EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, October 26, 1995

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[English]

The Chair: I call this meeting of the Standing Committee on Human Rights and the Status of Disabled Persons to order. I welcome all the witnesses.

I will call on Mr. Beachell to outline for us the consensus you have arrived at on how to proceed to facilitate the flow of discussion.

Before I do that, I would first like to introduce to you the members of our committee. Perhaps they can introduce themselves.

Mr. McClelland (Edmonton Southwest): My name is Ian McClelland and I'm the member of Parliament for Edmonton Southwest.

Mr. Scott (Fredericton - York - Sunbury): I'm Andy Scott from Fredericton - York - Sunbury.

Mr. Maloney (Erie): I'm John Maloney from the riding of Erie, which is down in the Niagara Peninsula.

Mr. Grose (Oshawa): I'm Ivan Grose, member of Parliament for Oshawa.

Mr. Allmand (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce): I'm Warren Allmand from Montreal.

The Chair: And I'm Rey Pagtakhan, chair, from Winnipeg North.

Mr. Beachell, would you like to outline for the committee how the group proposes to proceed with the opening remarks? Thereafter we will consume the remaining time with questions and answers.

Mr. Laurie Beachell (Executive Director, Council of Canadians with Disabilities): Certainly. Thank you very much.

I'm Laurie Beachell. I'm on staff with the Council of Canadians with Disabilities.

Our organizations - and there are five organizations here today - speak with each other frequently. Knowing that we were appearing together before the committee, we took the opportunity to talk to each other in advance so we do not present to you a repetitious message, and so we cover a variety of points of concern to all of our organizations that are an overview of our concerns.

Today we would like to talk a little bit about the current situation. Lucie Lemieux-Brassard, who is the president of COPHAN, and Traci Walters, who is the staff person for the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres, will lead that discussion.

Following that, Allan Simpson, who is a board member of the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres, and Rick Price, who is from the Canadian Paraplegic Association, will talk a little bit about our concerns in the area of national and federal leadership in the area of disability programming.

Diane Richler, from the Canadian Association for Community Living, is in flight. We hope she will be here by 10:45 a.m. to join us for the last hour. Diane wished to apologize to the committee, but the plane was cancelled. It was beyond her control.

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Diane and I would like to address issues related to the Canada health and social transfer and the human resources investment fund, now being designed. Following that, Francine Arsenault, who is chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities, will speak to the issue of national associations and the voluntary community role within the whole area of disability issues. Then we would like to end up with a discussion of federal initiatives and needs for leadership within the federal area on disability.

Our plan was to present to you an overview of some of these issues in the next 45 minutes and then open up for any questions or comments or other areas in which you would like to have comments from us. If that is acceptable to you, that's how we'll proceed.

Ms Lucie Lemieux-Brassard (President, Confédération des organismes provinciaux des personnes handicapées, (COPHAN)): First of all, what is very important for me, and what I really believe in, is that you have to recognize we are citizens, as fully as you can be. That is a right that cannot go beyond what we're doing right now and what we're experiencing. Our life is worth the same as yours. The quality of life we want should be the same as yours.

Unfortunately, because the quality of our life depends on the quality of services we're getting - that's what we're going to show you in the next ten minutes, anyway - it's not true. That's not what we're going through on a daily basis. But shouldn't it be the same? We didn't ask for disabilities. We have them. What we do ask for, though, is to have the same quality of life, and to decide what our life should be. What we're saying is that our life should be worth the same as yours.

How would you feel as individuals if someone decided for you how many times a week, and when, you'd be bathed? What time of day you are going to get in and out of bed, because you need somebody to help you with it and you have no control over your daily activities? If someone told you when and where you can go out for leisure or recreation activities, because you depend on transportation availability and you have absolutely no control over that? If someone decided for you what you're going to be eating, at what time, and how it's going to be prepared, because it's going to depend on who the attendant is or who is the person who is going to provide the service for you this week? It doesn't matter if she or he cooks or not, but you depend on that person, because you're not the one to decide.

There are plenty of fields and situations where we see that discrepancy from one province to the other, one region to the other, urban or rural. It's the same problem all over the country. I hear it on a daily basis in Quebec, and I hear it on a weekly basis when I get together with my colleagues at CCD. It's the same thing everywhere.

We've reached a point where we don't even talk about being second-class citizens. We're talking about fifth- and up to tenth-class citizenship. We're at the lowest part, because nobody cares about establishing criteria, or a minimum quality of services, to make sure we do have a minimal quality of life no matter where we live.

We have a Supreme Court judgment on work, on schooling. But still it doesn't matter, depending on where we live, which province we live in. We can be offered inclusive schooling or not, but it's all segregated.

Even within one province, one region, the services are not the same. One school board can decide to offer inclusive schooling to every kid with disabilities and the next one refuses.

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It's the same thing with work. Where can we work? What can we do? When are we going to work? It's all decided by somebody else. We're asking for acknowledgement that we are citizens like everybody else. We also, by the way, want people to stop shoving us around between the health services and Citizenship and Immigration, as has been done lately.

There's a need to, at least once, stipulate who we are and what we can do. Please listen to us. That's what we've been telling you and that's what we're saying this morning. On the ground, on the field, there are situations and problems you are not even aware of.

Just think about the questions I've raised. Try to imagine what it would be like to be out of the hospital or the rehabilitation centre, but stuck in your house because there's a three-year waiting list to get the residential adaptation so you can even get out of your house, or there's a waiting list to have a support bar or lift installed so you can get into your bathtub, so that means you have to depend even more on others or on an attendant to be functional even in your own place.

Of course, economically, the state doesn't pay for the hospital care or the residential care, but we are institutionalized the same way, but at our own cost in our houses without the services we need.

I'm going to let Traci give two examples of that.

Ms Traci Walters (National Director, Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres): I think I should start by clearing up a myth that's going around right now. I think the federal government believes that once the block funding takes place, the provinces are going to take care of us; they're going to move disability to provincial jurisdiction. That is a very strange myth; it is a joke.

Right now, even before the block funding takes place, people are suffering. In the past two days what I have seen is terrible. I had a woman in my house the other night who is almost bald from the medication she's taking. She gets injections in her spine to relieve her of the pain. She was crying because this government in Ontario has now decided to change the definition of disability. It has told her she isn't disabled and it will cut off her disability allowance.

There's another problem with her situation. Her husband was providing her with personal care, but because he was at home the government would not assist them in any way. He became burned out, tired and left her and her child. Now he is gone, so the government will come in to help. Now it's going to send in some support, which is going to cost probably four times as much. If the government had just given a little support to the husband, just a tiny bit...that's what I saw.

Another woman I was with two days ago uses a ventilator. She was successfully living independently in a co-op with a bit of support, which was probably costing the government anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000 a year. Mr. Harris has announced he's cutting funding to the co-op, so she now has to move back to the hospital. Who knows what that's going to cost per year - anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000. This was a very cost-effective approach, wasn't it? She's on her way back to the hospital now.

Last night I was listening to the news. I know everybody's stressed out and I know there's a major situation going on here, but in the meantime people are suffering and somebody has to wake up to this fact. Last night on the news, after the referendum issue, it was announced that the region of Ottawa is now cutting 40% to social services because it's receiving cuts in the transfer payments. It's cutting 40% without even looking at who it's harming. A cut of 40% is going to affect home-making for all kinds of people; seniors and people with disabilities.

Nobody knows the impact, but this is going to affect me directly. One thing that has helped me work has been a little bit of care to help me with my children. I'm a single mother and this is now impacting on my life. Over the past few years I've been able to get support, get healthier and have a job. Last night I was trying to figure it out, and I've probably contributed about $18,000 to $20,000 in taxes with my house taxes, my income tax, GST, PST and everything else. You start taking a little bit of support away from the people who are working now and you're not only going to be losing that kind of money, you're also going to be paying out some sort of income security for those people.

