Oliver: In terms of the two groups, those who never will work and those who can work, your presentation today dealt primarily with the second group. When you talk about the wine from New Zealand and the pies made in the valley for Wal-Mart, you are making reference to the second group.
Mr. Cirtwill: I am talking about those that we need to stop spending resources on so that we have more resources for the first group.
Senator Oliver: The women, Aboriginals or Blacks that become truckers fall into the second group.
Mr. Cirtwill: They become not only truckers but also logistics technicians, dispatchers, et cetera. You are right. Judging from our poverty figures, we see that the largest population tends to be single mothers, and they tend to be an underrepresented group in the labour force. Therefore, we are talking about these kinds of initiatives to get out of their way to allow them to contribute, as best they can, to their own well-being.
The Deputy Chairman: It bothered me when you said that we generate less wealth in rural Canada. Did I hear you correctly?
Mr. Cirtwill: We generate less wealth in rural Canada than we have generated traditionally. The proportion is smaller. That being said, I have seen interesting figures on manufacturing in rural Canada. The challenge comes back to the definitional questions, which the committee dealt with in its interim report.
The Deputy Chairman: My point is that fisheries, forestry, agriculture, gas and oil and mining come out of rural Canada but nothing goes back in.
Mr. Cirtwill: I do not agree necessarily that nothing goes back in. As an example, several projects for oil and gas exploration on the East Coast have included building facilities in areas that, based on this committee's definition, fit into a rural setting. One project is the gas plant in Guysborough.
The Deputy Chairman: Urban centres continue to grow. Over half our population lives in four major cities. There is less concentration on rural Canada than there has ever been, even though the wealth comes from rural Canada.
Mr. Cirtwill: This point ties to the opportunities I talked about. We must recognize that there are significant economic opportunities in rural Canada that should provide, if we handle this issue right, an opportunity for population to grow in these centres. The challenge we face is the definition of ``rural Canada'' as anything outside a 50- kilometre radius from an urban centre. Much growth in the rural sector has been in that small corridor. The recently released report from the Conference Board of Canada speaks to the nine hub cities. To say that all our resources should be focussed on these nine hubs because they will grow our economy is a counter-intuitive notion. The conference board has said that such an analysis applies in lessening degrees as you move to smaller populations. For example, Kentville in my home province acts as a hub centre for its surrounding area just as Bathurst, New Brunswick, functions as a hub centre in its area. Such smaller hubs have economic impacts on the overall region just as larger hubs such as Halifax, for example, have on its overall region. The challenge for this committee is to make that kind of analysis clear to people.
Senator Mercer: Mr. Cirtwill, you have challenged a couple of my basic thoughts on the role of government. You have challenged the traditional definition of ``family farm,'' which, in Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada, still exist. You have challenged, and I will challenge you on your statement about, education. It is generally accepted by those who work in public affairs that one way to break the poverty cycle, whether in urban or rural settings, is education. Your presentation attacked university education. You said that government should get out of the way and that we should not pick winners and losers. Someone must design the education programs. In the 1970s, the government of Nova Scotia turned to Scotland to hire people for the installation of the insulated pipe in building the heavy water plant because there were no trained people in Nova Scotia to do that job. At the time, the unemployment rate was 15 per cent to 18 per cent in Cape Breton. Government has a role to manage the workforce efficiently. Have we done a great job? I do not think so but I would challenge your comment that we should not pick winners and losers. If we do not pick winners and losers, there will be many more losers, and guess where they end up — on our front doorstep. Then we are expected to take care of them and they end up in that group of people that you have defined as never being able to take care of themselves. They will be in the poverty cycle forever.
Government's job is to help Canadians climb out of that kind of cycle and provide opportunities. If people choose not to climb out, then that is their choice, but government must give them an opportunity. Your contention is that government should sit back, cut taxes and let people fend for themselves. Is that right?
Mr. Cirtwill: Let us go back to basic principles. My comments reflected the focus that the government has elected to place on the importance of post-secondary education defined as ``university.'' We have spent the last 20 years expending a great deal of resources, time, energy and marketing efforts to convince people that a university education is a central part of a person's success. I cannot agree more that education is the silver bullet. What I am telling you is that university education is a limiting definition of ``education.'' Post-secondary training happens in trade schools, apprenticeship programs, the workplace and private training. Until government creates programs that allow people the broadest possible access to education with the maximum flexibility to adapt their education to the opportunities presented by the economy, we will always be faced with more losers than winners.
Senator Mercer: I will pass, Mr. Chair, because my blood pressure cannot handle this discussion.
Senator Callbeck: Certainly, you have made some interesting comments, Mr. Cirtwill. I want to continue with Senator Mercer's comments. You said that government should not manage change because that involves winners and losers. As well, you talked about post-secondary education and immigration, and you provided many examples.
In your paper you say:
The future of government action on rural poverty is in transition. . . . I mean that the government strategy must be to help others to change, to transition, to move on.
I take that to mean that government should not manage change but should facilitate what happens. How does government do that?
Mr. Cirtwill: On education, if we target more resources — although not all, because we have made commitments to institutions that we have to satisfy — to individual students and allowed them to select opportunities that reflect the reality of the economic situation where they live, that would be a significant exercise in government involvement. We would handle the question of potential barriers to access through ability to pay.
On immigration, the best solution is to allow the widest possible latitude for immigrants, and for communities to make the case that these immigrants are the kind they need. Rather than targeting skilled workers, with bureaucrats in Ottawa defining the skill sets, the federal government should give communities support to market in areas that will bring them the kind of immigrants they believe they need.
For example, an interesting fellow at our institute came in under the Nova Scotia nominee program as an immigrant entrepreneur investor. He works with us on government policy related to China. Since he arrived in Canada a year ago he has consistently said that he does not understand why Canada and Nova Scotia are looking for immigrants in Beijing. He said he has travelled in rural Nova Scotia and areas of Shenzhen province in China look exactly like Nova Scotia. We can obtain the immigrants we need there to fit the industry, and why waste our time in the major centres?
The federal government, in particular, which has the primary responsibility for immigration, could take far more direct guidance from individual communities on what is needed and allow communities to make the case on an individual basis rather than saying that Nova Scotia will receive a certain amount of immigrants in certain categories. As soon as we build limitations, we limit the level of success we can achieve.
Senator Callbeck: In bringing immigrants into rural areas, does government have a role to help the community provide the proper supports?
