Pursuant to S.O. 87, Mr. Larry Short, M.H.A., St. George's, substitutes for Mr. Art Reid, M.H.A., Carbonear.

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

We are dealing with the Estimates of the Department of Social Services and I welcome the Minister and his staff. I would also like to introduce for the sake of the media, and I welcome the media, the members of the Committee: to my immediate left the Member for Humber East, Ms. Lynn Verge; the Member for St. John's East, Mr. Jack Harris; the Member for Bonavista South, Mr. Aubrey Gover; the Member for Trinity North, Mr. Doug Oldford; and, we have with us also the Social Service critic, the Member for Port au Port, Mr. Jim Hodder. I would also like to introduce the secretary of our Committee who is the Deputy Clerk of the House of Assembly, Miss Elizabeth Murphy.

At this time I would ask the Deputy Clerk if she would be kind enough to take charge for a moment.

Miss Murphy (Deputy Clerk): Nomination for Chairperson.

On motion, Mr. T. Murphy, elected Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Murphy): I now call for nominations for the position of Vice-Chair.

On motion, Ms. L. Verge, elected Vice-Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Without any further ado I would ask the Minister to introduce his staff to the Members of the Committee and then give him the opportunity to have some opening remarks.

Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: On my left is Mr. Dave Roberts the Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for Regional Operations; on my right is Mr. Noel Brown, the newly appointed, I am very pleased to say, Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for the Social Assistance and MR Program; my new Deputy Minister, Mr. Bruce Peckford, I bring along his apologies as he is unable to be here tonight, he is out of the Province carrying on the business of the Department of Social Services; behind me is Mr. Jim Strong the Financial Administrator for the Department of Social Services.

Mr. Chairman, I will not take too long in my remarks this evening. I will start by saying to the Committee and Members opposite this year has been a very, very difficult year as everybody is aware and can well imagine for the officials and myself as Minister of the Department of Social Services. We know the demands out in the Province and the ever growing number of people who are dependent upon social assistance for many and varied reasons. Not always are the people who are looking for social assistance perceived as able bodied persons who receive monies they really do not need, that is the wrong perception but nevertheless it is a reality that people perceive out there. The number of people who depend upon the Department of Social Services well, we start out with the MR, Mental Retardation Division, the physically disabled, the socially disabled, the single parents which has been a topic which has been carried on in the House and my Department for the last several months, some 9900. But many, many other different types of people. We have many different programs within the Department of Social Services. I think there are eight major programs we are responsible for so I will highlight some of them. The Community Development Program is one that we are placing a lot of emphasis on within the Department. We spent approximately $25 million last year. We have been making some major changes within that program because the officials and myself believe that it is not just good enough to put people to work for ten weeks and then on UI benefits for the remainder of the year. We think it is important that we start with basic training. A lot of individuals within the Province are under-educated in basic life skills so we will take it on up from that into basic training of job search and self esteem so that they will be able to do different basic jobs within the Province. We are placing a lot more emphasis on training and trying to work with families to break the cycle and to get people away from the dependency of social programs, especially social assistance, and to instill some dignity and pride so that they will become more independent. We seem to have lost a lot over the last quarter of a century, and I do not think anybody is going to argue with that. Our goal is to have a new direction in the Community Development Program. We are not going to do away with the program, but to keep that program and focus on people so that they can get, not only financial benefits, but education, training, and self esteem into basic life skills and basic life management.

The other one that is very dear to me, as it was during my days in Opposition, and which Mr. Brown is responsible for, is youth corrections. Youth corrections have always been a major problem within the Province. As far as developing a rehabilitation program, when you take young people who find themselves in trouble with the law, for one reason or another, you do not just look down and take them, as the court says, and put them in secured custody for X number of days, or whatever the sentence may be, but you genuinely take interest in the young people, understand their needs, understand their problems, understand why they got themselves in trouble, the circumstances surrounding it, and again, the same as with people on social assistance, do not look down, but look at them as young men and young women with a future, and try, with properly trained staff, to work with these young people and give them a second chance at life, which we all need from time to time. None of us are (inaudible) from trouble and I certainly am a model of that, and still am. We treat young people with that sort of respect. The Youth Correction Division is undergoing some major changes with respect to management and training programs.

A new facility which was started by the former administration should be completed sometime this year, and we hope that the future of young offenders will really focus on our ability to keep young offenders who are in our secured custody system from entering the adult system. We hope that we can make some changes in their lives so that we can make some good men and women of them in the future.

There is another program within the Department that is really a concern of everybody, not only officials, but every individual, and that is the Child Welfare Department. There are many, many problems in there that are very, very difficult to deal with. The number of cases of child abuse that have been reported over the last several years have been ever increasing. I think when we all talked about it last year that it had reached a plateau where it might level off, because of the population size for one thing, but it has not. It is still on the increase. In fact it is on a daily increase and that really concerns us. We have initiated a number of programs this year, education programs, where child abuse can be identified at an early age. We have sponsored a program in joint co-operation with the St. John Ambulance to put the child first, where they are going around the Province and training people on how to identify child abuse. I suppose it is not a prevention method in which you are going to prevent it from happening altogether, but if you can identify it at a very early age you will prevent it from continuing on in the children's lives. We will give you an example; what happens I find is that it goes on for five to eight years before the child becomes old enough to tell somebody so that somebody else will understand it. So if we can identify it through the classrooms and through the professional people within the communities we could probably stop it at an early age. So that is one prevention method that it happening, and we are very thankful to the St. John Ambulance in working with the Department and the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary and the RCMP and many other organizations right around the Province. It is becoming very, very positive.

We have also taken steps within the Department to initiate a number of training programmes to train not only people in the community but special training for the staff, even the individuals who are coming out of Memorial University with degrees. Because even though they go through an academic process for four to six years, when they get out and get involved on the street with incidents of abuse, whether it be sexual, physical, mental or whatever, it is a different story. So we have initiated over the last couple of years some good training programmes. It is not something that starts and finishes at a certain time. It is going to be an ongoing thing Province wide. We are not bringing the people in, we are taking the training to the individuals within the Department of Social Services and all of the people who are connected in that area.