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What really blows my mind is that in 1985 the Liberal government produced a report by the name of Obstacles. They supported the independent living movement in Canada. Today, in 1995, just a few months ago, the social security reform consultation took place, and out of the recommendations came support to the movement.

Today there is no future.

It amazes me that when birth was given to this movement in the 1980s, which has empowered people and enabled people to come together to articulate their needs and to explain to you that there are more cost-effective ways of doing things.... This now is being removed.

It was a big investment for everybody. You invested $154 million with the national strategy and yes, some of it could have worked a little bit better, but a lot of amazing things happened. People were able to come together like this and explain how things can be done much more cost-effectively, because there is a disability industry that is making a lot of money. In the rehab and medical model you're spending tonnes and tonnes of money. We know how to deal with that. We know how you can do it for far less, but nobody's paying any attention.

They're abandoning us. They're throwing us off to the provinces. It's scary. Please don't believe that they're going to take care of us. They're not. It's open season on people with disabilities. Nobody's going to care.

The transportation service that brought us here asked if we knew of anybody who wanted to buy a bus. They're closing up shop. You have one taxi service in this town, in the capital of Canada, and you know what? They can't make a go of it because everybody has less money. Organizations can't purchase service. Individuals can't purchase service. So they're closed. People aren't even going to be able to get from the airport to come here to articulate their needs. I think you have to be aware that we represent 15% of the population. We're all voters too. This is a pretty scary business.

I think it's time that you understand we can do things for far less. You have to start listening to us because we know exactly how. You have to take leadership in this area.

What is Canada any more? You boast around the world about our record in human rights. In the 1980s disability was enshrined in human rights by this government. It's scary. What is happening? You're going to see disabled people on the streets begging. That's what's going to happen in the not-too-distant future.

You have laid all of these bricks for the foundation, supported by the Liberals, by the PCs - I think this is a situation that transcends party lines - and brick by brick you're removing that foundation, and it's all going to crumble around us.

I'll summarize now. That's reality. That's what's happening. People are suffering now. Wait until next year. You're going to see and hear horrendous things.

The Chair: Mr. Price.

Mr. Rick Price (National Services Coordinator, Canadian Paraplegic Association): I'd like to try to give you a little bit of a history on the disability movement in Canada.

I was injured in a car accident in 1977. At that time the hospital I was treated in was not wheelchair-accessible. From 1980 to 1995 tremendous gains were made in Canada around disability. With the declaration of the International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981, Canada took a leadership role in improving the quality of life for its citizens with disabilities.

Through the 1980s I think we saw fairly substantive gains in the area of education as it became more available to people with disabilities. More job opportunities opened up. Transportation and recreation were addressed. People were provided with more opportunities to live in affordable accommodations.

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At the same time, I think that in the disability community itself people and organizations were encouraged by the fact that there was some direction, that some progress was being made.

When you look at the HALS data, people with disabilities were by far the most impoverished, least educated, and least represented group in the workforce.

We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go.

In 1990, when the federal government announced a five-year strategy, although it wasn't perfect the federal government showed leadership in trying to continue to address the needs of people with disabilities.

It's important to realize that since 1980 the federal government has been the leader in this country in terms of initiating programs for persons with disabilities.

At the last election, the issues around disability seemed to have fallen off the table. Since the last election, the existing government has not given any sort of sign as to whether or not people with disabilities are a priority of the federal government - zilch, nothing.

Right now there's a very alarming concern amongst individuals and organizations representing people with disabilities that we've been abandoned by the federal government and that, with the devolution of services to the provinces, it has become a provincial responsibility.

I will conclude my remarks by saying that if the federal government does not continue to provide this leadership, then the gains we've made in the last 15 years are probably going to go down the tube.

I challenge this committee to address or to grasp the issues and to demonstrate some leadership. I think it's important. The fact that we have five organizations coming and presenting to you demonstrates the commitment that we want to work with you. We want to be included in the process. We want to plan with you and don't want to be planned for.

Thanks.

The Chair: Mr. Simpson.

Mr. Allan Simpson (Board Member, Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres): I'm also the national treasurer of the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres.

I want to share with you a perspective that comes from a business background of 22 years in the insurance industry as an actuary and a systems designer.

I realized in the 1960s and 1970s, as I encountered people with wheelchairs and through sports, the horrible conditions that people encountered in housing, in transportation, in accessibility, in human rights.

With the leadership that Walter Dinsdale and David Smith and many others of the original parliamentary committee gave to this country, it is very crucial that we bring back to this table the entire concept of national leadership.

The disabled community - and there is no such thing as the community, but a great rainbow of people with all backgrounds, all cultures, all needs, who encounter daily individual situations - require the state, the community, the family, and friends to adjust slightly, to accommodate slightly, and to be inclusive. So the role of this committee, the role of this government, the role of the federal authorities in national leadership is crucial to the state, to the nation, to its culture, and to the soul. This national leadership we're talking about is what sets the tone for our entire society.

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This committee and this federal Parliament must understand and support the fundamental needs of their citizens, their most vulnerable citizens, whether they be people with disabilities or whether they be aboriginals or any other category. I hate to use the word category, because it's an improper term. If the national leadership cannot be there supporting the fundamental needs of its citizenship, then the country is not there.

What we're seeing around us, with the referendum, in the streets with the youth, and with the devolution of powers to the provinces, is an erosion of the entire national state. This community is coming to you today to say that the soul of this country requires fundamental national leadership for the heart and soul of the essential services that make each citizen a productive, contributing, sharing member of our society.

This committee had an historical role in 1981, 1982 and 1983 when it launched the Obstacles reports. There it had the analysis of the background of the issue. It got to the core of prejudice and attitude, it got into recommendations in a constructive, effective way, and it pinpointed authorities, responsibilities, and departments who should carry out those corrections.

Its successive reports clearly articulated what progress is being made, what problems were being encountered, and what resistances were being thrown at you and the rest of society. It also challenged the disabled community and society as a whole to come forth with new, constructive solutions.

Organizations rose to that occasion. The citizenship groups arose and provided national leadership in partnership with this committee and others. They worked with technical advisory committees, with ministers, and with provinces. They began to develop a harmony that became famous around the world; we had a model of society working together, planning together, sharing together, and solving together.

But with its globalization movement, decentralization, regionalization, and privatization, all of a sudden a whole new attitude arose. There is concern among the federal authorities about over-dependency, a very crucial issue that we all recognize. Not only was there prejudice and attitudes, but there was this new phenomenon that people are becoming over-dependent on the society.

Well, when people can't get out of bed, as Lucie mentioned earlier.... I've been left in bed many times with no staff showing up. I can't get out of bed myself. I've been left stranded on a street or a road in a snowpile. When people can't get those fundamental services, where does the national state stand?

Your job at the national level is to ensure that the fibres that run throughout this entire country link the provinces and the municipalities and the federal and provincial authorities into a harmony. In my opinion, your job is to monitor that, speak out on it, and make sure that those fundamental fibres are strong and so thorough that the principles of this country are held together.

I have to take my hat off to Mr. Warren Allmand, who had the courage to stand up when he did not believe that certain policies should be enacted through the federal parliament. I expect every member of this committee to have the courage to stand up this way when you fundamentally do not believe in the destruction of some of our national policies and programs.

The independent living movement has come along and offered national leadership in policies and programs to empower disabled people to take leadership, to take responsibility, to become effective, productive citizens of their own community, to learn to manage their own services very cost-effectively, to be creative, and to be contributing members of society. That movement, as Traci mentioned earlier, is about to collapse.

The model we have proposed is divided with one-third of the responsibility to the federal government, one-third of the responsibility to the provincial governments, and one-third our own responsibility to raise our own resources. It's a partnership.

