Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 24th, 2010

[Christine Cram]

I am going to take a crack at that. There is an evaluation under way. Odette mentioned that one of the things that has come to light in the evaluation is that it takes longer to implement than we had originally thought. That is very good information for us. As we're looking to move it to other provinces, we can look at what we need to do in order to better equip agencies to be able to provide the services.

In retrospect, we should have realized that you can't expect an agency to be able to line up, from one day to the next, all the services necessary to provide prevention immediately. There needs to be a fair bit of work.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

So that's been the only concern that has been expressed by first nation agencies to you guys?

[Christine Cram]

I think it's that. And they've developed business plans on what they hoped to achieve, and they're seeing that it's not easy to provide all those services. You're changing the way services are provided. It's also tough for agencies working with communities; it's hard to get people to understand where they go to get the services. So I think that is the biggest take-away we've had.

Alberta has done a review in the whole province. There are always improvements you can make in child welfare services in any province, and there are always challenges, but they've come up with a number of recommendations they want to implement. That's where the minister was talking about the next generation. We're working with Alberta on an MOU that I hope will address some of those capacity issues that have come up.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

I'll have to leave it there.

Thank you, Mr. Russell.

Mr. Clarke, you have five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for coming in today.

I'm sitting here listening to the testimony, and I'm thinking about how as a child I had first-hand knowledge of what family services does. As a young child, I had a foster brother. My parents were foster parents in British Columbia. Basically, I grew up watching children coming into the home. Many times the children would leave after six years, but to this day I call them family. They're my brothers and sisters.

Seeing the issue of family services coming forward further now, with Jordan's Principle and so on, leads me into my law enforcement background. I served most of my time in Saskatchewan on first nation reserves and had to deal with both the provincial system and the INAC system. I recall many instances where I had to do an apprehension by myself. Family services on first nation reserves weren't available. We couldn't get in touch with them. We had to contact, under our own accord, a provincial jurisdiction, because we were unable to contact family services for first nations children.

There seems to be somewhat of a disparity between the two. I mean, there's quite a difference between the provincial system and the federal system. Ms. Crowder mentioned the differences between the provincial system and the INAC system. I would like you to elaborate further on those differences.

That's one. Two, with Saskatchewan, I believe back in the early spring of 2008, I believe INAC made a commitment of more funding. Could you elaborate on how much the funding has been and what the status of that program is?

Third, I do understand that the provincial system in Saskatchewan has undergone a major study just recently. I'd like you to elaborate further on that.

[Christine Cram]

I'll start, and then I'll ask Odette to pick it up.

On July 22, 2008, there was an announcement implementing the enhanced prevention approach in Saskatchewan. It provided $104.8 million over five years.

So implementation is under way. I will say that we have some very preliminary results. It takes a few years till you see the improvements, but I just wanted to share a bit of the data we have on Saskatchewan. There has been an increase in kinship care, for example, from 407 to 492. So that's really a positive development there.

I'm going to ask Odette to take over and respond to your other questions, if that's okay.

[Odette Johnston]

I just want to say first of all that we're talking about.... Unfortunately, we do have the one system. We are working very much under provincial jurisdiction. But what the money is doing is that it is providing some resources, additional resources, to the communities to be able to focus more on prevention.

We have learned as we've gone along. There was a question earlier about what we are learning. Well, we are providing more resources for remoteness, which we may not have done as much initially. We are providing resources that can help the agencies work with others in the community, and work with programs and services.

One of the things we realized when we went into each of the jurisdictions was that there may be other types of programs and services that provinces may be funding under child welfare, such as child care or addictions programs. We have to look at what else is being provided under other federal departments, such as Health Canada, and assist the agencies in making sure that they're accessing those types of programs for the families and communities.

We are seeing some progress. We do have some agencies where.... For example, Lac La Ronge in Saskatchewan is seeing some positive results in their particular project.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Go ahead, Ms. Cram.

[Christine Cram]

You mentioned the review under way in Saskatchewan. We understand it's getting close to completion, but the report has not been made public yet, so we don't know what the recommendations are going to be. It's a report that was done by the Province of Saskatchewan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Mr. Clarke.

That will wrap it up, time-wise.

I just want to remind members that we are back on Monday afternoon, not in this room but in our regular room, I expect. We will be having the final meeting on our study of northern economic development. You have been circulated version four of that report. That is the version we will be using at that meeting, so you may want to bring an up-to-date copy with you for that meeting.

You'll recall as well that in our Wednesday meeting next week, we will have the minister back. We'll be reviewing supplementary estimates (B). That's our schedule for next week.

Good to see you all here again this afternoon despite our brief interruption to the House. Enjoy the rest of your afternoon.

Thank you very much, and thank you to our officials. All the best.

The meeting is adjourned.