Status of Women Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2011

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

We could maybe include it in minimal standards when we renegotiate the Canada Health Act.

[Jacques Paquette]

I'll leave that to Health Canada to answer.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

We would very much like to talk to Health Canada, of course. Thank you.

We have identified also that, again, seniors are getting very different access to medicare-covered health services, depending on where they live--in rural areas or cities--or if they're aboriginal, or depending on what province they are in. Are there any programs to address this inequality?

[Jacques Paquette]

Are you asking about how provincial health care is provided to the citizens depending on where they live? Is that your question?

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about.

[Jacques Paquette]

Okay. All I can say is that this department is not dealing with health, for sure--

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

On a point of order, Madam Chair--

[The Chair, NDP, Niki Ashton]

Ms. Young.

[Wai Young, Conservative, Vancouver South, BC]

--that's a health question, not a seniors abuse question.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

I'll move on.

We have identified also that, while programs sometimes exist to train police, lawyers, and judges about seniors abuse, in many cases these programs or tools are patchy. Could you tell us if there are any initiatives to fund training tools that could be used across the country?

[Ellen Healey]

Yes. In the federal elder abuse initiative, we actually had some funding set aside to start working with professional service-providing organizations where we're now seeing them taking a baseline curriculum and then developing and customizing it for their membership, so that when they are working with seniors or meeting or serving seniors, they are starting to understand the signs in order to be able to identify elder abuse and understand what their responsibilities are to report a professional service provider.

It's starting to put them more in touch with what their obligations are. But more importantly, in my view, it is helping them to ask the question, “I wonder...” or “what if...?” They're meeting a senior and they've been trained on what the indicators are, what some of the markers are, so they can then possibly go to the next step as is appropriate.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

This committee has also heard from Dr. Lynn McDonald, from the national initiative for the care of the elderly. She was given a half a million dollars from HRSDC, which is great, to create the tool for defining and measuring elder abuse.

She said, though, that without a study of prevalence, she has no idea how to best put this tool to practice. She says the last study of prevalence was done in 1999, and it wasn't very good from a research perspective. I noticed that you also stated in your presentation to the committee that there's a lack of research being done in terms of seniors' abuse. Dr. McDonald said, and I quote: “If we don't know the nature of the problem, we don't know what type of treatment to offer people. If we don't know the nature of the problem, we don't know who is eligible for services”.

Do you know when there will be a study of prevalence for elder abuse in Canada?

[Jacques Paquette]

At the moment, and because we need basic information, as well as to agree on a definition--I think that's the question being asked--we are funding Canada's national initiative for the care of the elderly. That's a two-year research project that is going to develop an operational definition, create measurement instruments that will be reliable, and also identify and address ethical considerations for the investigations.

We're supposed to get the results of this research in 2012--so next year--and based on that, we will be able to go one step further. As I said, there are some basic elements that we are missing. When I say “we”, I mean all of those people who are trying to address this issue. We really count on this to be able to have a solid base to go further.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you.

If there's any time left, I'll pass it to--

[The Chair, NDP, Niki Ashton]

You have 30 seconds.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, NDP, Niki Ashton]

Thank you very much.

We have seven minutes for the Conservatives.

Ms. James.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our two guests, Mr. Paquette and Ms. Healey. It's certainly good to hear from both of you today.

I think we can all agree that our government has recognized the seriousness of elder abuse, whether it be physical neglect or financial abuse.

Prior to my being elected to the House, I was a candidate and campaigned on a number of issues. I'm just wondering whether you have seen an increase in funding to seniors over the last number of years, compared to maybe 10 years ago. Have you seen more attention being given to this issue overall?

[Jacques Paquette]

First of all, as a result of the creation of the National Seniors Council and the recommendations of the first report, we've seen the establishment of the special initiative, the federal elder abuse initiative, which had funding of $3 million over three years.

Following this, almost at the same time, as I said, there was also additional money given to the national seniors program in 2007. There was $5 million given at that time. With the end of the federal elder abuse initiative, which was in fact a special push to increase the awareness, what we've seen in the last two budgets is an additional $10 million for the new horizons for seniors program. That's annual money that was added to the budget, bringing the budget to $45 million.

There are things that you don't necessarily see. I'm not talking about, for example, the old age security, if you're talking about seniors in general. There are other elements that were added to this. What I should note, for example, is that the new horizons for seniors program was increased by $10 million.

At the same time, when I was talking about the awareness advertisement that will go through in November and January, that's not coming from the money in the new horizons for seniors program. We managed to get this from another source of funds, which is the centralized advertising fund. In other words, that campaign would be funded through this source of funds, so it's not even showing in our numbers.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

Do you have an exact figure on how much has been invested in seniors through the different programs that you've just talked about? I was trying to add them up. You said $3 million and $5 million, and I heard $10 million more, for a total of $45 million for the new horizons program. Is that what I heard correctly?

[Jacques Paquette]

That's right. At the moment, the annual budget for the new horizons for seniors program is $45 million per year.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You mentioned the new ad campaign. I wanted to ask a question about that. You said that prior existing one was going to be re-released in late November and a new one was going to come out in early 2012.

[Jacques Paquette]

That's correct.

[Roxanne James, Conservative, Scarborough Centre, ON]

We actually had a previous witness here who stated that the problem with that ad campaign--unless I misunderstood--was that the police department received an abundance of calls that they were not able to actually handle.

I just want to clarify and understand fully. I recall seeing that ad, but maybe my memory is setting me adrift here. Could you explain to me whether those ads directed people to contact the local police directly? Or was there another contact number or agency they were supposed to reach?

[Jacques Paquette]

That's a very interesting question in a way, which will bring me to say something else as well.

But I'll start at the beginning. The ad had a 1-800-O-Canada number at the end of it. What the advertisement was saying, basically, was that if you want to know more, if you need some tools or whatever, to please contact the number. There was also information on the website. That was really the first element: we wanted to provide the tools to people to be able to address that.

That brings me to a second question. I said also that elder abuse is under-reported. We know that. So what will happen is that our numbers will go up because we are going to raise awareness, and we have to be conscious of that. We want people to report it. We want people to be aware of it. So in fact, we hope that in a way the numbers will be up because there will be more reporting.