Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Feb. 15th, 2011

[Arlene Johnson]

I'd like to say one thing. Where we would like our funding to go has been covered, but I would like to say that INAC must direct its legal counsel to allow the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to decide the case on first nations child and family services on the merits and not on legal loopholes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Mr. Lemay.

Now it's your turn, Ms. Crowder.

And I thank Madame Crowder for filling in for me briefly. I appreciate it.

Go ahead, Ms. Crowder.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I want to thank the witnesses.

I have a couple of very brief comments, before I turn it over to questions, on Jordan's Principle.

I was a mover in the House of Jordan's Principle in 2007. What we have continued to see is a virtual snow job about its implementation. Quite frankly, most of us are fed up with the snail's pace of implementation. Although provinces such as Manitoba have taken some small steps, what we heard clearly from the deputy minister in British Columbia last week was that the federal government's attempt to limit the scope of Jordan's Principle was not acceptable to the Province of British Columbia, and I'm sure it's not acceptable to others. We would hope, with your compelling testimony, that more attention will be paid to implementing the full scope of Jordan's Principle, not just the very limited scope that the federal government approach currently is undertaking.

Ms. Johnson, I have a very quick question. You referred to a May 2010 evaluation that was being conducted on the enhanced prevention model in Alberta. Do you happen to have a copy of it? I've just had my staff check INAC's website and the Treasury Board website, and we can't find a copy of it. Do you actually have a copy of that evaluation?

[Arlene Johnson]

I don't have it with me, but I can make it available.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

That would be lovely, if we could get it from you, since we can't seem to get it from the INAC or Treasury Board website. Or maybe the parliamentary secretary would be happy to share it with us.

On the whole issue around the enhanced prevention model, I agree with Ms. Flette's comments that if we just do away with Directive 20-1 and the government merely implements enhanced prevention—we're already hearing problems from it—there is a big concern around the fact that it appears first nations were not consulted in the development of the enhanced prevention model. Can you comment a little more on that?

I'll start with you, Ms. Johnson. To your knowledge, were your agencies or the Province of Nova Scotia consulted in the development of that model—not in its implementation, but its actual development?

[Arlene Johnson]

I'm going to refer that question to Brenda, because I'm not sure where it stands.

[Brenda Cope]

No. There were discussions around the funding we would get from the model, but they had already determined how much it was, and it wasn't based on any practical or real need, but just on how much they decided they would give us. It was a done deal before we even started theoretically negotiating.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Ms. Flette.

[Elsie Flette]

Yes, we were involved.

In Manitoba we had a slightly different process. We had a working group that involved the province, because we were at the same time working on a provincial funding model, because our agency is unique: we do on- and off-reserve service there.

We did have limitations from INAC. First of all, they told us we had a choice about going in there, but if we didn't go into this process and chose the standard Directive 20-1, there would be absolutely no further increases coming to any agency under Directive 20-1. It was a choice, but a gun-to-your-head kind of choice.

The working group sent up its recommendations; not all of them were accepted. We don't know who made the decision about what should go in and what shouldn't; it always comes back to us as “Treasury Board decided”. We don't have the privilege of seeing documents that go to Treasury Board, so we don't know what was cut where.

That wasn't unique to INAC. There were things in the model that the provincial treasury board also did not approve.

I think we can live with this, to some extent, if we have some comfort that there will be some close monitoring and some adjustments made to this model as we move forward.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Ms. Loeppky.

[Carolyn Loeppky]

We had, as Ms. Flette indicated, a working group and a consultative process that changed the type of approach we used. For us it's not, as you referred to it, the “Alberta model”; our model is quite different, because it involves an entire funding model looking at both protection and prevention, and it is something that we built together with the agencies and the authorities at the table, and also with INAC and the province at the table.

It's very new; it is something that has just been initiated. It's something we will want to look at carefully as it is implemented and as we find out what the results of it are going to be. The partnership we were able to form with INAC was something that led to a significant increase in resources, both from the province and from the federal government, but we recognize that we have more work left to do, because it's something about which we don't want to say that we're now done. There are other components that we've agreed to come back to the table to discuss further and develop further.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thanks, Ms. Loeppky.

Mr. Cameron.

[Dwayne Gaudry]

Thank you.

In Saskatchewan, we had at least three months' notice, so we have to more or less buy in to the program.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

But you weren't actually consulted in the development of the program.

[Dwayne Gaudry]

No. In Saskatchewan we have 18 agencies, and I think 17 agencies have bought into it. It's to enhance what we already have through the operations, but it more or less caps our maintenance. If we as an agency happen to apprehend more than 50 children, we don't have the maintenance to cover that. But we have a lot of prevention money.