We are very proud to talk about the child protection unit that has been established here in St. John's because as you know we have our largest concentration of population here. We have moved into the Ashley Building on Pippy Place where the building is designed and laid out to deal with people coming into a confidential and secure place. The staff has gone through a number of training programmes, so there is a lot of good things happening in that area: the MR and the Rehabilitation Division. I have a lot of confidence in that division, in fact it is one of the divisions that I have had very little problems with. The staff within the MR Division is second to none; they are fantastic people. They are working closely with all of the people across the Province: the group homes and the disabled within the homes, the foster home care, and I can say beyond a doubt, and I have been out and I have been in British Columbia and I have been on two conferences since I became Minister, only two, and the two of them were to do with the Association of Community Living across Canada; one in P.E.I. the year before last and one in British Columbia, and Newfoundland was recognized as the leading Province in all of Canada in institutionalization and working with the mentally and physically disabled people in giving them the right to live within the community in their home environment. So although this has been a negative year for us making Budget decisions and there have been a lot of things we have not been able to do, we have been doing a lot of good things that we do not get credit for.

I do not think I will take up anymore time. I am sure there will be a lot of questions coming up because I could take an hour without even drawing a breath in telling you all the other positive things that are happening, but I will get an opportunity as time goes on tonight. So, Mr. Chairman, with those remarks I will rest.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. Just so we have everything in order I would again want to remind you that these hearings will be transcribed, so I would ask everybody to identify themselves as you put questions to the Minister. And I would want to ensure that all the Committee Members have a fair chance at asking the Minister and his officials questions, and I would want you to consider other Members of the Committee as you put questions forward. So without any further ado, I guess, always as a courtesy I would ask the Vice-Chair to lead off the questions.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Chairperson. By agreement within our caucus I would like instead to have our critic -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes?

MR. HODDER: It was my understanding from the committees that I had attended that the Minister would speak at first and then the critic respond. I mean, that has been the tradition - I am not meaning to take away any thunder or anything, but I was prepared to say a few words in response to the Minister.

MR. MURPHY: Well, if the Vice-Chair does not mind. Last year Mr. Hodder we took the other format, but if the Vice-Chair does not mind then that is certainly alright with the Chair.

MS. VERGE: Yes, that is just what I was saying. I would like Mr. Hodder to speak first.

MR. MURPHY: Well, the only thing I would say to that is if and when Mr. Hodder is finished then we would come back through the other Committee Members rather than swing right back to the Vice-Chair. So if that is okay with everybody, then fine. Go ahead, Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: Well, Mr. Chairman, first I would like to welcome the Minister and his officials. Just a few comments, I guess, I do not intend to be long. I should ask where his other ADM, Mr. Tulk, is. It so happens that Mr. Tulk and I attended the first committee meetings together and I had expected to see him here in another role tonight.

I should say first that the Minister has a very difficult Department. He has probably one of the hardest jobs in Government. He has to deal with people and these people are very often the less fortunate, the handicapped, the poor, to name some. And for that reason his Department is one that I think has to be properly funded, particularly in hard times. And certainly the recession and the problems that we are having in this Province at the present time require a great deal of sensitivity towards people who are on social assistance who are under the care of the Department of Social Services.

I want to say though that - and this is no criticism of the Minister, I think I mean it as a criticism of the Government - but there have been cutbacks in the Department of Social Services which I just do not agree with. Now, I did not speak when the Minister spoke, and we all know that things escalate each year, and we also know that the budget for last year was $142,272,000 and it was revised up to $148 million. And this year it is $144,114,000. Now I also know that we had a problem here last year with refugees, but that is a difference of $4 million less than was spent last year. Now I would say to the Minister, whether he agrees with me or not, and I think he should, that his Department should have been the one that had a massive increase this year rather than a decrease. Or a situation which is practically standstill.

Now, another point that I want to make is a general comment, and we will get to the specific ones afterwards, but that the Community Development Projects are down from last year by $5 million.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: Now, the Minister again - but anybody who looks at the budget, which I just did a second ago to -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: (Inaudible) the subhead number.

MR. HODDER: No, Mr. Chairman, I certainly will not. The Chairman should know that we will be taking the subheads and going down through them. I do not intend to change what I am saying. We will be doing the subheads, each single one, and the Chairman will be calling them.

Now, I will tell you something else about these Community Development Projects. I happen to represent a district which has some of the highest social assistance recipients in this Province. I doubt if there is anywhere in the Province with a higher unemployment rate than the district of Port au Port except for perhaps Bay d'Espoir, which is represented by the Minister of Works, Services and Transportation, and there are some other areas. But for unfortunate and historical reasons there is a high rate of unemployment in the district of Port au Port.

Since this Government has taken over the Community Development Projects have lessened as to the number, and the Minister knows what I say. And not only that but these projects, and a lot of projects that I consider to be good but which had to be taken one step farther, were cancelled. Now, we used to have - I will give one for example: We had a group of ladies who used to make very beautiful blankets. If you go into the Department of Social Services on the Port au Port peninsula there is one on the wall. It is a work of art. Now, one of the problems with those projects was - they were thought to be very good when they came in. But the problem with it was the fact that these people came there year after year and they learned the first skill but they did not learn the second skill. The other thing was that they had to be given away. So therefore people sat there and their fingers got tired and they did not see any purpose to what they were doing, even though they were creating beautiful work.

The problem with this is that - and I might sound like I am criticizing myself - but the problem with this was that people just did not see an end to what they were doing. They were coming on for ten weeks and it was basically a dependency and the same people were coming on. My feeling was that if the Department of Social Services had been innovative and had worked with the Department of Employment or - whatever we call it now, the Department of Labour, Employment and whatever they are called - if they had done that and taught these people marketing skills, had taught them to - and had helped them once they got off the case load, if there had been an agency to work in conjunction with Social Services. We had the people that could make the blankets. And we had the product being produced. Now the Minister has come in and he says: that is not training. So he has cancelled the whole thing.