Mr. Cirtwill: Absolutely: There is no question that the government has a role here. However, if government attempts to manage too closely what happens, we will recreate the problems we have had previously. There is no question, for example, that government has the resources to market the communities; to help them study their actual needs as opposed to their perceived needs; to identify potential areas around the globe where people who meet that description can be found; and to access the resources to market the opportunity to those people. Such exercises are probably, at this stage, best handled by government, because government has the resources to do them.
Senator Callbeck: Returning to the question about university, you spoke of giving money directly to the students. How will it help to give the money directly to the students and let them determine where they go to university?
Mr. Cirtwill: It will help in a number of ways. First, students can access the education they want. Going back to my trucking council example, I was surprised to learn that students cannot access student loans in Nova Scotia to become a truck driver. That strikes me as a significant problem, considering the shortage of truck drivers there.
A system that supplies supports for some students and not for others is wrong. Allowing every student, regardless of where they study, to access a certain pool of funding — albeit adjusted for undergraduate degrees, trades training and graduate degrees — will address that problem.
That change will also address the lack of accountability between the training institutions and the students, and between the training institutions and the government that is paying the freight for this exercise. We have programs that fund seats in specialties that this economy no longer requires. These programs are maintained far beyond their useful life because our funding now goes in block grants to institutions.
Senator Peterson: It has been said that we will not have social justice until we have economic justice. We have been struggling with how to deal with the rural poor. I recognize that many times when government tries to design a program, the program becomes complicated and unworkable.
You talk about what governments should do, and one example is immigration policy, which really struggles. Quebec and Ontario have their own policy, so they know what they want and can do what they want. I am from Saskatchewan where we know what we want, but by the time the information goes through the system everyone has given up; either the company has found another way to deal with the problem or it has gone out of business.
What would be the result if the federal government gave every province a better way to deal with this situation?
On tax policies, you say that we encourage people to work and then we penalize them. Instead of a trampoline, we have a big net and they all fall into it. How can we work our way out of that situation?
I want to hear your thoughts on financial trusts through which some money can be set aside to invest in people who have no asset base and are trying to get ahead. This money would be repaid. I am not talking about giving money away but about investing in people. Some will fail, but some will be successful and we will receive the money back and reinvest it. Is this approach a way of dealing with the problem on a micro scale rather than a macro scale?
Mr. Cirtwill: On the question of whether the provinces should have a larger role in immigration, the unequivocal answer is yes, but I would go further than that. Individual communities must have a role. Rivière-du-Loup should have a role in guiding Quebec immigration policy, for example. We do not need to discuss whether that change is a formal transfer of responsibility with the constitutional negotiations associated with it. We only need to be sensible and practical about it and recognize that, as in every portion of government policy, there is no cookie cutter solution. The more flexibility we can build into programs, the better off we will be.
On the trampoline issue, I have the distinct pleasure, coming from Nova Scotia as I do, of saying that the Province of Nova Scotia is piloting the Harvest Connection Program exactly for this reason. The province has identified a particular sector of their economy in which they have difficulty finding workers. Under this program, the first $3,000 of earned income is not clawed back from social welfare benefits. The program expands the window in which one has the fiscal capacity to transition from welfare to work.
Is the transition sufficient? I do not think so. I think we still have a long way to go before we come up with a solution that allows people to move effectively from welfare to work.
Of course, the challenge is that people say we pay people to be on welfare. We need to be clear that we reward people for obtaining a job and we will help them transition from one job into the next job that will then allow them to be totally self-sufficient. I think those kinds of programs certainly are a model that will be applied nationwide and sector- wide. In fact, the governing party of Nova Scotia recently passed the resolution at their annual general meeting that they will look at reducing the clawback across the entire economy. Some models we can use across the country.
With respect to funds or trusts for regions or communities in terms of access to capital or some sort of investment in individuals, we do those kinds of things now. A venture capital fund has been set up in Nova Scotia where a certain amount of money that goes into that fund is tax deductible on their Nova Scotia taxes. That fund is designed and intended to be invested in small start-up enterprises in the province. That program is not the first of its kind, but that kind of exercise and initiative is a welcome intervention and one that often works.
Of course, the key will be that it cannot turn into something like the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, ACOA, or western development, where there is a lot of money going out the door, not a lot of accountability associated with it and not a lot of repayment. As you pointed out, programs cannot be only block grants or give- aways. People on the other side must have real consequences to encourage them in behaviours to sustain them going forward.
Senator Peterson: By the same token, the program cannot be too rigid or it will not work, particularly when you talk about tax deferral funds. If I invest, I receive a tax break, but the people running the fund are so cautious, because they need to look after the money, that they invest mostly in Government of Canada Treasury Bills. Then they say, ``What a wonderful job we are doing. We made six per cent last year.'' Those programs tend not to work.
I think a program needs to be structured to recognize that the area is a high risk one, but it is the only way people will have access to the venture capital.
Mr. Cirtwill: There is a model in Sweden for repayment of student loans. Basically, student loans are available for anyone in any kind of focus. Despite the fact that the majority of costs are picked up by the government, Swedish students have remarkably high individual student loans. However, the way the Swedes collect that debt back from their students over an extended period of time at a favourable interest rate tied directly to their income allows a remarkable degree of flexibility for repayment. It also gives students the incentive side in the early stages, which is what you are talking about, and it gives the flexibility to respond to realities. Flexibility is built into that system.
You are right. The more flexibility we can have in that kind of approach, the better off everyone will be.
The Deputy Chairman: We know that Chrysler has laid off 2,000 people. It is difficult to move a Chrysler worker, who receives, perhaps, $50 an hour, to an area where they receive less pay.
For instance in Saskatchewan, it is difficult to find somebody to work on a farm because the oil boom has high wages. It is a real problem for our farmers. I talked to a farmer the other day and he said, ``I used to hire my men year round. I cannot do it any more. I had to let them go and I do not know what I am going to do this spring to get the crop in.'' This challenge is not only isolated to farmers; it is a problem that Canada will face as a whole.
On the other hand, Chinese labourers work for US$100 a month and the pumps that pump oil in Saskatchewan come from China. Canada will face some serious problems, in my thinking, related to labour and different facets of our society. I want to hear your comment on that.
