Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. On clean drinking water, I'd like to start by saying there have been additional investments, $165 million, into water and waste water facilities, but I think the really good news is that there's been a reduction in the high-risk water systems from approximately 196, I think, to 46.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Are you speaking of funding for child and family services?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Actually, the funding goes to the child and family service agencies. So in Alberta, with the introduction of the enhanced prevention model, what we did was work out the appropriate funding formula for Alberta. It's based on a number of components--the number of children, the number of communities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  We've now concluded with five provinces, and I would say the overall approach is very similar. What you have to do in each province is look at what the cost factors are. Social workers may be paid a different amount in a particular province, so you would line up with what the salaries are for those social workers.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  What we could do is see what we do have in the way of data that we could provide.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I was checking to see, from among those that we fund, if we could tell you the numbers in institutional care versus foster home versus kinship care. Unfortunately, we don't have those statistics.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  In the prevention model, you work with a family to address some of the concerns they have. They might have a substance problem, for example, that's resulting in a violent environment. I'm simply providing this as an example. It could perhaps result in a violent household. It could be a variety of things.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  That's what we're seeing now. We're already seeing in Alberta a reduction in the number of children in care, but also a shift in the type of care. They're going from higher-cost institutional care to more appropriate kinship care, which is good. It's also a challenge. In kinship care you need to get families that are able to take in other children and that are in the community, and part of that is to provide the support mechanisms they need to have additional children on a temporary basis in their families.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This is where we, with Ms. Crowder, had a discussion on that. What we try to do, and what the child and family services agency tries to do, is have that child in a safe situation. But they need to work with the communities to allocate the housing resources on those kinds of priorities.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a bit early in Saskatchewan, because they've just implemented it. We're working with Alberta to try to get some concrete numbers. We are hoping in the next number of months to have more concrete data. Unfortunately, we don't have it in our hands at this point in time.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This is why in our response to the public accounts committee we said we'd look at directive 20-1 to see what we should be doing on an interim basis. I would also mention on the 6%, the reason is that it was felt you wanted to have a base of stable funding for agencies so that an agency that had a very small percentage of children in care, like 1% or 2%, would not be penalized by having so few kids in care, and it's a good thing that they do.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thanks for the question. I think that British Columbia has done some research on that. We can certainly dig it up. I remember reading that research. I think that the child advocate for British Columbia put that in one of her reports. I'd be glad to find it for you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Lévesque. That question is similar to the one asked by Ms. Crowder. There are other reasons why children find themselves in care: poverty, the lack of housing, as you said, and so on. For that reason, the department cannot work solely with child and family services.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think I did, in my speaking notes, talk about how much we expect to provide this year, and that's $500-and-some million. I would say our problem is that we're funding the wrong things. Most of the 190% increase in funding is related to taking children into care for their protection.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I'm the ADM responsible, and I have different DGs who are responsible for different aspects.