But what I am saying is that this should never have been cancelled. It should have been taken one step farther and these people should have been taught to market them. Because right across the Gulf in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, and in Halifax, these blankets, which were made for practically $20 or $30 a piece, perhaps $40 or $50, are selling for $500, $600, and $700. So what I am saying is that the Minister came in, he took this idea which was starting to blossom, and killed it.

The other thing I wanted to talk about is single parents. Twice this year, and the issue came up in the House of Assembly again today, the Minister and his Government have put forth a policy which has hurt single parents. Now, there was no reason in this world why the Minister had to have a study to see about single parents at the University, or any sort of a study as far as single parents. The Minister knew -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: Pardon?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: There was absolutely no reason for a study. The Minister knew exactly what had to be done, and instead of doing it because it would cost some dollars, because it would cost his Department money, it is under study. And now we find that the Government - which has upped the social assistance help to single mothers with children, who upped it this year from, I understand $60 to $65 - now we find that with the minimum wage having been increased, or having been brought in for domestic workers or child care workers, which are basically I suppose baby-sitters who come in and work for a period of time, that since now - and if you look at this Province, you will see that the minimum wage is a pretty good wage on the Port au Port Peninsula. The minimum wage is what most people get in many areas of this Province. Now, for example very often you had somebody who wanted to get on a social service project, these projects which the Minister talks about, which are supposed to be training projects, the Minister by the way should revert back to what I was saying before, the projects we had before for instance I remember projects which took people into the Bay St. George Community College and into community colleges and trained them to do certain things and gave them life skills and job readiness training as the Minister was mentioning there, that was not a new idea by him, that was done for many years in my district before the Minister ever became Minister of Social Services.

Mr. Chairman, any woman on the Port au Port Peninsula now or down in Bay d'Espoir who wants to get on a community development project or wants to take part in as the Minister says, these new revamped types of projects which he is talking about, if the projects pay little more than the minimum wage how is that person going to get on the project and if that person can only reclaim from the Department of Social Services $65, is that not going to discriminate against single parents and women in particular.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: No, I think before the Government came in with the minimum wage in that particular circumstance and the Premier admitted today they fought over it long and hard but before they had done it they certainly should have put in place - they should not have brought it in so that it would have discriminated against some of the poorest people we know in our population, single mothers and single parents who want to work.

Let us take a single mother who wants to get on this fantastic project the Minister says he has brought in. Well, first of all she has to think in terms of, I think, paying out about $700 a month before she can go on the project. If the projects are thirty-seven hours to forty hours a week -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: That is for child care, yes. If the Minister thinks that is going to get women out of the home and into training or into the universities when they have to pay out somewhere around $700 a month, and I am not even sure they will not be required under law to pay out benefits as well. I do not know that so I will not say it. But certainly that is something that bothers me.

The Minister says that nothing has been cut back. A little while ago there were fifteen respite care workers across this Province - the Minister had admitted in this House at one point and I can get his words from Hansard that this was a budgetary measure. I know that some areas of the Province did not use respite care workers but certainly, I believe most people who availed of the care of respite care workers would certainly rather have a respite care worker who is on full time hired by the Department available for training programs rather than have respite care workers who are ad hoc. It is really a saving of money because these people had to be paid a proper wage. Now the respite care workers can come from anywhere and for any length of time.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: Lots wrong with it.

MS. VERGE: Nobody on the Committee interrupted the Minister when he made his opening presentation and I do not think we should tolerate interjections by the Minister when the Social Services Critic is trying to make his presentation.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is certainly a point to be considered. I sense from the Chair that Mr. Hodder was satisfied to respond to the Ministers interjections. If I sense that anybody asking a question is disturbed with an interruption then I would obviously have to make a ruling on that but I did not sense that Mr. Hodder was upset with the Minister so I will leave it to Mr. Hodder's discretion.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Chairman, I will just continue and finish quickly because we will be getting into all those topics in more detail and the Minister can have his back and forth all he wants.

Group homes are another topic I want to talk about.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)

MR. CHAIRMAN: The statement from the critic took the Minister right off his seat. If the Minister is okay I would ask Mr. Hodder to continue.

MR. HODDER: To quickly finish, group home closures: If the Minister would just let me speak. We on this side of the House support the Minister as far as the closure of any group homes, but the only thing I would say to him, and I have said this to him before, is that I think group homes should close when there is no longer a need for them. Why would any Government make an announcement that group homes are closing, which he did, he made an announcement that group homes were closing, when there were still people in those group homes? The Minister has taken backward steps from his first announcement to his present stand. At first he announced that certain group homes in the Province would close, and later he said they would not close until everybody was out, because there was an outcry. All I am saying, Mr. Chairman, is that there was no reason to say that group homes should close at all because all of those people that are in the group homes are looked after, nobody is going to kick up a fuss because a group home is closing. Those group homes only exist for the five, six, or seven people who are in them, and when a group home closes, and when these people are integrated back in the community you are never going to get the people of Gander, or the people of Goose Bay, kicking up a fuss about the closure of a group home, which they did each time, if there is no longer a need for the group home, if those people who are in the group home have been integrated back into the community. That is all I am saying to the Minister. He did it backwards.

Is the Minister dense? The Minister announced that group homes would close. He made that announcement, and he then back tracked -

MR. GOVER: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: MR. Gover on a point of order.

MR. GOVER: Mr. Chairman, the Standing Order indicates that the person speaking in reply to the Minister has fifteen minutes.

It has now gone to sixteen minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I am going to ask Mr. Hodder.

MR. GOVER: We are perfectly prepared to let Mr. Hodder have a few more minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair respects the point of order and I ask Mr. Hodder to conclude.