Mr. Cirtwill: The Chrysler workers will be okay because Alberta recruiters will be standing outside the plant; they will be fine. My understanding is that another automotive plant is opening up in a nearby region; they will be okay.
The point about the attractiveness of working on the farm though goes back to two points I made. We need to look for alternative solutions to the concept that we must attract somebody who is a pipe fitter or a welder to move to the farm. We need to take a serious look at whether we can make an effective go of guest workers. California and southern Ontario are doing well with guest worker programs. A labour pool in Mexico is looking to take advantage of this opportunity and we should go after them. That is exercise number one.
Exercise number two comes back to the Chinese worker who works for a hundred dollars a day. Those workers are exactly the kind I am talking about. Let us talk to them to see if they want to move here and work for a little bit more.
Senator Oliver: The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, AIMS, based in Atlantic Canada, has said for a long time: We think the Atlantic region would do a lot better if they regionalized and perhaps became one unit, or they looked at doing a lot of things in common.
I want you to take our subject matter, which is rural poverty, and apply it to that model that you have promoted on more than one occasion.
Mr. Cirtwill: As far as I recall, we have never advocated political union among the four provinces because it is a non-starter, but you are absolutely right, we need to do things collectively much better. It is a huge waste of resources for four small provinces to have four workers compensation boards, four liquor control acts, four structures to set minimum wages and four labour standards codes; it is absolutely wasteful. It also creates artificial barriers to the flexibility to move workers from one part of region to the other. It is much more effective or feasible for people who live in Amherst to work in Moncton, but we put barriers in place that do not allow that movement to happen.
You are absolutely right. Those kinds of barriers have a direct impact on our ability to respond to rural poverty in all its forms and with all the weapons in our arsenal. If we were much better at streamlining our regulations, if we had free trade within our own national boundaries, poverty would be considerably less than it is. From that point of view and all those kinds of things, any improvement we can make would not only benefit those of us who are already in the work force, but to a much more significant level, it would people who are not taking advantage of those economic opportunities now.
Senator Callbeck: I want to ask you about ACOA since you are situated in Atlantic Canada. I believe your organization has been critical of ACOA in the past, but I want to ask about the ACOA Community Futures Program because several witnesses have spoken about that program in a positive way.
Mr. Cirtwill: I think it is fair to say that AIMS has never been a big fan of ACOA. In particular, AIMS has never been a big fan of large block subsidy grants to anyone who is not accountable for them. ACOA has a long and — you can use either coloured or storied — past of those kind of programs. That being said, you are absolutely right. ACOA has begun to make changes. Some of their programs are far more oriented to practical, flexible, deliverable and measurable results than they have ever been in the past. If I had to pick one program to keep, of all the ACOA programs, it would likely be the Community Futures Program delivered through the Atlantic Community Business Development Corporations. ACOA still has an unfortunate tendency to give away a lot of money in advance of election years, as research in advance of the last federal election showed. They still tend to give away a statistically disproportionate amount of money to ridings held by government members. However, you are right in saying that there are early signs of a change in mindset and ethos at ACOA such that they can achieve other things. Now my staff wonders why I say nice things about ACOA.
Senator Callbeck: I am glad to hear that you would keep the Community Futures Program.
[Translation]
Senator Biron: The drop of fish stocks caused a reduction in employment and incomes for coastal areas. It marked the beginning of the exodus of young people to Alberta. To counter this exodus, the government could offer subsidies in order to create jobs in industry. This way we would see an increase in work in these urban areas. In Saskatchewan, for example, I met farmers who prepare to receive carbon credits because of the oil industry. They expect to increase their incomes this way.
A job created in an industry generates work for five other persons. The opposite effect is also true. How do you expect to counter this exodus other than by seeking to urbanize part of the jobs?
[English]
Mr. Cirtwill: That combination of thoughts is complex but I will respond first to your point on carbon credits. Without endorsing or opposing carbon credits, that is exactly the kind of innovation that rural farmers should undertake to identify all their potential resource revenue lines and to take advantage of them. We will have a debate on carbon credits another day.
On the question of possibly subsidizing particular industries to create a kind of trickle-down effect, such that the creation of one job leads to the creation of another job, that exercise is already happening, in particular in rural manufacturing. We would be far better to focus government resources on facilitating their access to the marketplace, whether you talk about a wireless information technology, IT, infrastructure for rural communities or about ensuring that a reasonable level of transportation and access to global transportation systems are in place. For example, there is a recent proposal in New Brunswick to improve the highway from the major centres of Moncton and Saint John to Northern New Brunswick to facilitate better access to the global marketplace for northern rural communities. At least, that proposal has the advantage of encouraging rural communities to find their own market niche. It is accomplished simply by putting into place the infrastructure to allow them to see what works and grab it themselves. You are absolutely right in suggesting that every job that we can create and every economy that we can sustain creates a driver that will have spin-off effects. It is important to remove any existing barriers to allow that growth to happen by itself, and to facilitate growth in other industries by identifying the current shortcomings, whether in government policy, infrastructure or training.
Honestly, the key thing that we can do goes back to the earlier point on education because education is the silver bullet. Currently, we do not have an efficient use of our young human resources in terms of access to training, involvement and engagement. Make no mistake: If young Canadians receive that education, they will come up with creative ideas to create jobs for themselves, their associates, their neighbours and their friends.
Senator Mercer: I want to follow up on a question by Senator Oliver on the Maritime union. Over the years, the Council of Atlantic Premiers has attempted to streamline the coordination of purchasing amongst the three provinces. Do you envision a role for the Council of Atlantic Premiers to continue such coordination efforts not only of purchasing but of other common activities? You commented that three sets of labour standards codes were cumbersome. All that sounds good until Nova Scotia, with the largest population, tells Prince Edward Islanders how to manage their land. At that point, it will fall apart quickly. Islanders will not stand for it, and I do not blame them.
Mr. Cirtwill: I am likely to make you unhappy again, senator. Honestly, the best solution would be for the existing structures simply to sit down and hash this item out. That means direct, specific negotiations among the four provincial governments. When you build extra levels of administration, whether they are the Council of Atlantic Premiers or the Conference of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, you create more levels of bureaucracy, system structures, barriers and approval process. Things take too long to be done. For example, the four provinces spent time negotiating an Atlantic curriculum on various subjects to the stage where they designed exams to fit those various systems. Then, of course, there was a change in government in two provinces: one province bailed out and, slowly, the wheels came off and the system fell apart. When those kinds of extra jurisdictional organizations work, it is great. Unfortunately, for the most part, those examples tend to be few and far between.
