Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Dec. 6th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Good afternoon committee members, witnesses and guests.

This is the 40th meeting of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

Today, we will be considering first nations child and family services.

This afternoon we are welcoming three important witnesses to our continuing study on child and family services. We will take them in the order that they appear on the agenda today. I'll introduce each one individually as we go.

I'm sure you have all done this before.

I think we have our connection with our witness on video conference.

Mr. Doyle, can you hear us there?

[John Doyle, Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia]

I can hear you clearly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Very well. I just wanted to check to make sure.

I would again like to welcome Betty Ann Lavallée from the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. As you are aware, we customarily have up to 10 minutes for a presentation from each of our presenters, after which we will go to questions from members.

Please go ahead, Ms. Lavallée, you have the floor.

[National Chief Betty Ann Lavallée, National Chief, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon to the members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

It is an honour to speak to this committee on the traditional ancestral homelands of the Algonquin people. I am a Mi'kmaq woman who has lived off reserve my whole life. I am from Geary, New Brunswick. I am the former president and chief of the New Brunswick Aboriginal Peoples Council and I am also the national chief of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples.

The Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, as a national aboriginal organization, represents the interest of off-reserve non-status and status Indians, and Métis aboriginal peoples living in urban, rural, remote, and isolated areas throughout Canada.

We are also the national voice for the constituency and their affiliate organizations making up the congress family of advocates for the off-reserve aboriginal peoples of Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Ms. Lavallée, one of the things we do is a simultaneous interpretation as we go. If you could speak at a nice slow pace, that would keep the translation in good shape and everyone could hear and understand what you're presenting to us this afternoon.

Please go ahead, and just take your time.

[National Chief Betty Ann Lavallée]

Through reviewing the chapter of the Auditor General's report focused on the first nation child and family services program offered through the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, which I will refer to as INAC for the remainder of this presentation, I have several concerns about the program and its overall effectiveness.

The Auditor General's report indicates that the number of children who live on reserve and who are ending up in care is continually increasing.

The report indicates that 51% of children in care in British Columbia are aboriginal. This is shocking, due to the fact that only 8% of British Columbia's total population is aboriginal.

The recommendation that INAC define the meaning of “culturally appropriate services” is one that the congress strongly stands behind. It's important to the aboriginal peoples of Canada to be connected with our cultures, traditions, histories, customs, and languages. The congress feels it's imperative that these culturally appropriate services be outlined.

Our children are being taken into care at alarming rates. The Auditor General mentions that the cultural services the aboriginal peoples need are required to be detailed so aboriginal peoples can know and see proof that our children are being kept close to their heritage as aboriginal peoples.

I would like the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs to explain what is meant by the term “comparable services” when referring to the comment that the first nation child and family services program be comparable to services offered off-reserve through provincial ministries. The fact that INAC has no agreement on child welfare services with B.C., Manitoba, and Quebec is shocking. INAC should have the same agreement nationwide with each province. There must be consistency among the provinces and the requirements set out by INAC to ensure that aboriginal children and youth are receiving the best care available to them in each province.

Once again, it appears the primary perspective on improving the first nation child and family services program is fiscal management and accountability rather than outcomes in relation to improvement of the health and safety of aboriginal children living on reserve.

There is poor coordination between federal programs related to first nation child and family services. Given that the primary basis of this poor coordination between departmental programs appears to have been based on concerns about financial commitments, federal departments have now adopted Jordan's Principle as the basis for decision-making regarding jurisdictional and departmental battles that involve the health and safety of aboriginal children living on reserve. Jordan's Principle should be used as the basis of all programs dealing with the health and safety of all the aboriginal children of Canada.

The Auditor General's report also notes that INAC's funding formula is outdated, and that INAC has known this for several years. This has resulted in cases of reserves receiving duplicate funding for children in care from both INAC and the federal government's Children's Special Allowance Act with no recovery of costs required by INAC.

As of 2008, the Treasury Board required INAC to deduct the Children's Special Allowance Act payments from funds they directed to aboriginal agencies and/or reserves. There is very little information related to actual services being funded, the volume of activities carried out by on-reserve aboriginal agencies, the number of assessments undertaken, or reasons why children were placed in care to begin with.