MR. HODDER: I did say that I would quickly finish. I mentioned group homes and I went to make a comment about group homes, and of course the Minister cannot sit still long enough to wait for his turn. I will be here ready for the onslaught as soon as I finish, but there are a few more things I had to say, but I abide by the Chair.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your comments, Mr. Hodder. I would now ask Mr. Oldford if he has any questions of the Minister and/or his staff.

MR. HODDER: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A point of order.

MR. HODDER: Is this the first meeting that we have had?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, it is a different format. I can be quite honest with you, the format over the last couple of years was we opened up with the Vice-Chair and questions and we moved it back and forth the Committee, and because the Vice-Chair relinquished to you, the critic in the House, then I have no problem with it. I think you have made your opening remarks as the critic, and the Minister has made his opening remarks, so I would think now we would move down into questions from the Committee to give the Committee some time. We have been here forty minutes now and we have not asked one question on the estimates yet.

MR. GOVER: To the point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: To the point of order, Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: My understanding from the way the Standing Orders work is that the Minister makes an opening statement of which there is no time allocation put on it. That has been done, and then the critic or a Member for the Opposition has fifteen minutes to reply which has also been done. Then the only other indication we have from Standing Orders is that no Member shall speak in debate for longer than ten minutes at a time. So I would assume now that the next procedure in keeping with the customs of the House in Committee is that we now go to a Member on the Government's side of the House for ten minutes and then alternate back to a Member of the Opposition for ten minutes and back and forth like that, but there is no - in deference to the hon. the Minister of Social Services - there is no place in the Standing Orders for ministerial responses after each speaker.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No.

MS. VERGE: Although that, if I might, Chairperson, the way this Committee -

MR. CHAIRMAN: You are speaking to the point of order.

MS. VERGE: To the point of order, yes. The way this Committee operated the last two years is that there were exchanges between Committee Members plus visiting Members and the Minister. So, for example, if we were to follow what we did last year and the year before then the Minister would now have ten minutes to comment on Mr. Hodder's presentation. We would then move, in turn, to other committee Members, for example, the Member for Trinity North, the Minister, the Member for Bonavista South, the Minister, the Member for St. John's East, the Minister, the Member for Humber East, the Minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. The Chair does not want to break away from format. The only thing the Chair wants to ensure is that everybody has an opportunity. I think that we all agree that we are here to do the Estimates with the Department of Social Services. But to that point of order, and I make a ruling that there is not necessarily a point of order as such -

MR. HARRIS: Can I speak to the point of order?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Certainly, Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: What we are really talking about is the procedure of the Committee.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. HODDER: If we could just discuss this because I expect we are going to be here for a fair amount of time and, you know, I am not talking about the Minister but we have a number, four or five I suppose, the Committee will have, so it is just as well to discuss it out now. But I agree. I expect the Minister to answer and I am looking forward to his answer, but at the same time what I am wondering now is once the Minister answers will we drop into short questions which was the normal thing, back and forth.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair wants to now hear from the Member for St. John's East on the point of order raised by the Member for Bonavista South.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Obviously looking at the rules it looks like it is a Committee of the Whole type of debate, ten minutes to a side and that sort of thing and I have not been involved in one of these procedures before, but if preference is anything to go by I think, you know, we have had opening comments. I do not particularly want to make an opening speech, but I was hoping that perhaps if you had a ten minute allocation to a certain person, if I wanted to ask the Minister during my ten minutes questions back and forth, use my ten minutes in asking questions and getting information then some other Member can have a turn and I will have a turn again and go that way. If I want to use ten minutes to make a speech and pillory the Minister, then I guess I can do that too, but I would prefer to ask him questions and find out information so that we can decide whether we are prepared to vote these things.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well I think the Chair has probably heard what needs to be heard. Now taking the advice from the Committee, which I appreciate, I would turn it back to the Minister to respond to the critic and then the format we will take would be to give a Government Member, after the Minister responds, the same period of time, and then I could move on to Mr. Harris and to Ms Verge and so forth and so on in a sense of fairness and balance.

MR. GOVER: Mr. Chairman, on a point of clarification. I have no problem with what Mr. Harris has suggested, but when it comes to a particular Member's turn and they want to ask the Minister a question and then the Minister responds, is the total allocation for that particular segment ten minutes?

MR. CHAIRMAN: That is my understanding, yes.

MR. GOVER: Okay. Normally it is not always taken, right.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, that is fine. And, you know, I think the objective here is not to strap everybody on a very strict time frame as such, but -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, it is to do the estimates in a fair sensible way, and I would ask the Committee's leave that the Chair not be constantly pushed with points of order dealing with minutes and/or seconds. So I would now give the Minister the time to respond to Mr. Hodder and then I would turn over to Mr. Gover, the senior Member of the Government's side of the House and so forth and so on.

MR. HODDER: I hate to do this because I have been on these committees before and have Chaired them as well, but isn't it so that we get recognized according to when we put up our hand? I mean does this go to the senior Government House Member and this and that? I mean we are all the same in this Committee, whether you are Vice-Chairman or not, you know, we are all Members of the House.

MR. CHAIRMAN: While you were talking, Mr. Hodder, Mr. Gover had both hands up on several occasions. Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Let me tell my hon. critic, there are Tories and there are Liberals, so do not classify us as all the same. I can assure you we are not.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Oh, I do not pay any attention to the NDP. I want to start down to the last part first and work my way up. I do not understand what point the hon. Member is trying to make about the closure of group homes. I am sure that he did not mean that we should leave residents in the homes and close them. The only way I knew about how to do it was to find alternative living arrangements within the community, and once those living arrangements were found satisfactory to the Department of Social Services and the people in the MR Division and the families and the residents themselves, the placements were made for them. Then if that meant that the group homes were being left vacant, there was no need for that number of group homes and they would close.

MR. HODDER: Well why did you announce it before you found alternative accommodations? That is all I asked.