Senator Mercer: I have bad news for you. You talk about the four provinces but I talk about only three provinces because the geographic separation of Newfoundland and Labrador is too great for this to work well for four provinces. When you ask three or four provinces to sit down and talk, you need some structure, like the existence of structure in the Council of Atlantic Premiers, CAP, which has had some success. You said that CAP can go away and the governments should sit down and talk about this but CAP is in place to do just that. Senator Callbeck, former premier of Prince Edward Island, will tell you that forum is the one by which this negotiation that you want to happen starts.
Mr. Cirtwill: First, I do not think that is true. These kinds of conversations generally start bilaterally. Nor do I think that a situation where you have three provinces and all three must agree is the best exercise. I would be happy to see Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island agree on one thing and synchronize, and New Brunswick and P.E.I. agree on another thing and synchronize. I would be happy to see Alberta and Newfoundland agree on something and synchronize. The more synchronization that happens, the more barriers will fall.
Take a look, for example, at the response to the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement, TILMA, between Alberta and British Columbia. Why we need a free trade agreement between two provinces in a single country, I do not know. The response in Atlantic Canada has been: Let us have our own agreement. What kind of sense does that make? Why do we not sign onto that one?
That is the kind of parochial thinking that groupthink leads to. I would be much happier to see Danny Williams get on a plane and go to Alberta or B.C. and say: ``I want in on your free trade agreement.'' I would be much happier to see Pat Binns get on a plane and go to B.C. and say: ``I want in on your free trade agreement.'' I do not care if they standardize their minimum wage and other barriers and structures with Quebec, Ontario or with a state in the union. All I am saying is that we need to have a far more cautious exercise that says having all these different rules creates structural barriers — what is referred to by the conference board, among others, as the balkanization of our economy. Sometimes addressing these rules aggressively is not facilitated by these kinds of umbrella organizations.
Senator Mercer: I am desperately trying to find a place where you and I can agree. I will try once more and then I will stop.
I have picked up from your attitude on higher education that university education is not the answer for everyone. I do not disagree with that entirely. One major benefit in Atlantic Canada is our large number of universities. Three of us around this table are from Atlantic Canada. Senator Oliver is a graduate of Acadia University, Senator Callbeck is a graduate of Mount Allison University, and I am a graduate of Saint Mary's University. We cover the gamut.
Mr. Cirtwill: I graduated from Dalhousie University.
Senator Mercer: One thing we do not capitalize on in Atlantic Canada is the intellectual infrastructure that is in existence in all those universities in all three provinces, whether it be at the University of Prince Edward Island, Mount Allison University, University of New Brunswick, Saint Mary's University, Acadia University, St. Francis Xavier University, or Cape Breton University. Some bright people there are teaching courses, conducting research or doing some type of work outside the classroom.
Do you think there is any value in not necessarily coordinating that infrastructure, but at least understanding who is there so that, as we market ourselves to the rest of the world, we can say we have this asset and it is another reason why people should do business in Atlantic Canada?
Mr. Cirtwill: I will use an example that happened the other day. The $35 million for Dalhousie University's oceanography research has put that program on the global stage in terms of identifying it. I do not think it has put it on the global stage. I think it was already there because of the smart people involved and the good work they are doing. It has put the program on the radar screen of Canadians as a success story that we did not realize we had, and it will allow us to expand.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that we could and should do far more to turn this resource into a much more significant contributor to our economic success. That being said, I disagree gently with you again. They are doing some interesting things. The University of P.E.I. has many ties in the agricultural community and the university has done a lot of good work in terms of facilitating and value-added exercises. UNB is building partnerships directly with the New Brunswick Community College and the energy sector, trying to tie educational opportunities with economic opportunities. There are other examples. Mount Allison University, Dalhousie University, and Mount Saint Vincent all have interesting programs.
You are absolutely right that they could do far more. If you are looking for a way to encourage universities to do that, have a look but try to ensure it is not a top-down kind of controlling management exercise, which we tend to slip into.
The Deputy Chairman: One thing I wish to comment on is that we do not have trade between provinces the way we should have. When I was a member of Parliament, I received a call from a small butcher in Saskatchewan who prepared meats and so on. He could not sell them into Manitoba because he had a facility that had steel two-by-fours instead of cement blocks. It was a small business that could have been efficient for him, but he could not sell beef into Manitoba, to Brandon, because of regulation.
Many times, we regulate ourselves to death because we act as 10 vassal states within the country. I could not agree more that we are overregulated.
We will go on to our next witness, Ms. Munro, and we will entertain questions afterwards.
Ishbel Munro, Executive Director, Coastal Communities Network: First, I will talk a bit about Coastal Communities Network and then I will bring you some demographic information about Nova Scotia, since you are traveling to that area, to help prepare for that, and to discuss a situation there.
The Coastal Communities Network, which is a province-wide non-profit organization. We are 15 years old now and we are proud of that. We have a wide membership that ranges from women's groups, the United Church, environmental groups, Mi'kmaq organizations, Acadian groups, African-Nova Scotian groups, local historical societies, the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities, universities and the Nova Scotia Community College. It is a wide representation.
We started out of the groundfish crisis which hit in 1991. You talked about using the capacities of universities. The extension department of St. Francis Xavier University was concerned, so they organized a series of seminars around the provinces. Interestingly enough, it was the first time people not involved in fish were brought together around fisheries issues. Municipal councillors and other people would not get involved because they said it was a fishing issue. We said no, it was a community issue, and we brought various people together.
Out of those seminars, we held a conference that brought people together again. It was historic in that different gears have fought each other in Nova Scotia probably for hundreds of years, and it was the first time they said, ``We need to set aside our differences and work together for the betterment of our community.'' That is how we were created.
We act as a forum to bring diverse groups together and to find common ground in to move forward. We do this through networking and through adult education types of opportunities. We hold monthly learning circles that range from how to benefit from wind power in the community, to how to handle a flu pandemic, to whatever topic the groups want to hear about.
We also act as a conduit between government and the community. We sit on the Nova Scotia Rural Team and we have other relationships with government. In a way, it helps us to give voice to people who do not otherwise have a voice.
