Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You have less than 45 seconds.

[John Duncan, Conservative, Vancouver Island North, BC]

I was going to split my time with Mr. Rickford.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

There's very little left. We'll come back to Mr. Rickford. Mr. Rickford is the next one up for your side.

We'll now go to the second round of questioning. We'll begin with Mr. Russell for five minutes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, can you give us just a brief definition of what we mean by “kids in care”? We hear this term all the time. What's the definition the department uses? What is the current figure for first nations children in care? How does this compare with non-aboriginal Canadians? Very quickly, can you just give us a frame?

[Mary Quinn]

For children in care, there are basically two aspects in child and family services. One is protection; the other is prevention, the model we're moving toward. On the protection side, when children are removed from the home, they are referred to as “children in care”. They're taken out of the home. They could be in a variety of settings. They could be in a foster home, a group home, or an institution. But they're removed from the home. The idea is to focus more on prevention models. This way, where it's appropriate, the child can stay in the home, and he or she and the parents have the proper supports.

[Odette Johnston]

In 2008-09, there were 8,788 children in care on reserve. This was 5.4% of the children. The off-reserve, or non-aboriginal, was 0.92%.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

There's an ongoing dispute about the comparability of services and money. The department has taken one view. First nations have taken another—that they offer services similar to those provided by a provincial child welfare agency but don't get the same amount of resources. The department has quarrelled with some of that, according to the reading I've done. But in every model you've put forward, you have continually increased the budget, noting that there is greater need. To me, that shows that there is greater need. So I think that your past arguments don't hold much water.

There's an ongoing case before the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal on this very issue. It's between the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada and the Department of Indian Affairs. As I understand it, It's about discrimination based on race. I'm not totally familiar with the case. Can you give us an update on where that case is in the process? Is your shop involved in it? I'm not asking you to comment on the particulars.

[Mary Quinn]

As to comparability, since 2007 the government has been regularly putting additional funds towards first nations child and family services. That incremental funding is going to the prevention model. We conduct these discussions with the provinces and the first nations organization in the province. There's an agreement. Our view is that the funding is comparable with regard to the cost of running an operation, the kinds of caseworkers that are needed, and the ratio of children to caseworker.

We provide funding for a resource person in the agencies. Where you'd see a difference is in the provinces. There may be ministries of child and family services or a ministry of social services where child and family services sit. So there is a breadth of activities in that regard. What we do is provide funding. There are other services to access in the federal government—Mr. Bagnell mentioned the aboriginal head start program—and people might need to know their way around pretty well to find them.

As for the complaint, there are two issues. First, the complaint has been referred to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. The tribunal had an initial hearing on September 14, and their hearings will resume on November 16. Second, the federal government has sought a judicial review of the jurisdiction of the Human Rights Commission in dealing with this complaint. Our responsibility is to fund the services, and we work with the province and the first nations agencies who run the agency. We're not a direct service provider. We fund, but we don't influence. We don't set the standards.

There was an initial hearing held in the beginning of September. I can't say when we're expecting a decision, but we think there'll be a development in the judicial review issue sometime in the next few weeks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Quinn and Mr. Russell.

You have five minutes, Mr. Rickford.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses today.

By way of background, I'm the son of a family of more than 250 children, actually, from my family's years of being involved with the Children's Aid Society and foster parents. Subsequent to that I was a nurse in isolated first nations communities across the country, primarily in the great Kenora riding, and have a lot of experience dealing with some of the great agencies that work under some difficult circumstances from time to time, so being involved in the coordinating of care for children under those circumstances is well known to me.

My background goes to Health Canada. In their new model that was implemented under Minister Clement, they developed clusters. The great thing about those clusters is that they allow programs within a certain cluster to give communities the chance to identify certain priorities and perhaps shift funding from one program to another because elements of a program could fit into something else. Aboriginal head start and various prenatal programs are good examples of that.

My understanding of some of the key features of the enhanced prevention-focused approach is that there are indeed streams of funding. As I understand it, they would be operations, prevention, and maintenance, and there appears to be that similar type of flexibility to shift funds from one stream to another.

For the benefit of this committee, could you take the rest of my time to make a brief statement about those three streams, and then describe or expound, if you will, on what it means to be able to shift funds from those and how that affects, I'm sure positively, the priorities of the stakeholders who are involved in the process?

Thank you.

[Odette Johnston]

Thank you for the question.

What we have are these three funding streams. One is for prevention activities, to try to keep families together and children in the home. Then we have operations funding, which is to support the operations of the agencies. That includes rent and other expenses such as directors' salaries. Then we have maintenance costs, which are specifically to pay for the costs of children in care.

When we developed this process, we had asked that they develop, first of all, a framework that would guide the overall objectives in moving forward on prevention in a particular province where this is happening. Those frameworks closely model what the province is doing, but they also take into account the aspect of cultural appropriateness and what is important to be done in the first nations communities.

When we get funding, they then take that and develop business plans. The business plans have to be appropriate for what is needed in the communities served by those agencies. We provide the funding to them and we look at the maintenance costs that they've funded. For example, in Quebec we will look at the maintenance costs that they incurred in the last fiscal year. That will go into the agreement, on top of the additional funding for operations and maintenance. Then, as they go through the year, they have the flexibility to move funds within those three streams, which is not something that has happened before.