MR. EFFORD: You just cannot take people without anybody knowing about it and move them into the community. You will announce the intended -

MR. HODDER: Sure you do. That is what you are supposed to be doing all the time: trying to take people and move them into a community. They should be moving out of the group homes all the time.

MR. EFFORD: The one thing I should remind the hon. Member of is he had seventeen years over here to try to do the right things. Now he is over on the Opposition and the expert on Government Administration. So the seventeen years that he was over here I do not see much improvements in things in which he did. So I am going to just listen to him as a critic over there and not pay any credence to what he is saying whatsoever.

MS. VERGE: But you said they were the best in Canada.

MR. EFFORD: We are very proud of the position that we are in with the group homes. The Department of Social Services now finds itself in a position where it is able to provide a service to the community living environment where every man, woman, and child in this Province will have the opportunity of living. The people who were born, through no fault of their own, with a physical or mental disability will now have the opportunity to live properly. And that is not because they have passed a certain test or a grade or reached a certain stage, that is clearly because the Department of Social Services in Newfoundland has now the expertise and are able to provide the services in the manner in which those people need to live in a community environment. The Department and the people in the MR Division can hold their heads proud, and the people across the province. As a result of moving people in the community we will leave a number of homes vacant - not all - within the Province and that will mean, very clearly, if the homes are left vacant they will no longer be used by the Department of Social Services. I am not saying they will not be used by some other format but not by the Department of Social Services. I suspect for some time to come there will be some group homes open in the Province. I would like to see the day when there would be no need for any group home in the Province, I would like to see the time when we would have no disabled people but that is not a reality we can expect.

Respite care: First of all we did not lay off fifteen people, we laid off twenty-seven, almost twice as many as the hon. Member said. I think it was a very positive move. Last year we spent approximately $750,000 in providing respite service to the Province through the twenty-seven people, I think twenty-four of them were filled positions and three of them were vacant positions, but approximately twenty-seven positions in total.

Now, the hon. Member does not understand the delivery of respite care. If you have one respite care worker, let us use the example of the Port au Port Peninsula, where he is employed by the Department of Social Services in that particular area. Let us use this example so the hon. Member will understand as it is close to his home territory. I know he does not understand what happened although he was over here and he is now the critic.

If we had four families and on a Saturday evening the man and his wife in each of these families wanted to go out and get a break after all week with a developmentally delayed child or physically disabled child or whatever, a person within their family, and there is only one respite care worker employed by the Department of Social Services, that individual cannot go and provide the services for four families. But if you go out and purchase respite care services on an hourly basis you could do four times or a number of times more than you could do with one person. So it makes more sense to purchase the respite services for (inaudible) people who are capable for providing that sitting service or whatever is needed in the community than to employ those individuals across the Province.

It is not very often I make a mistake but I made an error, I overestimated it was $540,000 last year my officials tell me instead of $740,000.

So the point of purchasing the respite services versus hiring on respite workers to work within the community is much more sensible and advantageous to the people who require the care because we can provide a lot more respite care for the same number of dollars than we did last year.

MR. HODDER: (Inaudible) sometimes they helped people who were not on social services but who were on the borderline who now have to look after their own services, is he aware of that? I just throw that in because it is a fact.

MR. EFFORD: That has nothing to do with the hiring of respite care workers compared to purchasing the service. I was clearly explaining the benefits of why we are purchasing the services versus hiring a number of workers around the Province.

MR. HODDER: But when you are purchasing service you are purchasing service for a short period of time or for as needed. You are not going to get the consistency of service, a consistency of training when you are picking up persons. The Minister knows that a lot of these persons come from the caseload who may go somewhere else and get a job or something like that so you do not have the consistency of service to these people. Some of these severely handicapped people are people who really need understanding and need someone who knows them and their situation.

MR. EFFORD: It goes to show that the hon. Member still does not understand what the respite service offers versus the one-on-one that a physically handicapped person would have to have to live on a twenty-four hour basis. But people who require twenty-four hour (inaudible).

MR. HODDER: No, I am not talking about one-on-one (inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MR. HODDER: No, no, Mr. Chairman, he cannot misrepresent what I say.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, but let the Minister respond you will have an opportunity to respond later.

MR. EFFORD: One of the other points he was making there was very clearly about the single parents and the study, and he said there is no need to have a study. Now, that again goes to show you how the former Administration really operated the Department and why this Province is $5.8 billion in debt. We have got a Canada Assistance Plan, $147 million I think this year we will spend, net?

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. EFFORD: Approximately $145 million. Now, let's take Memorial University here in St. John's. Approximately 15,000 students. Out of those 15,000 students attending Memorial University let's say - use the numbers and I cannot tell you off the top of my head - but let's say there are 200 single parents. And under the Canada Assistance Plan criteria, if we allow a special service to them under the Canada Assistance Plan, a social assistance programme, we could open up the doors where every single individual going to the Department of Social Services could make a special case and we would have to give them, possibly, social assistance. Because once they reach the age of nineteen they are solely dependent on themselves, they are no longer the responsibility of their mothers and fathers. And if they cannot find themselves in a financial position we could very well possibly have to do that.

So the purpose of the study is not to see if single parents need extra money. God darn it, we know that, you'd have to be a jackass if you didn't know that! But what impact will it have under the social assistance programme? It may skyrocket, we may have to give every individual going to vocational school or Memorial University, who are no longer dependent on their mothers and fathers, social assistance. So that is the purpose of the committee, to study the impact under the Canada Assistance Plan.

AN HON. MEMBER: Why should student aid be classed as income?

MR. EFFORD: Why should it be? You people did it! Damn it, we are looking at that! It was you people who did it. We now have a committee in place to look at it.