One issue I will speak about today is the difficulty we have with our crumbling infrastructure in rural Canada. In many ways this issue relates to issues in other areas, whether it is trains, grain elevators, et cetera. You are looking now at a picture of Baxter's Cove. For those of you who are not familiar with fishing, this picture is a wharf about two weeks before lobster season. There are rocks and electric wires in between the wood. The fishermen will load 300 traps down through that wharf onto their boats. Obviously that situation is challenging. Because we heard a lot of concerns about crumbling infrastructure, we did a study called Between the Land and the Sea, which looked at the social and economic importance of the wharves and harbours around the province.
This study gave us a clear picture of the coastal economy and the social aspects compared to rural, compared to urban, within Nova Scotia. We broke it down into four zones, so rather than use the Statistics Canada definition of ``urban'' and ``rural'' we used what people feel is urban and rural in Nova Scotia. Areas such as Ecum Secum, Sheet Harbour, or other little communities were not considered urban only because they are within the Halifax Regional Municipality. Then we broke down the four zones to 77 clusters around the province. This slide gives information about the depopulation of rural Nova Scotia. You can see that the increase in the urban area is 26 per cent, and that is over 10 years. We know that since then it has increased even more, so the depopulation of rural areas is a major issue.
The population in Nova Scotia is definitely aging, and we will have serious health problems in terms of senior care and such in the coastal areas. That trend will also have a huge influence on the labour force and the availability of the labour force, particularly for the fishing industry but for other industries as well, such as tourism.
This slide gives a bit of the incomes for 2000. You can see again that if you live in the Halifax urban area your salary, on average, is significantly higher than if you live in the rural areas. This picture is of the employed labour force. Interestingly, we thought the coastal rural labour force would have gone down significantly, but the impact was most significant in the non-coastal rural area of Nova Scotia, with a 15-per-cent reduction in their labour force. Again, those figures are of people who were rated. If someone has not worked for a year, they fall out of that system. We always need to remember that many other people are not employed but are not counted in the way that Statistics Canada collects the information.
Amazingly, there has been a 28-per-cent increase in the urban area of Nova Scotia. Again, as in Saskatchewan and in other areas of Canada, there are huge migration and work opportunities in the urban areas and not in the rural areas.
The figure on this slide gives the information on harbour-dependent employment, and some areas are significant. If you look at vessel deckhands, there is a 39- per-cent decrease in work. That decrease is a huge amount of work and a real flag to show that there has been consolidation of the fisheries. That trend is a major concern to coastal communities generally and one shown in a lot of figures. One figure I want to point out is only a Statistics Canada change, because they have a 61-per-cent decrease in fish plant workers but a 46-per-cent increase in labourers in fish processing. One hopes that change was because Statistics Canada changed their definitions.
The study gave us a basic overall economic impact, which was that 28 per cent of the population in Nova Scotia lives in the coastal zone; 24 per cent of the employed labour force works in the coastal rural zone; 14 per cent of the labour force depends directly on wharves and harbours; and 70 per cent of the provincial exports are generated by largely rural, coastal-based industries.
We looked at tourism as well, which in 2001 was a $1.2 billion industry in Nova Scotia. The industry studies show that tourists come to Nova Scotia to see our coastal fishing villages. They are the basic attraction for tourists to come beyond New Brunswick. Without the coastal villages we lose that tourism.
In 2002, fish exports were approximately $1.3 billion. The groundfish crisis is interesting because the total amount of fish caught remains level, but the value has skyrocketed because it has changed to shellfish, lobster, crabs, et cetera. For the majority, that fishery is still in the hands of independent fishermen who spend their money in local communities. In 2002, $800 million came into coastal communities and for a large part, that fishery was still owned by the independent fishermen.
One challenge we face is marine infrastructure and it is basically the way we go to work. Without that marine infrastructure, we cannot go to work. Government policies changed and created something called harbour authorities so that local communities now manage their wharves. I like to equate the situation to one of asking people on Highway 401 in Toronto, between Jane Street and Keele Street, to manage their own highway and cover the cost of the lights, the snow removal and upgrading, as well as build five-year business plans of how to sustain the highway because that is how they go to work. We go to work through our wharves.
What you have here are groups of non-profits, for example, this picture shows Harbourville, a wharf that fell through the cracks. It was owned by the Department of Transportation, was transferred to the province and somehow no one claims it now. It is in the Minas Basin area. Not many wharves are in that area, so the fishermen do not have another area to which they can move. This wharf is organized and run by a community organization that also runs the community hall. The group raised a lot of funds to upgrade the wharf, and worked with the First Nations community very well. They were able to obtain dollars to build sections of their wharves. Then in another section that the government did not repair, a storm came in and now they cannot reach the part that has been built. They even did things like organize dinners to raise $30,000 to cover the GST cost of the construction that was done on the wharf. This is a huge community effort to keep their economy going.
If we look at the estimate what is needed to keep up the repairs of small craft harbours, 4 per cent of the value of the wharves is what they need. They are investing $1.36 million in Nova Scotia. This was in 1999. They keep telling me they will get the new statistics of what they are giving, but at this point I do not know. It is a giant issue in Nova Scotia and it relates totally to rural poverty. Without that infrastructure, we are definitely in serious trouble.
There are also major issues in the fisheries around whether they are a public or a private resource. I will talk about fish. One of the main policies that has protected our fisheries is called the fleet separation owner-operator policy. However, it is becoming weaker. The policy basically means that the owner must also operate the boat. This policy was designed to keep an independent fisherman working and that fisherman would then spend money in local communities.
This approach is different from the West Coast where the fisheries have been consolidated. They have larger boats and less people working for and benefiting from the fisheries. The boats are in Vancouver, Nanaimo and Victoria. From what I understand, licences are owned by people living in Vancouver and these licence-owners are unrelated to the fishery.
There are social, economic and environmental consequences that arise in such a situation. Then there is pressure in terms of being able to sustain themselves. To us, the policy of privatization of the fishery threatens our communities by creating poverty and removing opportunities for people to be engaged and productive members of society.
We must ask, do we want people and families to earn a fair living, or do we want a few companies to grow wealthy and many families to move into poverty? Examples of that scenario are in the Digby Neck area of Nova Scotia, where hand liners and long liners made decent wages as well as deck crews. In a lot of incidences, they have been pushed out of the fishery totally as the result of regulations. We call it death by a thousand cuts.