So we have to balance all these things out, and it goes year by year. If we have an influx one year, we get less the following year. Again, it's capped; it's blocked.

As to enhanced prevention, the original letter I got from INAC stated that it was $250,000, and when I wrote the business plan and sent it in with all the information, we only got $148,000, because we had fewer than 1,000 children. Basically, INAC is putting a price tag in. If I had 999 children and if I had 1,000, there's an $80,000 difference. It's not needs-based; it's a formula. It's a hard decision to make.

I have to bring this forward. As the young lady earlier was saying, if we didn't enter into it, we wouldn't get anything extra. We would still have to fight from top to bottom with the province and INAC.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

It sounds like a “take it or leave it” proposition.

[Dwayne Gaudry]

We have to eat it, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Crowder.

We'll go to the parliamentary secretary, Mr. Rickford, for seven minutes.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the witnesses for coming today. I appreciate the presentations.

I want to give a special welcome to my neighbours in Mantario. I actually consider myself a Mantarian. We, coming from the great Kenora riding, recognize that in health and in some social services there are first nations communities that are well served by hospitals and family service agencies in Manitoba.

Carolyn, I want to start with you. I was struck by the differential response model. This province-wide application to fund all child welfare services speaks, in my view, to a certain consistency and comparability. I'm wondering just how broad it is, because of the model. For example, in your quantitative and qualitative analysis, does this benefit the authorities and the agency in its understanding of quality around salaries and caseloads and the like? Can you comment on that?

[Carolyn Loeppky]

In the model we worked on developing, there are the similar—or the exact same, you might say—components that are funded for every agency we have in Manitoba, whether they provide services on and off reserve or off reserve only. We've looked at quantifying the agencies; we have a small, medium, large categorization that we have used. And then we looked at all of the different components we would be able to fund over the start of the implementation of the new funding model. Our ratios and formulas are very similar in terms of how we get to the end result of the funding that is provided. At times we use different methods to get there. But when we've done the analysis, it's very similar in terms of how we get to the end result in terms of dollars.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I want to get to a few more questions. And I appreciate....

To get to where you're talking about, it strikes me that the authorities, themselves, with the province must have gone through a fairly rigorous consultative process—that is to say, despite some of the nuances and differences. I've worked extensively in northern Manitoba. I can appreciate especially Mrs. Flette's observations or comments earlier about the different kinds of communities. Small communities sometimes pose much greater challenges, certainly in costing models.

Could you briefly describe the consultative process there? It strikes me that given the disparity between some of the reports we've had from different provinces, such as here today, we may benefit from a consultation on a larger platform.

[Carolyn Loeppky]

One of the big differences you will see across the country is that Manitoba's model of governance is very different. With the aboriginal justice inquiry child welfare initiative, the province and the first nations entered into a different kind of agreement in terms of how we work together.

The consultative process started, first of all, with the province and the authorities representing the agencies when we had one of the components that was left to be done, which was the development of a new funding model, as a result of the aboriginal justice inquiry child welfare initiative. When we started to do that work, we realized very early on that we needed to have the federal government and its officials at the table in order to do justice to the job that needed to be done.

We did start some preliminary work without INAC at the table, but very early on we invited it to the table to help us with the work it needed to take the responsibility for in terms of its funding component. That is something we worked on for probably two to two and a half years—some of that period of time, as I said, was with the province and the authorities, and the rest of it was with the partnership we developed with INAC.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

In a broader sense, is there a benefit to a bigger consultation among provinces? Manitoba doesn't stand alone in some regards. We appreciate the great work it has done, but it seems to me there is a certain likeness across the provinces. Would that be beneficial? I realize there are different agreements operating here, but that notwithstanding.

[Carolyn Loeppky]

Any time you have shared jurisdiction, whether it's with respect to funding and/or for services and funding, the opportunities that present themselves if you can do collaborative work and reach some agreements that are going to have benefits for children and for families, whether they're living on or off reserve, are definitely a plus.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you for that.

My colleague Mr. Dreeshen is going to ask you some questions, Elsie, so I'll go to Arlene Johnson.

First of all, I appreciate the limitations of the 20-1 directive with respect to its limited prevention services. But I also appreciate, with the greatest of respect, that over the past ten years, which takes us out of political partisan lines here, the federal government has doubled its funding nationally to child and family services.

The concern, as I mentioned earlier, is that.... The only thing, specifically with on-reserve children in care, is that we've stabilized the rate at 5.3% nationally on reserve. I'm not completely persuaded that this is an increased funding mechanism. I think we're prepared intellectually to go to that next step, if we were to break down things just a little bit more.

What I want to ask you is your department did open a prevention services unit--is that true?