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That partnership was the foundation of our country, and that foundation of partnership must be maintained. As federal authorities delegate and devolve powers to the provinces, our country falls apart. So we are calling on this parliamentary committee, you, and your own caucuses, and your other colleagues in other committees, to bring about a national regeneration of policies and standards and programs. Without this leadership, this country will entirely fall apart. You have the power within you to set the tone for society, to set the tone for Parliament, and, quite frankly, for the caucuses and the cabinet.

At one time ministers of the Crown feared this committee. They would bring us into many consultation sessions before they appeared before this committee, because they knew the Hansard record this committee represented was the heart-and-soul message of the parliament of the day and their words would be recorded in history. You have the power in this committee to re-enact that leadership role and set the tone for the rest of Parliament and all parties in the House.

Mr. Beachell: Two pieces I would like to talk about in particular, the Canada health and social transfer and the human resources investment fund being designed within HRD.

Allan talked about the need for harmony; the need for harmony between jurisdictional levels to ensure the support services Lucie and Traci talked about are in place. Yet the move we see in both these programs is one that does not speak to harmony. It speaks to unilateral movement, and it speaks to further isolation.

The basic problem disabled people face in this country is the fragmentation of service delivery. The transport service isn't there to get you to education, or the education isn't there to get you to employment, or the employment attendant-care program isn't in place.

People seem to think block funding is the same deal as we had before. Well, it's not. It does not require the provinces. There are no standards yet for the Canada health and social transfer. There is no standard that says you will be provided support based on need. There is no standard that says you will have an appeal mechanism if you are refused support. There is no standard in place that says you will not be required to go to work in order...workfare. All those issues with the Canada health and social transfer have not been discussed.

We understand the current climate related to the debate about from federal to provincial. However, we as a community say the dollar is green whether it is a dollar we pay to provincial governments or one we pay to federal governments, and the service needed is the service needed within our community. It is not that we want the federal government to deliver this and the province to deliver that. What we want is some harmony between these programs.

We are very fearful of a block funding move - a block funding move such that frankly, in some provinces, dollars that went to social services may no longer go to social services. We may go to sewers and roads. Dollars that went to support people to participate in their community and to get an education may no longer go to education. There is no requirement.

We would ask this committee, and others within the federal government, to ensure in the discussions with provinces on the health and social transfer some national standards that ensure minimum services across this country are provided, that ensure appeal mechanisms are in place and those in need are going to be supported. Will that happen? We hope. But I would have to say it is not the Government of Quebec alone that looks for greater powers. Many other governments in this country are looking for greater powers. Will they ensure, can they ensure, the people most in need are going to get those services?

What will happen to our community as the block transfer happens - it is both reduced and it is in a block fund - is we will all have to compete for attention. So our organizations, which have worked very collaboratively, which have sung with a unified voice across this country....

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I would just say to Mr. Scott that in the social policy reform consultations across this country, I believe you heard a consistent message from the disabled community - a consistent message as to the needs, the potential solutions and the ways we could move forward.

Unfortunately nothing came out of the report. We checked with the committee at the start of its travels and at the end of its travels. Unfortunately the message, which was clear and significant across this country, did not get translated into action.

My colleague, Diane Richler, from the Canadian Association for Community Living, has finally made it from Toronto. I'm glad she is here so that she can add to this.

I'd like to speak a little bit on the human resources investment fund. To date this is a restructuring of the UI dollars, the consolidated revenue dollars, and potentially VRDP, which is vocational rehabilitation of disabled persons.

To date the discussion within the department on the redesign of this program has not involved the community in any way at all. There has been no consultation. There has been no discussion. Of a discussion paper that is circulating within the department, there is no idea as to what it says or what it intends. We are incredulous that this is the case for a department that has supported our community and been actively involved in working with our community for many years.

I will be very blunt with you and say that during the 1980s, under a new Conservative government, we were fearful for many of the gains we had made. However, we're more fearful right now, and that seems absolutely absurd to us.

The human resources investment fund, as we hear through rumour, is designed specifically based on UI dollars, which means employment training and labour market development for people in this country will mean being UI-eligible.

For our community that will not work. Many people have not had a job, have been discouraged from looking, are on social assistance, are not UI-eligible and would not be UI-eligible even if you expanded the definition to include those who were on UI within the last three years. Most within our community have not been on UI for a significant period of time.

So there are two major programs and initiatives going forward within the federal government for which presently there is no consultation or idea as to how these will be delivered.

I know Diane has arrived late and has not heard the rest of the discussion, but maybe she wishes to address some points regarding UI, CHST and HRIF.

Diane, I have not discussed anything about social audit.

Ms Diane Richler (Vice-President, Canadian Association for Community Living): Thank you.

I apologize, but the difficulties with the plane were beyond my control.

Although I haven't had the benefit of hearing what my colleagues have had to say, certainly many of us working within the community have been in close touch over the last number of months and years. While the specific issues affecting people who have an intellectual disability may be different from the concerns of some of the other organizations, I think overall our concerns are very consistent and we share the same fears.

I have a couple of general comments before addressing the specifics of the CHST and the human resources investment fund, to reinforce a little bit what Laurie Beachell just said.

When the national strategy for the integration of persons with disabilities was introduced, we certainly had a lot of fears and criticisms of it in terms of how much it really was a strategy and how much it was a way to simply earmark some dollars that were being spent on disability issues in a number of departments. So I certainly don't want to hold it up as a model, but there was one advantage to it: there was a recognition that disability is the responsibility of a number of departments.

People in Canada with a disability worked very hard for the inclusion of the equality rights provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. When we make comparisons with our colleagues in other countries, the inclusion of the equality rights provisions in the charter have really seemed to be a major impetus for thinking about disability in a broader perspective.

One of the things we're very much afraid of right now is that disability is no longer seen as a cross-cutting issue, touching all areas of government. More and more, first with the amalgamation of Secretary of State, then with the addition of the welfare side to Health and Welfare and the former EIC becoming Human Resources Development, there has been a narrowing of focus on disability. Disability is now more and more being seen as the purview of one department and one minister.

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The Charter of Rights and Freedoms still holds. We call on the government to make sure disability is considered throughout all departments.

The limiting, the narrowing, of the definition of disability is happening not only from the previous strategy, which dealt with ten departments and now primarily focuses on one department. Concern about disability is also being pushed into a smaller and smaller funnel. We see that in what we hear is being considered for the use of the human resources investment fund dollars and in the impact of the CHST.

As Laurie just mentioned, we have grave fears, because people with a disability who are not eligible for UI may not - likely will not - have access to programs that are funded through those dollars. We are also concerned that right now any discussion of disability seems to be focused solely on employability issues. While people with an intellectual disability are certainly very anxious to work, we also recognize that for many people who have an intellectual disability there are many obstacles to overcome before entering the labour market, such as getting out of an institution, having a variety of training opportunities, or receiving a number of other supports and services in the community. We're very concerned that a focus only on that last step before entering the labour market will automatically exclude all those people with a disability who have not yet been employed or aren't close to being employed.

Another concern is that although, as Laurie said, nothing is public, it appears within Human Resources Development much of the discussion and much of the planning is focusing on the new Canada human resource centres. Our experience is that the focus of employability programming tends to be on individuals who can be reintegrated quickly into the labour force. People with low education, with limited access to literacy and adult education and a weak attachment to the labour force, are usually edged towards the end of the line in access to effective counselling, to training, to job placement opportunities. Certainly our experience in the past has been that.

So we want to know how we can have any confidence that a focus on the new Canada human resource centres would guarantee equitable access to people who have a disability. We also want to know what programs would be designed to provide for the specific supports people with a disability might need in order to participate in the labour market.

On the Canada health and social transfer, we saw the first impact of the creation of that new funding mechanism three weeks after the last federal government was announced, when the Government of Newfoundland brought down its budget. By following plans in the provinces over the last year we detect a definite shift from what happened in Alberta, when their government was elected and started to make changes in social programs before the creation of CHST, while the requirements of CAP and other cost-sharing programs still existed, to what's happened in Newfoundland and what's now happening in Ontario, post-CHST.