If in fact they are doing much better on the prevention side, they will still have the maintenance dollars to assist them to do extra activities on prevention, if you will. If, however, they're seeing a little bit of an increase on the maintenance side, they have the flexibility to move. They have to adapt based on what's happening in each of the communities, and the expectation is that our regional people, in conjunction with the provinces, will meet with them on a regular basis--at least three times throughout the year--to review the progress against those business plans, and they can discuss any shifts that need to occur.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You have 30 seconds left.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

The statement could be made, then, that it's not just one of the key features, but that one of the great things about this is that it's very much community-driven. It allows them to identify their own priorities in this process, which is to a certain extent, just by virtue of the jurisdictions involved, still at a grassroots or community level, and driven by their priorities and not the priorities of other jurisdictions involved in this process. Is that a fair statement?

[Odette Johnston]

Oh, definitely; definitely.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Rickford.

I will now turn the floor over to Mr. Bouchard.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Like my colleague, I too am happy to meet you. This is the very first meeting of the committee that I have attended.

First of all, as I understand it, there is no standard agreement that you sign with the provinces, because the situation varies from one province to the next.

Is this also the case with the funding allocated to each province? What kind of funding criteria are in place? For example, how do you determine that Quebec will receive $60 million over five years? Are your calculations based on the number of children in each province? I'd like to hear more about how funding is allocated to the provinces.

[Mary Quinn]

Thank you for your questions, Mr. Bouchard.

The program is in transition, so to speak. We have talked a lot about the prevention focused approach and about the funding announced in the budgets. The formula used applies to five provinces. However, the old formula, if you will, is still in place and funding is provided for operations and for protection services. However, it does not leave much room for prevention services. Our objective, therefore, is to work with the provinces in which that formula is already in place, in the hopes that they will integrate the new system when funding becomes available.

The funding in question is referred to as Directive 20-1. When we use that formula, we calculate certain things, such as the cost of an agency's resources, that is to say the compensation paid to a director, to lawyers on occasion, to persons in charge of human resources and to individuals working with the children. We take into account the number of children under the age of 18 years. Our calculations are based on the number of First Nation members in a province. We also take location into account. In other words, we consider whether the agencies are located in a remote area. This is one aspect of the formula.

Another consideration is the cost of providing protection. This does not involve many calculations. We receive the bills and we pay them. It's really very simple.

[Robert Bouchard, Bloc, Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC]

Fine.

I will let my colleague use my remaining time.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

You mentioned earlier that the legislation in force for Quebec in fact comes under Quebec's jurisdiction. You are correct. However the federal government has an obligation to ensure that young people living on reserves have the same opportunities as those living off reserves. It has both a financial and a fiduciary responsibility. The urgent need to act is clear when we compare the number of children in care on reserves with the number in care off reserves.

I have two questions, and you can answer them later.

What are the main reasons for removing children from their homes? Violence, health concerns or promiscuity?

Should federal prevention services be combined with investments in other areas such as housing and education?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Todd Russell]

Please make it a very short response.

[Christine Cram]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

That question is similar to the one asked by Ms. Crowder. There are other reasons why children find themselves in care: poverty, the lack of housing, as you said, and so on. For that reason, the department cannot work solely with child and family services. It must also focus on areas such as housing and education. That is what the department is doing. It must adopt a comprehensive approach and work with departments such as Health Canada and with the Canada Public Health Agency.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Todd Russell]

Thank you for that.

We'll now turn the floor over to Mr. Clarke for five minutes.

[Rob Clarke, Conservative, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for coming here today and taking the time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.

On this issue with family services, I'm very interested in hearing some of your statements today. I started out in the RCMP in 1990, and I lived and worked on first nations reserves and also in the non-aboriginal communities. I had first-hand dealings with provincial family services and also with first nations family services.

Unfortunately, I had to do quite a few apprehensions. I got to see the worst of the worst. At times, I had to take it upon myself to make the call to do an apprehension. I saw the frustration, not only from the provincial system but also from the first nations family services, because I saw them first start out: the people working with first nations family services didn't have the resources, didn't have the manpower, and weren't readily available because of the funding.

My colleague mentioned the increase in funding. I'm looking over some of the numbers here. I'm just hoping you're going to be able to clarify this, because what I've seen is almost a catch-up. At times, just what can you do to catch up except fund the program?

So can you break down for us the funding formula for first nations family services? As well, can you explain what the funding allotment is right now?

[Christine Cram]

I think I did, in my speaking notes, talk about how much we expect to provide this year, and that's $500-and-some million.

I would say our problem is that we're funding the wrong things. Most of the 190% increase in funding is related to taking children into care for their protection. What we have to do is spend way less on protection and way more on prevention. In order to do that, you have to start putting incremental resources into prevention so that those prevention services can start being provided, and then less children are taken into care.

So our challenge, and what we're trying to do, is to change the incentives. Right now an agency can get any amount of money they need for protection because when they make a decision to take a child into care, we pay the bill. That's why the dollars have been going up and up.

In fairness to them, they haven't been able to start investing in prevention. They are making, as you know from your job, some of the most, if not the most, difficult decisions on a daily basis--namely, whether or not to take a child into care. They have to do that on the basis of the safety that child.

So I have the utmost admiration for what they do on a day-to-day basis. What we want to do is equip them with the tools to be able to provide those prevention services and work with the families so that the children can stay with their families. We want to see, over time, a real shift so that the investments that now are put into protection are put into prevention. Those business plans that are being negotiated under the enhanced prevention model permit that shifting. We would hope that when we go and look at those, say, five years from now, we'll have seen a real shift in those resources and how they're spent.