Each of these indicators previously mentioned measured the outcome and value of the program, not just the fiscal management of the program, and did not address the core issue of why children are being placed in care.

Have the performance information requirements been established by INAC in conjunction with on-reserve aboriginal agencies? If so, are these requirements available to the public?

As to the health and safety of aboriginal children in general, it appears from this report, what is included and what is omitted, that INAC in particular and the Government of Canada in general place a greater priority on demonstrating an extreme sensitivity to aboriginal culture and self-government issues than they do to ensuring the health and safety of aboriginal children, whether they be on or off reserve.

As you may have noted throughout my presentation, I've spoken very little of the plight of the off-reserve aboriginal children. There are little or no statistics on this forgotten group of aboriginal children who continue to fall through the cracks of society in Canada. This is due to the fact that this group of aboriginal children is administered to by provincial services, which have little or no contact with provincial and national aboriginal organizations such as CAP and its affiliates. Once more, the children and young aboriginal people living off reserve are Canada's forgotten aboriginal peoples.

If aboriginal children are left to live in unsafe housing, in unhealthy environments with insecure or abusive family conditions, whether on or off reserve, then the future of the aboriginal peoples, aboriginal communities, and aboriginal cultures in our country will be placed in jeopardy.

All children living in Canada must come first. This is Canada's most important and valuable resource, and it's being squandered away in the aboriginal communities. The children and youth of Canada are our future. They are going to lead us tomorrow.

Thank you. Merci.We lalioq.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Lavallée.

Now we'll go to Ms. Fraser.

Auditor General, we are glad to have you back. Perhaps you can take this opportunity to introduce the officials who are with you today. You have the floor to comment on the 2008 report. Much of this stems from that, but go ahead with your presentation.

[Sheila Fraser, Auditor General of Canada, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We thank you for this opportunity to discuss chapter 4 of our May 2008 report on the first nations child and family services program. I should note that the audit work for this chapter was substantially completed in November 2007.

Joining me at the table are assistant auditors general Ronnie Campbell and Jerome Berthelette, both of whom were responsible for our audit.

The audit examined how Indian and Northern Affairs Canada manages its first nations child and family services program. John Doyle, the Auditor General of British Columbia, conducted a concurrent audit covering child welfare services for aboriginal people in B.C., and we prepared a joint foreword to our reports.

Some of the most vulnerable children in Canada are first nations children. At the end of March 2007, there were about 8,300 on-reserve children in care. This represents more than 5% of all children living on reserves, and this percentage is almost eight times higher than the percentage of children living off reserves who are in care.

A 2003 study found that the higher incidence of child neglect occurring on reserves is largely attributable to poverty, inadequate housing, and substance misuse by caregivers. This indicates that the resulting problems experienced by children in care cannot be resolved solely by child welfare services.

In 2007, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada spent $450 million on this program, $270 million on direct support for first nations children in care, and another $180 million on the operations and administration of child welfare services provided to first nations.

In 1990, the federal government adopted a policy requiring that child welfare services provided to first nations children on reserves meet provincial standards, be reasonably comparable with services for children off reserves, and be culturally appropriate. Over the years, this policy has been confirmed through several government and Treasury Board decisions.

However, we found that the department had not defined the meaning of “reasonably comparable” and “culturally appropriate”. We also found that the department had not analyzed and compared the child welfare services available on reserves with those in neighbouring communities off reserve.

Department officials and staff from first nations agencies told us that the child welfare services in first nations communities are not comparable with off-reserve services. Furthermore, we found the department had not sufficiently taken into account provincial standards and other policy requirements when it established levels of funding for first nations agencies to operate child welfare services on reserve.

At the time of our audit, the funding formula dated from 1988 and had not been significantly changed since then to reflect variations in provincial legislations and the evolution of child welfare services. In addition, the funding formula assumed that all first nations agencies have the same percentage of children in care--that was 6%--and that the children all have similar needs. This assumption led to funding inequities, because the percentage of children in care, as well as their needs, vary widely among first nations.

Mr. Chair, in 2007, through the cooperation of federal, provincial, and first nations parties, the funding formula was revised in Alberta. This revision links the funding provided to first nation agencies in Alberta to provincial legislation. Although the new formula does not address the inequities of the existing formula, when fully implemented it will provide 74% more funds for the agencies' operations and prevention services. As you may be aware, the federal government has signed similar agreements with five other provinces since then.