This is tremendous cause for concern in terms of the limited amount of funds that will be available in the social transfer, or in the social portion of the transfer. There is now a tremendous move within the provinces to shift social programs to health. We've been fighting for more than twenty years to demonstrate that the supports and services needed most by people who have a disability to promote their inclusion in the community are not health services, they are social services. So we see those disappearing.

Also, the elimination of any kind of national...not even standards, but ideal values, any national objectives within the CHST now, have just opened the floodgates, and that's starting to have an incredibly negative impact on the lives of people in Canada who have a disability. We're just seeing the beginning of that.

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Lastly - and this is an echo of one of Laurie's comments - is a concern about the role of the voluntary sector in social policy affecting people in Canada with a disability. Again, one of the things we've been very proud of in Canada has been the collaboration that's existed between the voluntary sector and government at the federal and provincial levels.

In many ways disability has been an area in which partisan politics are set aside, community and government are able to work together, and federal and provincial governments are able to work together. We believe that's resulted in tremendous innovation, resulting in new efficiencies, new ideas and a much more positive experience for people in Canada with a disability.

What we see now is a closing of the doors and a rejection of the value the community has to offer in bringing forward new ideas and playing an active role as a partner in the community. It's something we'd like to discuss in more detail with this committee.

Lastly - and this may be one of the areas in which the community could be involved - in talking about how to compensate for the lack of any national standards or guidelines within the current CHST, one of the ideas that's been talked about is the possibility of the creation of a social audit that could exist in order to at least provide some kind of measure of how dollars are being used.

When we look at the legislation creating the CHST right now, there's absolutely no way for the taxpayers of Canada or the Government of Canada to have any idea of what impact those dollars are having on the lives of people with a disability. So we strongly propose the creation of a social audit that would provide a mechanism both for having some accountability for those dollars and also potentially for involving the community in helping to assess the impact on the lives of individuals who have a disability.

Thank you.

Ms Francine Arseneault (Chair, Council of Canadians with Disabilities): I realize time is short, so I'm going to try to summarize some points.

I'd like to speak about consumer involvement in the consultation process. Since the 1960s it's been recognized that when groups come together, they have more power and more credibility. Over the last twenty years disabled persons have shown they can be helpful in the consultation process.

Mainstream 1992 is an example of people coming together from government and the community and working together as equal partners to produce a work that showed some real relevance to the situation that existed at the time. The idea of everyone who is part of such a process having the same information and the same supports in place provided very realistic, relevant information.

The Canadian Labour Force Development Board is another example of where disabled persons in the community worked with labour and with government. It should be pointed out that in this process, the community elected the representative to be a part of those processes and the elected person reported back to the community.

In some of the situations we see where consultation is considered to be a part of the process, someone has appointed someone else and they're not answerable to anyone. The consultation process we're talking about involves someone in the community being asked to have information on a certain area, the community coming together and finding the person who has that knowledge, and that person being elected to be the representative and report back to the community. That's the kind of consultation we need.

The consultation over the last few years has been very effective, I think. In some of the reports that have come out...you've heard them talk about Obstacles. A number of the social policy review things that began a year or so ago started to have some impact.

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Now we see decreased consultation requested. What our community fears is that if things are happening in secret, how is it going to harm us? Then you find that people resist the change. What we're saying is if we're part of the consultation, not only will we save you dollars by doing it in such a way that it won't be used ineffectively but our community will be more open to accepting the changes that are recommended if it knows what's going on.

We've quite often talked about interventions in the way an advisory committee is set up. Advisory committees are something our community is very nervous about. Sometimes the people who are chosen for these advisory committees don't represent the community. It's much better and more effective if the community is asked who it thinks could be helpful on these advisory committees. With the community selecting them, that person then does report back to us.

I was thinking last night.... I like parables. If you were going out to build a house in a community, you would ask about whether there are schools, hospitals, and services nearby. You would ask neighbours what kind of neighbourhood it is. You would check with contractors who know the kind of stuff you want to build. When you're making policy changes, why wouldn't you ask the people who use the services and need to have those policies be effective for them?

This community has been and will continue to be, if it's allowed, a helpful partner to government. What we won't be able to sit back and take is not being involved.

I'm seen in this community as being a liaison person, as somebody who goes back and forth quite easily from my community to others, and I see a rising ire in the community. People are very afraid of what's going to happen, and not only with their country with the referendum. They wonder what's going to happen tomorrow, next week, and the week after.

Disabled people are going to be there no matter which party is in power. We need to put principles in place that ensure disabled persons in the future are going to have their rightful place as citizens. I think we can help you do that. One of our founders said ``nothing for us without us''. That's something easy to remember and something we've proven can be effective.

The Chair: We have reached the fifteen-minute mark, five minutes beyond our plan, but I would allow Mr. Beachell to proceed to the discussion of federal initiatives, but perhaps, if I may suggest it, on a bullet-point basis.

Mr. Beachell: I will keep this very brief. I think most of the points have been addressed.

Diane spoke about our concern that disabled people's issues are falling within one department within the federal government. That is very true. We are seeing within Transport, Justice, Industry, with the end of the national strategy, a downplaying of disabled persons' issues. Even within this process now we have gone back to those departments to look for new initiatives....

I spoke to Mr. Doug Young in Winnipeg twelve days ago about the critical issue of interprovincial busing. At present we have virtually no access to the interprovincial bus system. Our community believes - and this is again an example of our concern about no standards - the reason we have no access is that the federal government gave up jurisdictional authority for licensing of interprovincial buses to the provinces in 1954.

The federal government has been unable to regulate or move forward on interprovincial bus access. It is the cheapest form of transportation in this country. It is the least accessible. It is the form that gets you from community to community. It is generally not usable by disabled Canadians across this country. With air, rail, ferry transport, because the federal government has had a clear jurisdictional role and because the federal government has asserted leadership within this area, over the last twenty years we have seen progressive standards put in place to ensure access to service for people with disabilities.

We are concerned, with the Department of Justice, about some basic human rights issues. The employability focus of what HRD has become means those issues are not going to be supported in the same way. So our community cannot look to HRD beyond the HRD mandate, it appears.

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Yet previously our community, through a citizenship secretary of state branch, had a broad social policy role. There was a minister responsible for the status of disabled persons. There was a secretariat established with considerable authority and ability to analyse social policy and move forward.

Those things are gone. Those things do not exist in the same format today, and frankly what we see the federal government doing in its new initiatives is abandoning people with disabilities. It appears to be no longer committed to the principles of the charter. It appears no longer committed to the equality of citizenship participation for all Canadians regardless of where they live in this country and regardless of their ability or disability.

That is the challenge we put to your committee. We hope to see that addressed in the recommendations that come forward. We would be pleased to enter into any discussion around this with you today and at any time. Our members remain open to you for any discussion individually or with your own caucus over the next few months.

We have a critical period of time, over the next six months, to look at disability issues. Without some federal leadership we feel we are basically being abandoned.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you all.

We will proceed with the questions and answers. For the first five-minute round, I would suggest that we make our preambles as succinct as possible and go directly to the question.

Mr. Scott.

Mr. Scott: First of all, thank you very much. I appreciate the precision with which your presentation was made. As a member of the social security review, I would say that the representations that were made by the community you speak of were among the best we received, and I'm similarly disappointed with the outcomes.

To try to analyse what happened and what is happening, I think we're very fond of the reference to moral hazard or the unintended consequences of some of our social programs in terms of what government departments have said. I think there is also a moral hazard related to the shift that has taken place and I think you are feeling the results of that. The shift that has taken place is trying to accommodate a desire, I suspect a well-intentioned desire, to recognize some problems in the way the social safety net was constructed, to move toward employability kinds of things, and so on.