In your package, there is an email I received from a fisherman who is desperately trying to make it through this winter. You can see from this email that literacy levels are a challenge. Costs keep going up where fishermen must pay an observer to be on their boat, and often the observer earns more money than the fisherman running the enterprise. The regulations are a challenge.
There are individual transferable quotas, which are the opposite of the fleet separation owner-operator policy. This type of ownership is happening in southwest Nova Scotia to a much greater degree.
The fishermen buy their quota from the company before they go out fishing. If they subsequently run into engine troubles or run into a storm and do not get the quota, they lose money. Therefore, people are working for less than minimum wage.
Another circumstance that arises out of this situation is an independent fisherman has the right to fish but it is not a good day to fish, so the fisherman will not fish for safety's sake. If fishermen are not in a position to do that because they have bought the quota and a storm comes up, they end up fishing in unsafe conditions. That can be tragic.
A lot of people say that if this situation is the reality of the future, then Nova Scotia is turning towards a sweat shop condition. Our fishermen are not protected by minimum wage or safety laws, and something needs to be done about this lack of protection. We obviously need to look at ways of dealing with the sweat shops that are being created.
In the Bay of Fundy, a number of people supported their families by digging clams and selling them to local restaurants. Recently, the government gave whole sections of the coasts to companies where people dig and earn 30 per cent less than their previous incomes.
The town of Canso, to me, is an amazing example of a resilient community that has faced challenges that exemplified where policies went wrong in many cases. The government granted a seafood company money to construct a fish plant there. The company went in, but said they would only do so if they received the fish quota that went with that community. They built the plant, received the quota, stayed approximately 10 years, left and took the quota with them. The community no longer has access to the resource. They see boats coming from other places and fishing off their shores, and they cannot go and fish themselves.
Canso has been an incredibly resilient community in terms of being innovative. They created the Stan Rogers Folk Festival. There are 900 people in the community who attend the festival and 600 people who volunteer. Everybody becomes involved in task teams, where they look creatively at how to diversify their community.
Canso is the place where messages about the war, the Titanic and all sorts of things first came. They are using their initiative. For example, the community has brought a call centre to the area that provides 25 to 30 additional jobs. Many of those positions are occupied by single mothers. It is a humane call-centre set-up. It indicates huge initiative.
Effective leadership is key in terms of how to solve problems in rural Nova Scotia or rural Canada, for that matter. You can see the difference between communities that have that kind of leadership and vision, and communities that do not have it. We need to look for opportunities to nurture and help build the capacity and skills of those leaders and provide them with support. That is certainly something that Coastal Communities Network tries to do as well.
As for our recommendations, there should be a study on the impact of the privatization of the fishery and the effect privatization has had on the communities. Also, we should support the infrastructure that allows us to go to work.
Quickly, other issues dealing with farms, for example, we had one farm, Peninsula Farms, which manufactured fantastic yogurt and employed 30 people. Their system was different from the multinational companies. It went under investigation by Agriculture Canada, and $30,000 worth of product was put in jeopardy. Agriculture Canada said they knew the product was safe, but it is a different system and therefore they shut down the farm. It was a case of regulations causing serious problems.
A lot of youth homelessness in Nova Scotia makes it hard for people to move forward. Basically, people couch surf, moving from place to place.
Affordable housing in rural Nova Scotia is a huge issue. For example, we heard a story about a worker who went out to one trailer that was far back. The man had come in asking for fuel. He was a working man but with minimum wage, he could not keep up with costs. It was a two-bedroom trailer. Someone went to the trailer and observed that they had cut a hole in the floor and two teenage girls were living in a hole in the earth.
There are lots of stories about people living in basic shacks. These people are working people, but if they work for minimum wage in Nova Scotia, they cannot afford to rent a place.
Single mothers must choose between food and heat because in rural Nova Scotia, heat is not included in rent. Therefore, they move to Dartmouth where the heat is included, but they lose all the social structure and support they received from rural communities.
We have heard stories of elderly people who cannot afford to pay taxes. Recently, one man was put out of his home and went to live in a shack. The RCMP found him: he fell down the cliff behind his home and could not get back up again.
We have heard stories of elderly people, for example, in Berwick, a couple jointly committed suicide because they could not afford to eat anymore.
These stories are hard to hear. They are hard realities. The increase of child poverty in Nova Scotia continues to grow. When we look at the statistics, those on welfare in Nova Scotia or even those earning minimum wage as a single mother earn $6,000 less than the low income cut-off.
It is hugely challenging to move forward. I think in Cumberland County alone over 600 homes are on a waiting list for repairs. These homes are where the electricity is unsafe or there is no insulation. Housing is a major, major issue and we need to look at ways to address it. I think often non-profit organizations can run these things better and often more efficiently than government departments. There are examples in Antigonish where community groups run the housing units and can do it more efficiently and a lot cheaper than government so I think those are some of the options.
I think we also need to look at the Canada Social Transfer. I will go through some of this information quickly. The category of senior women is huge. The province used to give — I think it was — $1,000 a month towards care in the home. That was taken away about four years ago. A lot of senior women are living in poverty in Nova Scotia.
There are many other overarching issues. Volunteer groups cannot obtain charitable status. Groups who want to work with people have become dependent on government grants because Canadian law makes it so difficult to obtain charitable status because our charitable status law is based on the old English model of feeding the poor. If we provide education but not at an institution, moving forward is difficult.
Mental health issues are hugely related to poverty as well and there are not enough facilities. In rural Nova Scotia, we can wait up to six years for an appointment with a psychiatrist.
Basically, we have our strengths but a lot of government policies and regulations threaten us. I am encouraged to see this report and encouraged to see people that are willing to look at these inequities and tackle some of these issues.
Talking about student loans and such that we touched on earlier, I think forgiving a portion of student loans for people who go back to work in rural areas would be a huge help. I think the Ontario government does that. If they work in Northern Ontario a certain portion is forgiven.
Early education and childhood education programs have difficulty obtaining funding. In Sweden it was shown that investing in early childhood education, in the long run, goes a huge way toward alleviating poverty. In the short term, we need to support adult literacy.
With that I thank you once again. I appreciated reading your report. I thought that it was thorough and covered a lot of the grounds. I noticed it did not include much on fish so I thought I would speak to that issue.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Munro. We have 25 minutes left so we will ask the questioners to be brief and to the point.