Indian and Northern Affairs Canada agreed with the recommendations in our audit report and made several commitments in its response. It also prepared an action plan.

Following the tabling of our audit report, your committee, as well as the Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Issues and the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts all held hearings on this audit. The public accounts committee also issued its own report on this issue.

Your committee may wish to note that we are currently working on a follow-up audit of some of the key issues from seven previous chapters including this one on child and family services.

This audit report will be tabled next spring. We would welcome a request to appear before your committee in the spring to present our audit findings on this issue and other issues.

Mr. Chair, this concludes my opening remarks. We would be pleased to answer any questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Madam.

I will now call upon the Auditor General, John Doyle, from the Office of the Auditor General of British Columbia, to take the floor.

Monsieur Doyle, you can hear me and the interpretation is coming okay as well?

[John Doyle]

Yes, thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon, members.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present on our report entitled Management of Aboriginal Child Protection Services, which we published in May 2008. I have with me today Morris Sydor, Assistant Auditor General, who is responsible for the work in this report.

The report on managing aboriginal child protection services was published in May 2008. At the time we carried out our audit, aboriginal children accounted for only 8% of the one million children in B.C., but they made up 51% of the children in the province's care. This is considerably higher than the national average of 30% to 40%.

Protection is one part of the child welfare services managed by the Ministry of Children and Family Development, which I'll refer to as “the ministry” from now on.

We focused our audit on the high-risk, high-impact component of child welfare--that is, protection for children who may be at risk of harm. Like most jurisdictions, British Columbia is facing growing pressures to address inequities in the lives of aboriginal children. In 2007 the government stated a goal to ensure that “children and youth in B.C. have their developmental needs met and are supported by healthy families and inclusive communities”.

As part of accomplishing this, the government has turned its attention to the aboriginal children who make up more than half of those it serves. I expected to find aboriginal child protection services that were appropriately designed, resourced, managed, and reported on to meet the goals set for it. I found the ministry had attempted to work collaboratively with aboriginal organizations and the federal government to deliver effective, culturally appropriate, and equitably accessible child protection services, mainly through aboriginal agencies to aboriginal children and their families.

However, several challenges, some anticipated and some not, have slowed the transferring of service delivery responsibilities to aboriginal agencies. As a result, many of the child protection needs of aboriginal children and their families continue to remain unmet.

This audit was carried out at the same time as the Auditor General of Canada's similar audit of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada's management of its responsibilities for child protection in B.C. and several other provinces.

Specific to the issue of funding, the audit found that the ministry had not identified the needs and resources required for aboriginal child protection services. It lacked sufficient data on the level of child protection services needed by aboriginal children and their families. It had not been able to determine the staff resources required by aboriginal children and their families.

For these reasons, the ministry was unable to determine the cost of delivering culturally appropriate child welfare services. Nor was it able to develop a persuasive business case to negotiate for both provincial and federal funding. Thus, the ministry was facing funding gaps within these critical labour- and resource-intensive services.

We also identified a shortage of aboriginal social workers, aboriginal service providers, and supports for both the ministry and the delegated aboriginal agency programs.

For each of these findings, we issued a recommendation to the ministry. As part of our follow-up process, we have systematically asked for updates from the ministry on its progress in implementing the ten recommendations contained in our report. We have conducted three follow-ups to date.

As of their latest update, which we published last September, the ministry has addressed all these recommendations, including the four relating to identifying needs and resources for aboriginal child protection services. As a note of caution, I am repeating what the ministry has told us. We have not yet gone in and done detailed follow-up work, which is still an option. We may actually go and do that.

For recommendation six, which deals directly with creating a business case for funding, the ministry notes that they have submitted their framework to the federal government, and that this was done in September 2008. They have yet to receive a formal response.

May I thank you again for your invitation to appear. I will be happy to take your questions regarding this audit and our follow-up work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, gentlemen, for taking the time to connect with us here this afternoon.

Now we'll go to questions from members.

Witnesses, try to keep your responses as succinct as you can, so that we can get through as many questions as possible.

Let's go to Mr. Russell for the first seven minutes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to each of you, and thank you for being here.

