CANADA VOLUME 136 S NUMBER 092 S 2nd SESSION S 36th PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Monday, May 8, 2000 Speaker: The Honourable Gilbert Parent CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) All parliamentary publications are available on the ``Parliamentary Internet Parlementaire'' at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 6475 HOUSE OF COMMONS Monday, May 8, 2000 The House met at 11 a.m. The organization found that many people, not just in the downtown eastside but in other neighbourhoods in Vancouver and _______________ on the lower mainland, desperately needed access to phone service. As a result of providing this service over the last couple of years, about 1,200 people are now registered. The use of the service is Prayers increasing on a daily basis. _______________ The statistics provided to me by the organization are quite interesting. They show that approximately 79% of the users of this service are single men and that 60% of the users have annual PRIVATE MEMBERS’ BUSINESS incomes of less than $8,000. I would ask anyone in the House to imagine what it would be like to live on less than $8,000. It would mean no money for bus fare, no money for a phone and no money D (1110) for the basic necessities of life. It basically would mean scraping by and surviving day by day. [English] What is most interesting is that more than half of the users of this VOICE MAIL SERVICE voice mail service have said that having a community voice mail and having one’s own phone number has given them a starting Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP) moved: point for having more control over their lives. I cannot emphasize That, in the opinion of this House, the federal government should encourage the enough what that means to an individual. Imagine what it would be CRTC to establish regulations that require telephone companies to assist community like living on welfare and looking for work or maybe living in a agencies with providing affordable voice mail service to Canadians who cannot homeless shelter and looking for work. afford or do not have access to telephone service. She said: Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be in the House I experienced this last year when I travelled across the country today to speak to my motion. The purpose of this motion is to and visited emergency shelters and spoke to homeless people and mandate phone accessibility and phone service for low income and front line service workers. I was told many times by people that homeless Canadians who, as it stands today, have absolutely no they felt humiliated when they did not have an address or a phone access to this very basic service that most of us take for granted. number. If they wanted to apply for a job and the prospective employer needed a phone number, they had to reply that they lived My motion before the House today was inspired by a project that in a homeless shelter. They had no chance of receiving a phone call was initiated a couple of years ago by a very well known back from the employer. community organization in Vancouver’s downtown eastside, the Downtown Eastside Residents Association, which started what was Having a program that gave them access to their own phone called a community voice mailbox system. number and their own voice mail messages enabled them to provide a possible employer with a phone number. When an In starting up this system, the organization found that many low employer called that number it would be their voice recording on income and homeless people who had no access to phone service the phone asking the caller to leave a message. They could then dial were incredibly limited in terms of being able to find employment into that from any location by hopefully using a free phone. or make contact with doctors offices or even family members. This organization worked very hard. It was approached by a young man Having their own phone number or voice mail gives people a who had developed a computer software program to create the sense of dignity, a sense of worth and a a starting point for them to program. For a very modest amount of $1,500, it received the find employment and put their lives together. This is a very basic computer and the software program, the voice mail service. but important thing. 6476 COMMONS DEBATES May 8, 2000 Private Members’ Business The sad irony is that the federal government has many job use as people were changing their greeting or accessing their voice creation initiatives to help lower income Canadians. But it is mail box or dialling in to retrieve messages. Just think of what that provided on a very spotty basis. Industry Canada has spent millions would mean to Canadians from coast to coast who are living in of dollars getting Canadians on line. I know a lot of agencies that communities where they feel isolated and cut off because they do have accessed funds from Industry Canada to help set up Internet not have that basic service. access for low income Canadians. That is something I agree with. The purpose of this motion is to say that here is an easy, D (1115 ) straightforward, simple, logical, reasonable way of ensuring that Canadians have access to the most basic phone service that we all take for granted in this country. Is it not ironic that while on the one hand the government is doing that and sees it as a priority, on the other hand we have I want to say that this issue is very much linked to people who information from Statistics Canada which shows that 157,000 are living in poverty. Because people are living way below the Canadians have no phone. That is a very conservative figure poverty line, they cannot afford to have the basic phone service. As because it does not include the homeless people who are not listed I have mentioned, in many instances it is related to employment in the census. Here we are in our modern society getting people on and the need to get employment that they need that phone number. line, but there are still hundreds of thousands of people who do not Also, I have come across examples and instances where it is a have this basic access. matter of personal health and security. I was in the downtown east side in my riding on Friday and The DERA folks told me of one instance where one of its clients visited the DERA service. I met with the folks who run it and with was in hospital. The doctor phoned and said that he was ready to be people who use the service. It was really amazing to see how this released, but he would need to have a phone by the his bed so if he operates. They can walk into the office and for a minimum cost of got into trouble there was somebody he could call. This gentleman $3 a month, which is what it costs, with no questions asked, they did not have a phone so he faced the prospect of staying another six can sign up for their community mailbox. weeks in hospital until the doctor was assured that he was completely better before he went home. In fact, I met a young man who had walked into my into my constituency office on Main Street. He came from Saskatchewan As it happened, the DERA advocacy office spent countless hours and moved into east Vancouver. He was looking for work. I said he dealing with the local welfare office trying to get this man a was welcome to use my office if he wanted to send a fax or telephone. I believe it was eventually successful, but how much anything. He said he was really glad that at least he had a phone time and energy was spent to get one person a phone so he could go number. I said it was great that he had a phone in his place. He said home from the hospital which was costing thousands of dollars a ‘‘No, no, I have voice mail’’. Sure enough it was the DERA voice day. The contradictions and the ironies in these are just simply mail. He came to Vancouver looking for work and had somehow astounding. If it were not so serious it would be laughable. managed to find out about it. D (1120) The reality is that this service is only available in Vancouver. The Government of Manitoba has just announced a very good I want to encourage members to think about the motion and to initiative where, with the co-operation of the Royal Bank and other see the wisdom of supporting it as a way of doing something private partners, it is setting up a province-wide community voice straightforward and simple that will actually help people in a real mail service. Other than that there is really nothing that exists. It concrete way on a day to day basis. seemed to me in bringing forward this motion, and based on my travels and talking to homeless people or people who have totally In a few days time we will bear witness to the 10th anniversary insecure or inadequate shelter, that to have a program that is of the Liberal task force report on affordable housing that was mandated through licensing through the CRTC is something that chaired by the now finance minister and then an opposition Liberal could be easily done.