Senator Mercer: I think that you have highlighted some of the real problems of rural poverty but also demonstrated, again, some of the real strengths and resilience of Maritimers, and Nova Scotians in particular. I think your description of the town of Canso was accurate. These people keep standing up, getting knocked down and standing up again. Putting on the Stan Rogers Folk Festival there is fitting. Much of Stan's music was apropos to the people who live in and around Canso.
I have a couple of specific questions about fleet separation owner-operator policy. You made reference to what appears to be happening on the West Coast. Is there not a problem in the crab fishery, particular in Cape Breton, where many boat and license owners are not operators, which is the problem you made reference to?
Ms. Munro: There is a problem in some parts of Cape Breton. I have not heard as much of that in the Northumberland Strait region, although we hear a bit of that coming along. On the other side of Cape Breton, we hear about the consolidation of licenses, and fishermen being called and asked to sell their licenses to someone who owns a multitude of licenses. Yes, it is a challenge.
Senator Mercer: We constantly hear complaints against the Department of Fisheries and Oceans; that goes with the job of being a Nova Scotia senator or MP. The House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has recommended unanimously — a number of times now — that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans be moved from Ottawa, split up in some fashion and part moved to the West Coast and part to the East Coast.
Do you think it would help if, God forbid, someone from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans might actually bump into a fisherman?
Ms. Munro: It certainly could not hurt. In a lot of ways it could help if it was decentralized — although I have heard from the West Coast that they wish that the fleet separation policy was on the West Coast as well. That policy would benefit their coastal communities there.
I think some of the challenges are because the ocean/marine infrastructure, the ecosystem itself, is complex: it is different from managing something on land that is static and not moving. There are huge challenges to managing the fisheries. There was a huge move towards community-based management in Nova Scotia. We helped with that move in a lot of ways by holding seminars with fishermen and looking at examples of community-based management around the world so people are invested in the sustainability of their own fisheries locally.
I think the challenge was huge for the DFO to give over that authority. Maybe if it was more regionally located then people would be more willing.
Senator Mercer: On slide 27 under Poverty Recommendation, you said, ``Commission must study on the impact of the privatization of the fisheries.''
I am not sure what you mean by that. I do not know that I am for or against that recommendation because I do not understand what it means.
Ms. Munro: It means looking at how allowing companies not to follow the fleet separation policy has impacted the fishery.
We have a policy in place that means in order to fish, they are supposed to own the vessel and operate it. Through the loopholes, people have privatized the fishery in a lot of ways, which has had a huge impact on coastal communities and has created a lot of poverty in a lot of regions.
Senator Mercer: It is similar to the quota in Canso with the plant owner.
Ms. Munro: Exactly: The ocean is a public resource. To privatize it and say, okay, this section of the ocean can be sold to this one company or whatever —
Senator Mercer: Is that similar to the clam problem in Digby County?
Ms. Munro: Exactly.
Senator Mercer: The committee is travelling next week, as you know, to Nova Scotia and we will be close to Digby. If we do not see it, at least I will try to eat some of the great clams in Digby County. I am looking forward to it.
If there was one recommendation that the Government of Canada could implement tomorrow, what would it be?
Ms. Munro: There are so many.
Senator Mercer: Give me two.
Ms. Munro: Give you two. Increasing the minimum wage significantly so that single mothers who manage to find work can earn a decent living would be a major one. My second choice is education. If I could two-prong that choice, adult literacy is needed the most. We need to look again at our education system because I think we are educating our youth to leave. We need to look at not only the elementary system but also the whole school system and see how the education system can show people the opportunities that exist within their own communities. I also support the community colleges. They are necessary for the future.
Senator Mercer: Thank you, Ms. Munro. I wish I had more time.
The Deputy Chairman: I must leave for another appointment so I will ask Senator Callbeck to take the chair. I neglected to inform the committee that Senator Fairbairn had to be away today. As deputy chairman, I want to congratulate her on the great job she has been doing. If she happens to be listening today, she is missing a good committee.
Senator Catherine S. Callbeck (Acting Chairman) in the chair.
Senator Peterson: One thing you talked about was crumbling infrastructure. That is an issue right across this country, as you may be aware. Most of the sewers, water, bridges, roads and treatment plants were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and they literally are falling apart because there has been no reinvestment in them. That issue poses the question of whether governments are focused on or interested in rural poverty and rural issues. If we revitalize, there will be a demand for these same infrastructure services, and rightly so.
Is there a possibility that this could happen? If so, how would we deal with that?
Ms. Munro: We have a particular problem with marine infrastructure because a lot of people in the government do not recognize it as a national infrastructure. They the problem is only in Newfoundland and B.C. and do not recognize that there are wharves in Manitoba and commercial fisheries in both Manitoba and Ontario. That is part of the challenge we face in trying to gain support for marine infrastructure. There is lack of recognition, even by Infrastructure Canada, that marine infrastructure is an integral part of the infrastructure of Canada. I think it is a chicken-and-egg type of thing. Do we invest in these areas? If we do not, then the economy goes down. In Nova Scotia, over $1 billion is spent on tourism and almost $2 billion in the fisheries. About $3 billion of our economy depends on that infrastructure. It is vital that we maintain it.
I think we can become more innovative in the way that we do some things, for example, encouraging harbour authorities to work together jointly so that they do not all perform the same work individually within one region. In the Bay of Fundy, one wharf goes up and down a pole with the tides — and I hope you have the opportunity to see the huge tides that are out there. It is an inexpensive wharf. There are ways to do things innovatively but we must invest in those basic infrastructures so our rural economy and our social fabric will be there in the future.
Senator Peterson: I hope you make a strong case because you will be competing with urban Canada for those dollars. I agree with your statement that community vision and leadership is what will lead us out of this problem and to success.
Senator Oliver: My question deals with the division of powers. Under our Constitution, the federal government can do some things and the provincial government can do some things. The provincial government is responsible for property and civil rights. Some things you mentioned today are provincial matters and some are federal matters. We are a federal committee of the Senate of Canada. We want to recommend things that the federal government can change.
You mentioned wharves. Wharves are a federal responsibility. Housing and some other aspects of social services are provincial areas. Can you tell me things the federal government can do to help the situation of rural poverty? How would you prioritize the most important things for us to consider in this committee in a federal context?