MR. HODDER: But I mean, you people have now been asked to fix it, and that is the main bone of contention. Is that a poor mother goes to University, she has a couple of small children, and she is getting social assistance. So she gets a student loan to pay for her books and her tuition and one thing and the other and it is classed as income by the Department.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Look, the hon. Member again really does not understand. First of all, we agree, single parents need assistance in order to further their education, whether it be in Memorial University or what. The former administration implemented the fact to treat the loan portion as income, and would be (Inaudible). We have put a committee in place to study the correcting of that unfortunate thing that the former administration did. We know that single parents have a difficult time. But we also have to take and realize that it may have a major impact on all of the other people going into vocational or educational programmes. And we have to be very careful that we do not interfere with the guidelines and the criteria set down by the Canada Assistance Plan. We may open it up, and they may cut it back on us. So we have to be very careful.

You honestly do not want us to be stupid and make an irrational decision that could cost the Province hundreds of millions of dollars? No, it is not the fact that single parents need it, it is the fact that we have to be very careful, and we are going to do a proper study. And when that study is done the Department of Social Services, under the leadership of the Minister of Social Services, will make the decision, will put it before Government, and we will make the recommendation. Government will make the decision with the best interest of the single parents taken in to consideration as long as it fits the guidelines -

MR. HODDER: How long is this study going to take?

MR. EFFORD: As long as is necessary.

MR. HODDER: Well, that could be two years. I mean, that is the whole point of it.

MR. EFFORD: It will not take seventeen, I can assure you of that.

MR. HODDER: As long as is necessary.

MR. EFFORD: Two years is not seventeen. The next thing we talked about were the Community Development programmes. Let me tell the hon. Member and the Vice-Chairman and the hon. Member for St. John's East and my hon. Members opposite: we spent $25 million last year in Community Development programmes.

MS. VERGE: Where is it in the Budget? It says $20 million here in the Budget.

MR. EFFORD: Will you please let me answer the question? I will tell you where it is. The biggest problem is that after seventeen years you still do not know how to read that book! It is the same book, the same process, the same printing as went on for seventeen years and now two years. It is there! Now I will -

MS. VERGE: Show us.

MR. EFFORD: Let me finish.

MS. VERGE: Show us the page.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

The question has been posed to the Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Let me finish! You want to let me finish, I will show you! We spent last year $28 million, we are spending this year $25 million. But $3.5 million is under a special project, the brush cutting, which I got accused of when I killed a moose with my car and implementing a new program, so fine, I do not mind taking credit for good things.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. EFFORD: You are about the only individual in the Province who did not agree with it then. Let me tell hon. Members again where it is. On Page 264, Item 2103, $6,199,200.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The third section down, Mr. Gover.

MS. VERGE: How are we suppose to know what special services are?

MR. EFFORD: You were the Government for seventeen years.

MS. VERGE: We did not have a social program called special services.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, you did. On Page 272, Item 5202, $9,077,000 under community development projects.

MS. VERGE: Where is that?

MR. EFFORD: Page 272.

MR. HODDER: I am not talking about the pages, I am asking, where are the projects?

MR. EFFORD: First of all, you told me earlier we were spending less money on community development this year than we did last year, you quoted the figures, and I am telling you, no, we spent the same money. Do you know where it is?

MR. HODDER: Yes, I see it.

MR. EFFORD: Well, tell me where the rest of it is?

MS. VERGE: Page 272.

MR. EFFORD: Tell me where the rest of it is?

MS. VERGE: I do not know.

MR. EFFORD: Do you want to know, or do you not?

AN HON. MEMBER: I would like to know.

MR. EFFORD: Okay, listen and I will tell you, because obviously you do not know.

AN HON. MEMBER: Could you go back?

MR. EFFORD: Page 264, special services, $6,199,000. Do you see that there?

MR. HODDER: Yes.

MR. EFFORD: That is under the Community Development Program. Now, go to Page 272.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, Mr. Minister.

The Chair is asking the courtesy of Committee Members. If we are going to bounce around and shoot in the dark from all directions, then the transcript of this Estimate Committee will never come out, so I am asking you to contain yourselves. The Chair does not want to bring total parliamentary procedure down on this meaningful Estimates Committee Meeting so I would ask you to let the Minister respond and then there is no problem with coming back with other questions. Let us not jump all over the place.

MR. HODDER: A point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: I sympathize with the Chair. It is too bad that this Minister had to be the first Minister to come before this Department. Had it been any other Minister it would have been just back and forth and no problem. But the Chairman being a new Chairman, I really sympathize with him. The Minister is such a provocative person he just gets those responses from people.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would suggest to you, Mr. Hodder, that politicians tend to make political statements, as the Vice-Chair just made a political statement of a slush fund, or what have you, so I would ask the respect of the Committee members, and the respect of everybody at this particular hearing, to be kind and considerate of one another.

Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I understand that after seventeen years the Member for Humber East is a bit embarrassed at not being able to read the budgetary book but I will show you, and I will talk slow, because I know you cannot understand my Port de Grave accent sometimes. Page 272, the top of the page.

MS. VERGE: Oh, excuse me, now. Before you leave page 264 would you acknowledge that the Provincial spending in this special category is actually going down from what was -

MR. EFFORD: Pardon?

MS. VERGE: Under Special Services, head 2.1.03. When you take out the Federal contribution and look at the Provincial spending on Special Services, last year it was $3.5 million, and you have budgeted $3.1 million for this year. So that is a $400,000 decrease. A $400,000 cut.

MR. EFFORD: No, no, no. If you look at the gross, the gross amount of money that we spent there last year is $6,199,200 - I am sorry, we will spend this year. Last year -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

AN HON. MEMBER: That was in the Budget.

MR. EFFORD: Yes but, - no, no. That is cost shared. That is a total.

MS. VERGE: Yes, but the Provincial -

MR. EFFORD: That is not Federal, that's Federal and Provincial.

MS. VERGE: But the Federal share is increasing and the Provincial share is decreasing. Provincially you spent $3.5 million last year and you are budgeting to spend Provincially only $3.1 million this year. So you have budgeted for a $400,000 cut.

MR. EFFORD: You can play with figures all you like. The fact is that the -

MS. VERGE: They are right here in black and white!