As someone who has been an advocate of the community you represent for a long, long time, I can see there's an element that is actually very good, because the idea of everybody being employable in the right circumstances is, at least theoretically, a noble objective for a government. It's one that I'm very familiar with as something that has been pursued in this community for twenty years.

Unfortunately, what's happened, in my opinion, is that in a period of restraint, that strategy has backfired because ultimately the delivery systems available to bring that about are more inclined to find those people who are most employable and to deliver to those people first. It's the nature of the way those delivery systems work.

I think we have a major challenge before us to quickly address this problem. I'm new to this committee. I'm not a full member of the HRD committee any more, and I see an opportunity on this committee to deal in a very focused way with the problem that you've identified and that I would agree exists.

Having said that, I have a couple of questions. I'm sorry, Mr. Chair, for not being particularly respectful of the short preamble, but I think it's important that we cut quickly to that, and I think that's the issue.

We speak of national standards. I'm trying to figure out what the appropriate role for the federal government would be and what this committee should pursue. When we speak of national standards in the principles of the Canada Health Act, are they national standards in your mind?

Mr. Simpson: It's an example of national standards, but national standards go deeper than the Health Act. The standards come about not only by the regulations and policies, but by the examples and special initiatives and the creativity that you bring as leaders of the country. Standards come in many ways.

We are realistic. The flexible kinds of movements here, which are in fact around this table and I'm sure with others you will meet this afternoon, see that standards come about through a range of negotiations and consultations. Yet at the bottom line, the federal government must ensure that the fundamental services are there and essential needs are met. As I said earlier, the foundations of this wall hold the rest of this building together.

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When people are left destitute without housing, without hope, without the ability to get out of bed, or without hospitalization, you must have the power to intervene through persuasion and financial incentives, which the federal government has always been famous for.

We are not trying to bankrupt the country. We have realistic ways to help bring about cost efficiencies. I want to make sure that's there.

Ms Richler: I'd like to know where the question's leading before answering it.

Mr. Scott: I think one of the problems with this is simply that some of the language carries with it so many different interpretations. Some people will say they don't want national standards because in their definition, national standards would be an incredible intrusion by the federal government. In other cases in the minds of the people putting the question, it's not...and I'm just trying to give some parameters for the definition of that.

I think the explanation I've received is sufficient in terms of this.

Ms Richler: I would just like to give a couple of examples of what we've lost or what we're losing through the elimination of the Canada Assistance Plan. Certainly during the review process we had a lot to say about what might replace the Canada Assistance Plan that would be better, but there are a couple of particular elements. One was the fact that the dollars that flowed to the provinces under the Canada Assistance Plan were clearly going toward social services. So just the fact right now that there is no block of funds earmarked for social services is a concern because these dollars are now in one pot with health and education, and we see social services losing out to health and education. So one standard is even just allocating a block of money to be applicable for social services.

Another one that's really critical within the Canada Assistance Plan is the requirement that there must be an appeal process. That's one of the first things the provinces are eliminating. In Ontario, for example, we think that could have devastating effects for people with disabilities.

I think we're all consistent in saying we don't think a national standard should say that people must have access to living in this kind of environment and be very prescriptive, but there need to be some protections there.

Mr. McClelland: Thank you for your presentations.

I'd like to try to get right at the nib of this, at least from my perspective. First of all, what we're dealing with here in persons with disabilities is really enlightened self-interest. The thing about the issue of disabilities that separates it from other groups identified within the Human Rights Act is that any one of us could be in this situation in a heartbeat. That's the essential difference between disabilities and everything else.

I'd also like to comment briefly on a comment others have made. It's coming from a strange quarter, but I don't think it's right to dump all of these problems on members of the present Liberal government and call them disasters. The fact is they are dealing with a financial mess that the Conservatives before them didn't deal with that would be much easier to deal with had they dealt with it. So circumstances are forcing our country, regardless of ideology, to deal with a situation that must be dealt with.

Given that, how do we go about dealing with it in a way that does not bring everybody into the hopper and deal with everybody the same? I think one of our primary problems is that Canadians from coast to coast have a very generous attitude toward people with disabilities, but when people with disabilities are caught up in the same hopper with everybody else, there's no distinction between somebody on disabilities and somebody....

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For instance, when we're talking about Ontario and workfare and welfare and that sort of thing, in the last election, where people in Ontario who are able to go on welfare because they don't want to live at home when they're 16, it's an entirely different situation than somebody who, for whatever reason, has a disability and requires chronic assistance.

So we have to make a distinction between why people get into the mess they are in and where the money pot comes from. So, rather than addressing responsive blame, it seems to me we would be far better off by asking what we can do to make sure that persons with disabilities are not caught up in the hopper and dealt with in the same way as everybody else, because there are different circumstances.

It seems to me, and from earlier witnesses, a problem is in maintaining the cost of being disabled. There is a premium to being disabled that does not exist for other citizens.

If people with disabilities were to be in some way compensated, held harmless, through either a negative income tax or a tax credit for the cost of the disability, would this be considered to be a priority?

I say that because then, for instance, caregivers at home, the husband or the wife, the spouse or the brother or the aunt or the child or the parent who is looking after someone, providing that care, is able to get compensation, to be compensated for that, and also to be able to pay into CPP in order to look after their own future.

Care given at home is far less expensive and far better and far more psychologically the way we should be going than institutionalizing people.

Would anyone care to comment on the general thrust of what I'm saying?

Mr. Beachell: During the social security reform review, the central issue for the disabled community was additional costs of disability and how we would offset, as a society, additional costs of disability.

Our community believes that additional costs of disability should be borne by society as a whole, not by the individual.

Tax reforms were part of the proposals that were brought forward in relation to that, through tax credit, through a variety of means in the tax system. Frankly, that has been deemed at the Department of Finance as being very expensive, and the last time I met with officials there, the comment was, ``We have done what we can do around disability, thank you very much''.

That means that the disability deduction, which now we're finding people being kicked off of.... I saw recently in a paper from Alberta how one fellow who had just been denied the deduction was wondering how his leg was going to grow back. His disability was that he had lost a leg and it was permanent. He was eligible three years ago, but he's not eligible now. He didn't understand that. I don't either.

There does not appear to have been an interest in looking at the tax system.

When you say that the community generally is supportive, I believe they are. I suggest that this is the test. If the federal and provincial governments cannot work in harmony at this point to develop cooperative, collaborative programs around disability, then I doubt that you're going to have the capability to do it elsewhere.

We believe that, on disability, there is willingness and openness to discuss, to look at innovative solutions, and that you will need to do so, that block funding alone will do nothing to improve the lives of Canadians with disabilities.

Mr. McClelland: I have a quick follow-up question. In getting accountability for this committee, one of the problems I have perceived over the last year or so is that this committee doesn't really report to anybody. It doesn't have any clear line of authority, and it can't hold anybody directly responsible. If I want to hold a minister's feet to the fire, it's virtually impossible, because there are so many people. Where do you address...? There is no ministerial responsibility for this committee, at least in my opinion.

Would anyone care to comment on that?

The Chair: I raised the same question before, only because of, at least immediately, the dual responsibility of this committee: human rights and, of course, the status of persons with disabilities. The latter also involves human rights. So we can report to the respective minister, depending on the specific issue before the committee. We know who to report to.

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Mr. Simpson: I think the past committee saw - and hopefully this committee will see - the value of reporting first to Parliament as a whole -

The Chair: We always do.

Mr. Simpson: - and bringing specific issues to the various ministries. However, it's your public forum, your capacity to hear witnesses and give record to - quite frankly, the proof is in the pudding - and therefore it's your capacity to represent these concerns to each level.

I don't think we would be happy with one minister. Yes, there is a value in a minister of the status of disabled persons, but each department and each minister must be held accountable.