Ms. Munro: There is an opportunity to improve things with the social transfers from the federal government to the provincial government. Similar to transfers of money under the Canada Health Act, certain guidelines pertain to how money should be used or how it will be utilized. I think opportunities are available there for minimum standards so that welfare recipients, for example, are not in a position where they must choose either food or heat. Furthermore, minimum standards of living can be set for our citizens so that people do not remain in a crucial state of poverty.
Senator Oliver: Are there regional differences or would you say that national policies and fundamental things like should come from the federal government and cover all regions of Canada?
Ms. Munro: You could look at the work that people have done on the necessities for various regions: for example, the cost of milk is different in Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Yukon or Ontario. A flat rate will not work as there are too many variables. However, if the cost is based on what is needed for children to eat nutritiously and those types of things, and if we ensure a minimum standard, then that would go a huge way to relieving not only child poverty but also the stress on the single mother who is trying to raise children in situations that are next to impossible.
I think changing the Charitable Fund Raising Act is something that can be done. That responsibility is totally federal. Many groups, ourselves included, have tried to change that because we believe the work we are doing is charitable. That act holds back a lot of non-profit groups that are doing phenomenal work in the communities.
Some community development work that used to happen federally through funding with Service Canada, for example, had a major effect in rural communities. Canso, for example, could get funding through what was then called Human Resources Development Canada, HRDC, to address various problems and help in the communities with youth engagement, economic and social projects and all kinds of projects. The government has totally backed away from those kinds of supports for people working in the front lines to help communities. A lot of those funds went to ACOA but that funding has not translated into community development, for example.
We heard that funding would come through ACOA to open doors for nonprofit organizations to undertake social enterprises. That initiative would be fantastic because nonprofit organizations could then set up social enterprises and the revenue that is generated could be moved over and used for their charitable work. That funding is an absolutely brilliant example of how we can move forward. By being innovative and supporting those types of innovations, we can move forward.
The Acting Chairman: That completes our list of senators that want to ask questions. I have some, though.
First, your network is a volunteer network; it is not for profit. Where do you receive your funding?
Ms. Munro: We receive our funding from many sources. Originally, we were funded with money from the Atlantic Groundfish Strategy, TAGS, through the Atlantic Groundfish Adjustment Program that was put in place when the groundfish crisis hit. Currently, we receive funding from the provincial government through the Office of Economic Development, which implements the new Community Development Policy Initiative. The Coastal Communities Network worked with the government on a project called, ``Rural Communities Impacting Policies,'' to create this policy. It is innovative in terms of bringing departments together, and we receive funding through that. We also receive funding through the Rural Secretariat, under Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. We also fundraise through silent auctions and penny auctions.
The Acting Chairman: Roughly, what is your budget?
Ms. Munro: This year, it is around $170,000, which is up from last year. This year, we employ four to five people and hold monthly meetings. We hold board meetings every two months, publish a magazine, hold an annual conference and organize a skills development day. We will hold a policy forum at the end of this month that will bring 110 members of government, community and academics together. We send a bi-weekly e-newsletter to our membership and respond to inquiries and other projects. We are highly cost-efficient with our funding. We try to do as much work as possible.
The Acting Chairman: The money is well spent. Roughly, what per cent comes from the volunteer sector as opposed to government?
Ms. Munro: It is increasing but I am not sure of the percentage. At the outset, we did not charge a membership fee but we charge one now. In that way, we increase the amount coming from the private sector. We leave the matter of such fees open so that those who cannot afford to pay do not pay. Some of our members live in poverty and paying $30 per year can be difficult for them. We cannot ask someone who must resort to asking a spouse to remove an aching tooth for them to give us money to take their concerns to government.
Senator Biron: Do you speak French?
Ms. Munro: No.
[Translation]
Senator Biron: In the example you give, you are saying that a mother will receive $7,779 a year from Employment Insurance. You are also saying that, in the case of social insurance, the same woman would receive $13,092 in income. Would it not be preferable for her at this moment not to receive Employment Insurance? Or would you rather suggest to increase Employment Insurance?
[English]
Ms. Munro: This is part of the challenge. The amount she receives from that benefit does not include the child tax credit, whereas the amount received from welfare includes the child tax benefit. That is why it is larger. Going to work can be more expensive and simply not affordable for some who must pay for child care. It is truly a difficult transition and steps need to be in place to allow people to move off welfare and onto the employment rolls while still receiving some support to make the transition feasible. The challenge is huge to go to work and incur those additional expenses. Another work-related expense is transportation. Rural Nova Scotia does not have public transportation in many places. Anyone living in most rural areas needs to find transportation. One fellow, the same one I told you about whose daughters lived in the ground, asked welfare for a bicycle to make it easier for him to go to work. That is another challenge because rural Nova Scotians tend to be proud and like to be self-sufficient. Often, people suffer in silence because they feel a need to keep their dignity by being able to care for their families.
The Acting Chairman: My last question is on the topic of micro-credit, which came up at our previous meeting. I was involved in the Prime Minister's Task Force on Women Entrepreneurs that went across the country in 2003. We heard a great deal about the need for micro-credit, especially in rural areas where we can find half our women entrepreneurs. In these coastal communities, is there any system, or is there any thought of setting up a system, whereby people can have access to micro-credit?
Ms. Munro: It is certainly needed. There was a program called Calmeadow Canada in Nova Scotia that offered micro-credit. I have not heard of it recently so perhaps it has left Nova Scotia. Definitely, it offered that kind of financing. Often, groups of women would get together and each would invest an amount of money to try to support each other. We find many women entrepreneurs in rural Nova Scotia. As high speed Internet becomes more available in rural areas, that situation can mushroom and grow. High speed Internet is a huge asset for women who have home businesses. As a single mother, I worked out of a home office and Coastal Communities Network worked out of my house for many years. It was a great way to work because I was home when my child came home and there when my child was sick, while still able to work. I hope that the micro-credit international conference that was held in Halifax will generate more of that concept. Certainly, the conference moved ACOA and other organizations to look at those kinds of things. We have that to a certain extent through the Community Business Development Corporations, CBDCs, but the difficulty is that the interest rate is higher than it is at the banks. It becomes a challenge for the business owner to pay the money back. It would nice to have a system with an interest rate equal to or lesser than that of the banks to help our entrepreneurs.
The Acting Chairman: I thank you for appearing as witnesses today. Certainly, you have given us much information and many ideas as the committee continues its study on rural poverty.
The committee adjourned.