MR. EFFORD: Now just listen. Now the hon. -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Point of order, Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are getting nowhere like this in my humble opinion. Now, Mr. Hodder asked legitimate questions.

AN HON. MEMBER: Is this a point of order?

MR. GOVER: Yes, it is a point of order.

MR. HODDER: (Inaudible) we do not call each other by our names in the House of Assembly, do we?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I have already cleared that with the Chair. It is very normal to call one another by our names in estimates committees.

MR. HODDER: I thought that meant you had to get out of the House, you were kicked out.

MR. GOVER: The Member for Port au Port asked a legitimate question about the $25 million for Community Development funds. He said that it was less this year. Now the Minister is trying to explain why it is not less and I for one am very interested in his explanation. And unless we give him a chance to give the explanation we are not going to find out what the explanation is. Now, once he gives it, if Members on the Committee do not agree with the explanation or want to make points about the explanation, then they are certainly free to use their time to do that. But I for one would like to have the Minister explain why the $25 million has either increased, decreased or remained the same. And the only way I am going to find that out is to give him an opportunity to get through it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Gover. Your point is well taken. Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Do we want to go back and start again, or do...?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: You have the page, 264. I will explain the other one to the hon. Member for Humber East afterwards. Page 272, the top of the page, Community Development Projects, $9,077,000, under heading 5.2.02. You have that?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Yes.

MR. EFFORD: Okay. The next one, Employment Enhancement Initiatives, $4 million, 5.2.03. The next one down at the bottom, 5.2.04, Vocational Services, $3,473,000. And the last one is over under Social Assistance salaries, 5.3.02, on page 273, $2,554,000. Now, and a clear explanation why -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible)?

MR. EFFORD: Page 273.

MR. CHAIRMAN: John, page 273, Section 5.3.02, salaries, $2,554,000.

MR. EFFORD: Yes. Now you total that up, that should total pretty close to $25,519,700. Community Development. And you say you do not agree with it? Last year we spent $28,512,000(Inaudible), but $3.5 million was a special warrant brought in after I killed the moose, so we could clear the brush right across Newfoundland so I would not kill another moose. That is what I was accused of. So you understand. So we spent $25 million last year and we are spending $25 million this year. There has been no decrease in social assistance, in Community Development programmes.

Now why is there a little difference in the amount of money on page 264? Different amounts of money are cost shared under the Federal Government under Community Development. It is not 50-50 as in the social assistance programme that Mr. Browne is responsible for. Some projects could be 60-40, some could be 70-30. It depends on the type of project.

So, the overall top of the Budget you will see there for 1991-1992 is $5.9 million but last year we budgeted $4.6 million, we revised it at $5.8 million but we have an actual increase in the total Budget this year, so you base it on how you get your cost-shared dollars with the Federal Government and you take advantage. The more money we can get from our good Tory friends in Ottawa, then that is what we should do under the Canada Assistance Plan. So, simply now that you know how to read the budget the money is the same as last year and the community development programs are going to go full steam ahead.

Very quickly I will answer the other two or three other questions. No cutbacks in the Department of Social Services overall budget this year. In fact, last year we spent $248 million, this year we have budgeted approximately $259 million, so that is an increase of $11 million when every other department in Government got cut. Now, is that not a good Department of Social Services with $11 million increase.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: That is gross. Surely goodness I do not have to take the hon. Member and show him how to find that in the Budget. What were you doing for seventeen years?

MR. HODDER: I should say to the Minister that on page 274 bottom line, total department.

MR. EFFORD: That is net. You have to understand the cost-sharing program with the Federal Government.

MR. HODDER: It is one of the few departments that has been reduced whether you are talking about net or not.

MS. VERGE: The provincial spending is (inaudible).

MR. HODDER: Yes, and the provincial spending is less.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Committee Members may not like the answers.

MR. HODDER: The bottom line is that there is a reduction.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. And the Chair will give the hon. Member every consideration in the world to respond.

MR. EFFORD: May I make a recommendation, Mr. Chairman, to the hon. Member for Humber East, when you go back to your caucus tomorrow would you get someone in there to explain to him how to read the Budget. My goodness, you know different than that.

MS. VERGE: If I may reply. We are all quite capable of reading and quite clearly provincial spending on social services in the new budget year is forecast to go down by over $4 million from what was spent last year. It is right here in black and white, bottom line, double underline.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: -or the Member for Bonavista South depending upon what degree of formality we intend to use.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, it is my understanding from the Table that it is quite proper in Estimates to refer to Committee Members by their surnames. Now you may want to call them other names and then the Chair will have to chastise you.

Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

That was an interesting point that was raised there at the end and perhaps we will come back to that so that the Minister will get an opportunity to explain why the total expenditure has not gone down because it was certainly an interesting and informative explanation on the community development projects.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GOVER: Yes, because I myself could fall into that trap not being as experienced as the Member for Port au Port in looking at that in 5.2.02 to see a decrease. I could fall into that trap very easily, being inexperienced.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GOVER: It is only a fact, I have to concede, I have no where near the experience as the Member for Port au Port on either side of the House or in either party but putting that aside, it was a very interesting explanation so perhaps we will come back to -

MS. VERGE: Did you follow him?

MR. GOVER: Yes, I followed it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A point of order, Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Chairman, I think the hon. Member, when the entire thing is looked at and it is all over will find that the Member for Port au Port is not far off.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Yes, and I will certainly look forward to the Member for Port au Port shredding that analysis that the Minister of Social Services put forward, if he can. But I will certainly be interested in that when his opportunity comes around again to do that. But I would just like to ask the Minister some questions.