The Chair: Mr. Maloney.

Mr. Maloney: The purpose of these hearings really is to review the national strategy with respect to the integration of persons with disabilities. Have the last five years been effective? If so, where? Have we not been successful? If so, where? Should we continue or should we amend it in another forum?

Ms Richler: As I mentioned before, our impression is that there was not a national strategy. There were a number of departments that had programs in the area of disability and the fact that there was something called the strategy gave some priority within certain departments for inclusion of a focus on disability they might not otherwise have had.

The strategic element, if there was one, seems to have been lacking. There was no apparent coordination and the issues seemed to keep going further and further down within the bureaucracy.

All of that notwithstanding, there has been a tremendous amount of value to the strategy in a couple of areas.

One was a tremendous respect for the role of the community in the process. A number of departments worked very collaboratively with community groups in order to come up with common objectives and move forward. We saw some positive moves in the area of pursuing the interpretation of the charter. We saw some positive moves in specific departments.

Speaking from a very personal, organizational perspective, our association was able to participate in a partnership project with the federal government and six provincial governments on supporting people with intellectual disabilities to move out of institutions. The largest of those projects, with just over a year remaining, is in Newfoundland. All people with an intellectual disability will, by the end of the project, have moved out of the Waterford Psychiatric Hospital into the community, with supports, and in a cooperative process between the federal and provincial governments, our national association and our provincial association.

I was in Newfoundland just a couple of weeks ago and I must say that I was overjoyed. It was one of the most positive days in my experience over the last number of years. I heard in detail about the specific benefits that have accrued to individuals who had spent 20, 30 or 40 years living in St. John's in an institution and who are now back in their communities around the province, whose families are starting to get involved in their lives, who have hired their own staff to support them at home and who are starting to work. And I also saw the collaboration around the table between the community and both levels of government in trying to sort out the remaining problems that certainly do exist.

I'd hate to create the impression that nothing good has come from the strategy, because specific projects have been promoted and there certainly was the investment of resources in the community. It has led to a number of positive examples that we're still hoping to build on. However, in terms of there actually being a strategy that had an overall impact, it fell short.

Mr. Maloney: What are your recommendations for the future? Where do we go from here, in light of those comments?

Ms Richler: The idea of a strategy is still a good one. The idea of the federal government having a focus, with some specific objectives that would be accomplished over a number of years, is important. Giving profile to the area of disability, having it cross-departmental, so that there is not only one department involved, and working with the community are all elements that are important.

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Given the work that's been done over the last five years, a consultative process to bring the community and government together and to include the provincial governments, which are clearly key players in this process, could lead to something very exciting.

Ms Walters: Mr. Maloney, I want to explain it in terms of the impact in Niagara.

Before the strategy, there was no way that people with disabilities could cross the borders of the twelve municipalities there. The strategy enabled the Niagara Centre for Independent Living to develop. The independent living movement developed in Canada.

That centre in your area now is run by and is for people with disabilities, helping each other to contribute economically, socially and politically to this country. That centre, which was partially funded by the federal government, enabled the whole community to understand the model of independent living. It enabled the service providers and the businesses to understand how important accessibility issues are.

People with disabilities were able to participate on various boards and say, ``This is what will work. Forget about all these other projects you have in the area of disability. None of them are working. This is what we need.'' It got the community to come together at a focal point to start dealing with disability in a proper, effective way.

Now we have 23 of these centres across the country facing their doors being closed in five months' time. This model has been demonstrated in this country, it is working, and I'm preparing now to tell our centres that we must close in five months' time.

People are nervous. People can hardly even do their jobs. We're in the business of empowerment and helping people access volunteer opportunities that will develop their skills to lead to employment. Right now, all of this is going to be closed down.

Mr. Maloney: Ms Richler, you referred to a social auditor. How would you envisage that working, perhaps to assess the situation that has just been indicated by Ms Walters?

Ms Richler: If I can find my crib notes I'll be able to answer that question much better.

Mr. Beachell: The discussion around the social audit has not had as much depth as we would have liked it to have had. We believe it is a necessary discussion. For the federal government to transfer money to the province with no mechanism to monitor how those dollars are spent and no indication of the level of support being offered in Saskatchewan versus the level of support being offered in New Brunswick....

We need some comparative data. We need to know how these things are happening. That is what we call the social audit process.

As to the how, who and what, it would involve a number of processes to ensure that. There should be an accounting type of process to have reporting from provincial governments on how they spend dollars. As well, there should be a social evaluation of what is happening - hearing from constituents within that region as to what the service level is and what the delivery mechanism is. I believe national associations can have a significant role in it.

Diane, do you want to add to that?

Ms Richler: Given the changing nature of the relationship between the federal and provincial governments, we don't think it would be likely that the provincial government would welcome an audit being done by the federal government. But it might be possible to set up a third-party mechanism that would provide benefits to the federal government, to provincial governments and to the community.

One of the models we've considered is similar to one that's used by the United Nations in having countries report on adherence to various conventions. For example, with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Government of Canada asks the provinces for their reports, collates them and presents them to the UN, and then there's also a mechanism whereby the community can make further comments.

We would propose something similar, whereby within a province there might be mechanisms for collecting data and there might be a report to a central third-party mechanism. Similarly the federal government could provide their input and the community could do the same and there would be some way to collate it.

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We think in setting up such an audit clearly there would have to be benefits for all the parties: for the federal government, a means to remove itself from the role of enforcer, so it would no longer be the cop in looking at how social dollars were being spent...but to provide a mechanism so there would be some adherence to national principles and objectives, and to maintain a basis for continued cooperation with provincial governments in sharing information, pursuit of best practices, and the maintenance of coherent national social systems. It would also be a way of identifying national trends and being able to be prepared for them.

As for benefits to provincial governments, it would provide a means for the provinces to highlight the positive and innovative reforms they have undertaken. That would be a sharing mechanism that would allow provinces to learn from each other. It would enable provincial governments to maintain interprovincial levels of social services. In other words -

The Chair: I must interject. The chair intended to ask your group to do a lot of assignments at the end, and one of them is to provide us with a detailed response to this particular question.

I would like to go to Mr. Allmand at this time.

Mr. Allmand: Thank you.

I'm new with this committee, so I haven't had a chance to read all the briefing papers yet. Some of the questions I ask might seem naïve.

At the beginning you referred to the fact that some provinces are already changing the definition of disability. You gave some very graphic examples of how the change in the definition is really hurting people who are disabled, who will be left without... I believe Ms Walters and Ms Lemieux-Brassard gave us some very stark examples of how people who had been helped will no longer be helped.

The very first day I came to this committee I asked whether there was a definition of disability, and I referred to the World Health Organization definition. I asked whether that definition was enshrined in legislation or not. I want to ask you whether in the Canada Assistance Plan and the regulations for the Canada Assistance Plan there was a national definition that was a standard for all provinces and for the delivery of all services and moneys. Is that definition now, of course, repealed with the repeal of the Canada Assistance Plan, or was such a definition never legally promulgated but it was simply left up in the air, with an understanding that the World Health definition would apply?

Mr. Beachell: Your question is a very good one. It is also the first one anyone asks when they come to the disability field, to understand who we mean when we talk about people with disability.

There is no one definition. We would suggest a move to try to establish a definition in all contexts for people with disability is not appropriate and is not helpful in the process. If you were talking about transportation, the people you would identify as disabled or handicapped by our transportation system would be very different from the people who may have difficulty overcoming a barrier to get employment. So you have to define disability in the context of the issue area or the situation you're looking at.

There is no one definition. There is a general World Health Organization definition of handicap-disability-impairment that helps to some extent to understand this. But basically the issue of definition is related to environmental barriers, to what the barrier is that is prohibiting participation by that person. For Allan, an attendant service is a critical component to ensure he can go to work every day. To define disabled people in that relation, you have to define it in relation to the barrier, not in relation to any one Webster's dictionary definition.

