Status of Women Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2011

[Jacques Paquette]

There are probably a few things I could say about this. Core funding is a concept that we as a government tried to move away from, and in fact did move away from many years ago, because we noticed that core funding sometimes was bringing us away from results and some of the outcomes we were hoping to have.

In fact—I'm going back to the program—we have two types of projects. For the big ones, the pan-Canadian ones that will have a structural impact, I would say, if I can use those words, we're talking about $250,000 per year over three years, so multiply that by three. We're talking about potentially significant projects at the national level. When you do a three-year project, you have a lot of stability in terms of being able to develop something that is quite significant. That's the approach for the pan-Canadian projects that are purely on elder abuse.

At the local level, we are doing exactly the opposite. What we want is to have a small amount that can be used quickly on some of the interventions in the local community that they would find useful and which we can also multiply across the country. What you will see with NHSP is that in fact all small communities around the country are able to have a project because of the way the funding is provided. Very often, we have heard also that the NHSP grant that is given is used to test the solid projects and then allow them afterwards to get additional funding from other sources.

There are different advantages in the way we are approaching these issues through that funding mechanism.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

By other sources, do you mean private sources?

[Jacques Paquette]

One person, for example, was telling me that he was able to get money from foundations and from provincial authorities as well, because the grant allowed him to in fact demonstrate that the project could work in the longer term.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

But if they don't get that funding, are they then dead in the water and it doesn't go ahead...?

[Jacques Paquette]

In that case, he got it.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

But what happens when they don't?

[Jacques Paquette]

When they don't, it's because they didn't make the demonstration that it would work.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

One of the things that your report says is that projects “will support”—that suggests to me that it's sometime in the future—“prevention and intervention”. This project started in 2007; we're four years in. What kinds of concrete things have happened as a result in terms of prevention and intervention?

[Ellen Healey]

I think what we're seeing as a result of these projects, and I assume you're referring to the big, large-scale, pan-Canadian projects in which we're actually seeing.... Am I correct? Or are you talking about the local projects?

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'm just referring to the report that was presented. I'm looking at page 7, where it says “projects will support”. I suppose they could be pan-Canadian; I'm not sure.

I'm quoting from your remarks, Mr. Paquette.

[Ellen Healey]

We've had two call for proposals under this component. What we're now seeing is that the tools are arriving, the DVDs are arriving, and the workshops or dissemination sessions are happening within the communities to start spreading the word but also for educating, for training. We're training seniors to help seniors. We're training family members and those who work with seniors in a professional capacity to actually identify and then understand what they can do and where they can take it from there.

We're hoping the next step would be more multidisciplinary work that brings people together, having them moving out of the silos and working more collaboratively for community-based solutions. We have the information tools.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

But we still have a long way to go for something that we can say is actually preventing—

[The Chair, NDP, Niki Ashton]

Excuse me. I overran the clock because there was some lack of clarity on what we were talking about.

We'll now move on to Ms. Ambler.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for being here today and presenting to us.

My first question is about the second call for proposals under the new horizons program that is specifically reaching out to ethnocultural groups. Can you tell us a bit more about that call specifically and also about outcomes? Is it too early to see any outcomes or to have made any measurements? Or has that been done? You mention the example of the Spanish-speaking communities who took advantage of this call. Were there any other ethnocultural groups who applied for and received funding under this tranche?

[Ellen Healey]

Yes. I'm just looking at my project list here. I'll tell you who we have worked with.

The call for proposals did have a specific priority in the second call, which was in 2009. We worked with: the Chinese community in Calgary; the Philippine community in Manitoba; a number of South Asian and Middle Eastern communities in Guelph in southern Ontario; the Korean community in Toronto; and the Spanish-speaking community, through the Ontario Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse. They received an expression of interest from Mexico for their materials.

The materials have been produced in their languages of origin, but importantly, they're now using seniors in their language communities to help with the dissemination, the expression, and the explanation of what is in these tools and what they actually mean. Again, we've integrated senior elders in those ethnic communities to work with the tools and the resources. The projects are coming to fruition.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

That's great. And they're in their own language, obviously.

[Ellen Healey]

That's correct.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Great.

On the same theme of measuring outcomes, you mentioned, Mr. Paquette, that the need for baseline information and hard data is important. This government evidently agrees with you, because HRSDC is supporting the two-year research project of the national initiative for the care of the elderly that you also mentioned in your remarks, that particular study on defining and measuring elder abuse and neglect.

Can you please tell us what the funding amount from HRSDC for that study is, if you know what it is? Also, please explain to us the importance of measuring outcomes as it relates to elder abuse.

[Ellen Healey]

The study funding was $567,000. It began in January 2010.

In terms of measuring the outcomes, Dr. McDonald suggested to you—I read her transcript—that you need good definitions, because that's really how you're going to understand who is in need of assistance, what level of services is required, what the resources are that go with that level, and how best to deliver the services. But without those definitions around which to coalesce, it's very difficult to—

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

—measure the product—

[Ellen Healey]

—and measure the intervention and the outcome from the intervention.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

—without knowing where you're starting from.

[Ellen Healey]

Precisely.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Right. Thank you.

I have one more question about the advertising campaign. You mentioned that funding came from another source. Is that the Privy Council? How does that work? How old is this funding? Was it through legislation? I'm new here, so I don't know how Privy Council funding works. Maybe you could explain it to me.

[Jacques Paquette]

I'm not sure that I will be able to give you the history of the fund, but basically the idea is that for major advertising campaigns for the government, instead of having departments going in all directions, they have a central fund, and they then establish the priorities for the year to come to see what the main issues should be that we should address through it.

There is a setting of priorities. They do that basically every year or year and a half, because you have to buy space and so on. At that time—last year, basically—they said that next year one of the campaigns should be on elder abuse and financial abuse. That's how the funding is allocated.