This is no doubt a very important issue. I mean, it's hard to find the right words to express it, in the sense that it's 5%...a full eight times more than the general Canadian population, which is, I believe, under 8%; it's not even a per cent.

It seems that we're taking...and I don't know about “we”. Maybe it's the government or maybe successive governments. Who the hell knows? But it seems that we have a crisis situation that is not being addressed in a crisis management way or methodology.

I just want to ask a couple of questions, and I'll start with you, Ms. Fraser. In your remarks, on page three, you said, “Although the new formula does not address the inequities of the existing formula....” Could you expand on that particular statement?

We had the department in front of us a couple of weeks ago, and they have put a lot of emphasis on a new funding formula and a tripartite arrangement, almost using the Alberta model. They're taking this now across the country. If the Alberta model doesn't work, or if it has significant challenges, then we're only importing that problem across the country, without fully understanding what's happening in Alberta.

All the department has told us to date is that there are some preliminary results that point to some improvement. That's all they said. They never quantified it. There was no qualification of that particular statement. Maybe we didn't ask enough of the appropriate questions in order to get to the crux of it.

Can you explain that particular statement to me and expand on that somewhat? I think the new formula you're talking about is the one they're using in Alberta.

Then to the Auditor General in B.C., with your findings and this new approach by the federal government, what is the relationship between the federal government and the authorities in B.C. about moving to this new formula? What kind of approach are they taking? Did you find much collaboration amongst the different authorities, both federally and provincially and first nations-wise?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We'll go to Ms. Fraser first.

Go ahead.

[Sheila Fraser]

Thank you, Chair.

As I noted in my opening remarks, one of the issues we found with the old funding formula was that it assumed that a certain percentage of children would need care, and that was applied across all first nations. With the new funding formula, that is still the same. There's a fixed percentage, if you will, that is given.

So it's not based on the needs of particular communities. Some communities have many more children in need than the 6%, and some have fewer. We would have expected, I think, that a new funding formula would have taken into account the actual needs of the community, but it's still based on a fixed percentage across the board.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

So the additional funds are only on one part of the delivery model, you're saying. It's under “prevention services”.

[Sheila Fraser]

That's right.

I could perhaps ask Mr. Campbell to respond, Chair.

[Ronnie Campbell, Assistant Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, the funding focus is on two areas. One is the range of services that are made available to the people. The new formula is to enrich and expand that range of services. But the funding of the first nations agencies, that hasn't changed, that part of the formula—and that's the funds they need for salaries, benefits, operations, training, and development.

As we found in the audit, they find it very difficult to compete for salaries for social workers and the like, so they can't keep experienced people on, and those are the kind of people who they need to do these kinds of jobs.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

So if you don't have an equitable funding formula, if you have issues of capacity, of delivery, then how do you get to a better result, even on the prevention side? I mean, you can't separate them out, I wouldn't think. It's part of a package of services that get delivered.

[Sheila Fraser]

If I could give a partial response—and it may be something the committee would want to explore further—one of the things we noted in our audit was that under the old funding formula very few of the preventative services were being funded. So in fact in order to deal with the situation, the only way to really get funding was to take the child into care, whereas now there are preventative services that are being funded. One would hope that would reduce the number of children going into care and that there would be more intervention with the family while having the children remain in their communities.

Another issue I think we saw, as you will note in the report as well, is that children who needed very serious medical attention often could not get the services on reserve. But if they were taken into care, they could get the services off reserve. So the fact that children are being taken into care may not necessarily indicate that there is a serious problem in their family, or in their environment, but it's actually maybe a way to get them the services they need. That might be something the committee may wish to explore with the department officials.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Do we have a couple of minutes more?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Yes, you have a minute and a half or so.

Mr. Doyle has time to respond on that question.

[John Doyle]

Thank you, Chair.

The ministry in British Columbia did work collaboratively with both federal and first nations organizations and put forward a framework document that identified the need for a new funding model. The new funding model would provide a continuum of services and supports, including prevention and early intervention. That framework document was tabled with the federal government in September 2008, and whilst there has been some feedback provided by the federal government, no formal response has yet been provided.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

You have 30 seconds left.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

No, I'm okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Russell.

I will now give the floor to Mr. Lemay, who has seven minutes.