Mr. Allmand: That makes sense to me. I understand now what you're saying. In other words, that's why it was so important that there be the ability to apply national standards under the Canada Assistance Plan, which would be specific in many areas.

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By the way, Mr. McClelland, while I appreciate your generous defence of the Liberal Party, I don't think we can blame the repeal of the Canada Assistance Plan on the Tories. We have to take responsibility for that ourselves.

That strengthens your argument for national standards through legislation such as the Canada Assistance Plan or some similar legislation.

I want to go on to the social audit as well, on which Mr. O'Reilly asked some questions.

Doesn't a proposal to set up a social audit imply an acceptance of the block funding system? I understood from your interventions that you would still like to reverse what has been started and try to get legislation with national standards - if not the Canada Assistance Plan type, something approaching the Canada Assistance Plan type, through amendments to the Canadian health and social standard or a strengthening of the Canadian health and social standard. By proposing the social audit, that's one way of dealing with the block funding system, but isn't that only your fall-back position? Wouldn't you really like to see us propose amendments to the Canadian health and social standard that would bring back national standards in the areas to which you have just been referring? Isn't that the real answer or an approach to the real answer?

Ms Richler: I will take the risk of replying from our association's point of view. There might not be total consensus on this.

The position of our association was that the need is for national standards but not necessarily for maintaining the kind of cost-sharing program that existed under CAP, which was 50¢ on the dollar and quite particular.

We did not have a problem with the idea of the kind of block funding that existed under Established Programs Financing for health programs, because our experience in Canada has been that the standards of the Canada Health Act are sufficient and the penalties are sufficient that provinces listen when the Minister of Health says, ``We won't pay for that. You can't do that.''

So to us it's not the idea of having a block fund, but the CHST is not just block funding. It's putting social services with education and health in one block; it's not having any standards except residency for social services, and it's a much reduced block. From our point of view, you would have to take all of those points together.

It's true that the social audit is a fall-back position in terms of what exists now, but even if another system was in place, we think that kind of mechanism would still be positive, because there has not been any formal way.

In fact, what happened under the Canada Assistance Plan was that officials of the federal government would be reviewing with provinces the picayune details of whether a particular program was eligible for dollars, but they wouldn't necessarily be looking at whether the overall programming of a province was going in a direction in which Canadian social policy wanted to move.

So we still see the benefits of a social audit in order to be able to name some overall national direction for social policy that allows the federal government, the provincial government, and the community all to play a role.

Mr. Allmand: Would you foresee, in carrying out this social audit, an institution something like the official languages commissioner, who reports directly to Parliament, or the correctional investigator, who checks on situations in prisons and reports directly to Parliament; in other words, somebody who reports directly to Parliament or an institution that reports directly to Parliament, like the Auditor General as well, who would report to various committees, and the committee could then deal with the report? Are these models something you've thought about?

Mr. Beachell: Those are models that we have begun to talk about. Certainly the mechanism for reporting to Parliament is essential. Also, then the obligation for the government to respond to this report in some way is essential.

I believe it has to have a tie-in with reports to the provinces as well so that they will be receiving the data and information at the same time.

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Our concern with the block funding is that we're fearful of provincial governments designing what we call rush-to-the-bottom programs. The idea behind that is let's provide the minimum level of service, because if we provide a better service, our neighbours from next door are going to move in. If we provide a better program in B.C. than there is in Alberta, all those people who have been denied social assistance or cut off the welfare rolls in Alberta are going to move to B.C.

Frankly, in Manitoba I have people who have worked on Main Street, and in the last few years they've seen a number of people who have moved from Alberta. These people are eligible for social assistance in Manitoba, but are not eligible in Alberta any longer.

Our concern is that we are going to have a continual downgrade and this rush to the bottom. The provinces are going to be fearful of providing innovative programming or decent levels because there will be a migration.

The Chair: We will go to Mr. Grose.

Mr. Grose: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wonder if I might be allowed an extra moment or so, because I may not have a question. As a matter of fact, when I'm finished the witnesses may not even want to speak to me.

The Chair: This is more a round table than a question and answer, so Andy was right, too. Go ahead.

Mr. Grose: Thank you.

First of all, I'd like to thank Mr. McClelland, who always steals my main point. He brought up the fiscal situation. Either he should join my party or, heaven forbid, I should join his, but we have to get together so that we don't steal each other's points. He's just an amateur, you know, as he pointed out.

I am deeply, deeply disturbed with what I've heard here this morning. I mean this sincerely. One of the problems you get when you elect an old guy like me who doesn't need to be re-elected is that you'll get the truth and you'll get it bluntly, and that's the way it is.

I've heard a lot of complaints about the system. Mostly the intimation is that they could be solved by more money. I've heard complaints about the services supplied by the provinces, either before or after we've changed the system. I'm especially disturbed about any complaints from la belle province, whose members do not deign to be here today.

Mr. Allmand: I'm one.

Mr. Grose: Well, yes, you are, Warren. But you're everything.

I believe they're out on the hustings selling the magic solution to everything.

I'm going to tell you something. I know you're here to tell me things, but I'm going to tell you something. You are going to be cut, with or without your input.

Now, Francine was the only one who mentioned consultation towards the possibility of streamlining and saving money. Well, possibly you did, too. I may have missed it.

A witness: I think we all did.

Mr. Grose: Well, fair enough. I'll go along with that.

We are going to have to cut, and you are going to bleed; everyone is. Keep in mind that if we do not get this system in line, and I mean the whole fiscal system, which Mr. McClelland will no doubt agree with me on, it is going to collapse. When it collapses, there is nothing.

I disagree with Mr. McClelland when he says that most of the people in this country are sympathetic to you. Recent provincial elections have said exactly the opposite. Politicians who have gone out and said we are going to cut, crack down, cut off, and get rid of the people on the public purse - and you're considered part of that, a great big grab bag - have been elected with majorities.

You mentioned that it is our job to set the national tone. No, it's not. We cannot set the national tone. Politicians follow, they do not lead. What we need is the courage to do what is right after we get here.

You have to work with us. We are not against you, but we also have to get the money from somewhere. You have to work with this, which is what you're doing here today. But please realize that we're dealing with a limited budget. Everyone has demands, and the person who really matters, the person who elects us, is the guy who says ``I want to pay less''. He does say ``I want to pay less, and if you're unfortunate, well, that's just too bad; I'm not unfortunate''. Unfortunately, that's the way he looks at it today.

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I'm willing to screw up my courage. So are most of my colleagues. But that's the basis on which you have to address us: what can you do; how much can you get out of the pot?

I know you're worthy. I have no quarrel with that. At my age you realize just how infirm we get eventually, all of us, at one time or another. But this is the realization you're going to have to face.

You can come here and say, you have to do more, you have to increase this, this is not fair. We know that. Try to be realistic and I'll do, and I'm sure my colleagues will do, everything we can to advance your cause.

Ms Arseneault: I'm the oldest one of the consultants here. I remember very well when there was no medicare. My dad worked two jobs so I could have an operation. I sometimes waited three years before I could have an operation. I had polio when I was a baby, so I had thirty operations before I was eighteen. He did a lot of extra work. I used to have to get my mother to knock on doors to get neighbours and relatives to give blood before I could have the operation, because I would bleed too much and they wouldn't do it without a lot of volunteers lined up giving blood. I don't want that to happen to my kids.

When Traci gets really upset, and all of us here do, it's because we don't want it to be that way again. I'm usually the one who is not emotional and is very calm, but we're getting calls all across the country that are awful. I have a friend who can get a leg-bag cover in the daytime so people won't see that he wets himself, but he can't get a bag at night. So he lies in a wet bed all night. These are the long-term unintended results we're seeing but you guys never see.

We think we can tell you a better way to spend the money. We're not asking for more. We're saying there has to be a way to do it better. You said this group doesn't report to anybody. Everybody who has a seat in this House has to report to somebody.

The Chair: If I can interject...I'd like you to proceed. We do report to Parliament. By the rules of order we can force the government to make a response to our report. Then of course the government will refer it to the appropriate departments of government. Then we can monitor the implementation of that response in areas that have not been responded to.

Please proceed.

Ms Arseneault: I guess what I really want you to do is to make this the vibrant committee it was; not sit back and let people say, well, we have to cut them. You have to say, look, guys, we're talking about ourselves, because we may be the ones tomorrow.

I just came from Bangkok, where they have.... You tell Mr. Chrétien if he wants to trade in Asia, Indonesia.... He was there. We were there. Indonesia is taking on our form. They're looking at us for a model of how to help disabled persons.

I was in Bangkok working with the UN to evaluate their second decade of disabled persons. They said, Jesus, we haven't done this right yet; we have to get at this and do it right. Is Canada going to let it go now? We're asked to go there to evaluate if they're doing it right, and here our guys are going to stop doing it right.

You have to do something, and you have to do it fast, because if we don't we're going to revert. I remember Mr. Martin saying we're going to have the deficit back to the 1950s. But would somebody remind him what it was like to be a disabled person in the 1950s? It was not nice, and it's not going to be nice in the future. You guys are going to be some of the people who are going to need those extra services. So for God's sake, work to keep them in place. That's our main issue.

Ms Walters: Right now it costs you $4.6 billion to exclude people with disabilities from the workforce. I'm not sure....

Laurie, help me with these figures. Is it not $69 million that goes into disability, as the cost of disability right now?

That's what you're spending.

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We say that we know how to reduce that by incredible amounts, by millions and millions. We can reduce that. We know. Don't you think we get angry when a lot of this is being chewed up by the medical industry and the rehabilitation? Don't you think we're mad about that? They're getting money to rehabilitate people, but people are still unemployed. There's a big problem, and we know how to deal with it for a tiny fraction of that money, to start empowering people with disabilities.

So the facts are that there's a lot of money that you are wasting right now and we know how we can help you and we've got it all laid out.

Ms Lemieux-Brassard: I'm not sure if I'm going to get it out very clearly in English, because we're getting into something really emotional.

Can you tell me why, on what grounds, it becomes cost effective to give me an administrative discharge as a probation and parole officer for seventeen years instead of getting the courthouse adapted? That's all I needed. I would still be paying income tax and bringing money in. Instead, I have to rely on the post-secondary education program to get my PhD, but still I haven't had transportation to get me to the university for fifteen months.

I have been working with two master's degrees in a courthouse for seventeen years, but from one day to the next I am told, ``No, you're not worth anything, because it would cost $20,000 to get an elevator in the courthouse''.

Is that cost-effective?

So you cannot blame me for asking for more money in order to get somewhere and hope that one day with my PhD, probably next year, there will be an open door at the university where I can give my message of full social participation of people who may have differences.

At the same time, look at section 188 of your Income Tax Act. It says bluntly that employment, leisure, recreation activities, food preparation, and meal cooking are not usual activities of the daily life of a person with a disability. Is that an incentive to get more active and more productive? That's in your Income Tax Act.

Mr. Grose: May I say thank you very much to the witnesses. I achieved what I wanted to achieve.

Mr. McClelland: I feel that we need to, because I think we are going to continue to devolve responsibility to provinces. I think that's what's going to happen. That's going to be, at least from my perspective, a given.

So how can we go about getting national values so that we shall still have a country?

That's an area on which we're going to have some focus, because what we're talking about are core values that make us a nation.

Given that certain things are going to happen because of the financial circumstances and because of the kinetics in the country, whether we like it or not these things are going to happen, so how can we go about making the best of the situation we have?

Because time is short, I'll leave that with you. Perhaps we can come together again at a future date, because I think that's the important issue to speak to.

Mr. Allmand: I hope I'm not disagreeing with my good friend Mr. Grose -

Mr. Grose: You usually do.

Mr. Allmand: - but I think that when we run for office as members of Parliament we're elected to lead, not to follow, and it's our job to convince Canadians to do what is right.

For example, even if I had a full guarantee that I may never be disabled - and you say we might be disabled, and therefore we should do it - even if we're never to be disabled, I think we have to promote what is right, whether we're going to be disabled or not.

I think we have the money. I disagree that we don't have the money. We have money to spend on lawn furniture and cosmetic surgery. I've got the figures of what Canadians spend on cosmetic surgery just to make their nose looks a bit nicer, and what we're spending on holidays and pet food and alcohol and cigarettes and a whole lot of other things. There's something wrong if we let people lie in the situation that you describe and we allow the tax system to be established in such a way that all sorts of our national productivity is going into what I consider to be low-priority consumer items.

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So I think we'll have a good discussion on this committee. But I would argue strongly that we can make a good case and convince the Canadian people when they really start thinking about it, as Mr. Chrétien tried to get the Quebec people to think seriously about things last night.

I think it's our job to make people think seriously about whether it's important that we allow a situation to exist where people can spend money on what I consider to be semi-useless items when people really need things to exist as human beings. We have to convince them of what is right and pass legislation.

Mr. Simpson: Could I add a comment?

The Chair: Because of the time constraint.... First, the chair has not posed any questions. I will only impose, on the basis of a request, an assignment to all of you, because I have many more questions.

When you agree, I would like you to provide the committee with what you feel ought to be the minimum criteria with regards to what Lucie had indicated earlier. I would like you to submit to the committee what you have discussed in part: these standards that you would like us to see across the country.

I would like you also to react by way of a written reply to the many comments members have made today.

I would also like you to provide the committee with your understanding of a national strategy. Ms Richler has addressed that already in part. Provide us with sort of an executive summary.

I would also like you to address the issue of the social audit in further detail, including why we have to have another one when we already have the Auditor General of Canada.

If you are not asking for more dollars, could you then, within the limits of your resources, provide us with what you think is the amount available and how you would like to allocate that given amount?

Lastly, although Laurie indicated that there ought to be no definition of disability, he went ahead to say we should define it in the context of the issue. I would like to think it can be defined. It is how we define it - in the best way we can - because if there is no common understanding and no common definition, there will be an area for misunderstanding.

So if you challenge yourselves to provide the committee with those submissions, the committee will be very delighted to look them over, and during the preparation of the report we will be well guided.

I'm sorry. At this point, we really have exceeded the time, but I will allow Mr. Simpson one minute.

Mr. Simpson: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Those are very crucially important questions. Many of them will require the resources and the analysis of all of our organizations working together, as we have in the past.

Earlier Mr. Allmand pointed out the dilemma that we are constantly faced with. When you try to have definitive answers.... Over time, the movement and all of the organizations here have found that, as in all of society, problems are solved by a process. It's an attitude. It's a working relationship of partnership and sharing and looking at various situations together.

There is no perfect definition. There are many researchers throughout the world studying this one issue on disability. They had a big world conference in Quebec City a month ago. They could not come up with a definition because every situation is different.

When it comes to priorizing resources and dollars, it's in that consultation process where we can show, as Traci said, how to save dollars. Now we have people who are managing those services at one-third the cost of when they used to live in intensive care hospitals. We have many examples. It's only in the process that we can give you those solutions. It is not that there's one answer for any one thing. There's a process of working together.

The Chair: The committee has recognized, as I sense from the questions being posed by the members, that, precisely, we would like to be guided further by your written submissions as we go over the very fundamental issues that we discussed this morning.

I thank you all on behalf of the committee. The hour is exactly twelve noon. We will break for a few minutes before we go to the second session and we invite everybody in the room to share some sandwiches we have here for five or ten minutes. Then we will proceed with the next session.

Thank you so much.