I was rather surprised about the layoff that the Member for Port au Port raised about respite care workers. Because I went through the Departmental salary details today and when one looks at the bottom line in that, Total Approved Positions - I take it that this is permanent positions for the Department - is 801 positions this year, and I believe, if I am not incorrect, the total approved salary positions last year in the Departmental salary details was 801. So, notwithstanding that we are in these severe times of restraint, it seems like the Department of Social Services - and I am sure due to the diligent efforts of the Minister around the Cabinet table - retained his permanent staff complement to the man or woman, as the case may be. And I wish to commend him on that particular performance. In fact, it seems that -

MR. HODDER: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Point of order, Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: I am not going to be misinterpreted here. I had never said that there were not the same number of respite care workers. I said the Minister laid off the respite care workers, and he contracted out the services. I mean, that has been known from the first day that he ever did it. So we were always aware that there would be just as many people - perhaps more. That was not the point that the Opposition was making about the respite care workers. We were making points about continuity of service, about training, about that sort of thing. But certainly we have never said that there would not be just as many people, because the Minister had satisfied us on that some time ago. It was the type of care that we were talking about, not the number or the amount of money. Although the Minister did say in the House of Assembly that it was a budgetary thing that he did. And I would suggest that it will give him more options as to be able to play around with the numbers.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that -

MR. GOVER: Mr. Chairman, to that point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Obviously it is not a point of order, it is a disagreement between two hon. Members as to facts.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Exactly, yes. And speaking to that - and I do not want to cut you off - but we are running on time here and we can be here a lot of time really solving nothing. If we are going to get on with constant points of order of, again, what we sense that the other person said or did not say. And by example the Member for Port au Port used the fifteen respite care workers, and then the Minister said twenty-nine, I think. And it is very difficult for the Chair to constantly remember what was said in the House with the Department on one thing or another. So I would ask the courtesy of hon. Members to let the other Committee Member finish, and if there is rebuttal then we will give that Committee Member a chance to rebut. But if we are going to constantly interrupt then we are only going to make our time longer.

MR. HODDER: No, Mr. Chairman, no sir. I am not going to sit in this House and listen to somebody say something that I did not say. And that is all I pointed out.

MR. GOVER: Mr. Chairman, (Inaudible) -

MR. CHAIRMAN: There is no point of order.

MR. GOVER: Yes, there is no point of order, but I would just like to clear the matter up to the satisfaction of the Member for Port au Port. He said that there were fifteen respite care workers laid off. The Minister of Social Services has confirmed that in fact there are twenty-seven laid off. So there is no disagreement!

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would ask Mr. Gover to continue.

MR. GOVER: All I am trying to do is to say that I was surprised at that. Because when I went through here I see that the permanent staff complement has remained stable. Now as to the fact of the matter, the Minister has freely admitted that they are all gone! They are all laid off! So there is no dispute on it, there is no hiding it. Right?

Now I would just like to turn to a fact which there is also no hiding. And perhaps the Minister could confirm it. I see that

in client services the number of social workers - permanent positions - this year is 265. I believe, perhaps the Minister could confirm this, that this number has increased thirty-six over the number of permanent social workers in that particular designation last year.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Efford.

MR. EFFORD: Last year (inaudible).

MR. GOVER: Okay, so obviously then thirty-six of those social workers must have went to this particular division, client services. So again in times of restraint I must say where everybody else seems to be taking cuts, the Minister has obviously increased the number of social workers available to deliver services to the people who require those services in the field. I must say that in my dealings with the Minister with community development projects in my District I have found no shortage of funds. I do not know what the problem is in other districts, if there is one, but I certainly have found no shortage of funds for community development projects in my District. But that is a sad thing because -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. GOVER: No. That is a sad thing. I would love to see the day when I had not a single project in my District, when there was not a single person on social assistance in my district. And I believe the changes the Minister has instituted will break the cycle of dependency eventually and lead to that particular scenario.

Publicly I wish to acknowledge that when I started to represent the District of Bonavista South and before that when I was a lawyer practising out of Clarenville, the Department of Social Services in Bonavista operated out of the basement and the first floor of the old court house in Bonavista in woefully inadequate offices that would depress moral, and impede the delivery of services to recipients and clients in that particular catchment area. And thanks to the Minister, I am pleased to say, we now have a brand new structure, well lit, state of the art with all sorts of modern equipment which has enhanced moral. The people in that particular office have written the Minister and congratulated him on the enhanced delivery of services to the particular people in that particular catchment area.

So while other people might want to paint this as a picture of doom and gloom, I cannot say in my district that it is a picture of doom and gloom. The Minister has made significant improvements to the services in my particular region and the people at the offices and the people in general congratulate him for it. Also the Minister says that he hired fifty additional social workers. The Minister also approved a child management specialist in the District of Bonavista South which was never there before in the seventeen years the Conservatives were in power. So I wish to thank him and commend him on his major initiative in that regard. I must say, not to cast aspersions on the former Member or on the former administration, but since I have been elected I have really seen significant improvements in the delivery of social services in my particular district.

Having said that, that there have been significant improvements: a new child management specialist, new facilities, which were desperately needed and brought to bear by the Minister. Having seen him maintain his staff complement, increase the number of social workers by fifty, that is not in my district but across the Province, in my opinion the Minister is doing an excellent job. I have some more questions for him, but I see that my ten minutes have elapsed and I will now turn it over to somebody else.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Gover.

The hon. the Minister of Social Services.

MR. EFFORD: I appreciate the kind words that the hon. Member from Bonavista South has passed along. I cannot take all the credit, as much as I would like to, but I have to pass along that Mr. Roberts, who is the Assistant Deputy Minister responsible for regional operations, was very instrumental in getting the new building down there, the new facility, into Bonavista which was, quite correctly, very badly needed. It is too bad the former administration had not seen the need for that building and placed it down there, nevertheless there have been some good things happening within the Department of Social Services but unfortunately, as the hon. Member for Port au Port spoke about earlier, it is a very difficult Department. You are dealing with human problems on a day to day basis and you very seldom get a positive note on the good things that are happening in the Department. One of the difficulties we have had within the Department is trying to get good public relations and create a good positive perception within the community. We did get fifty new workers. There are thirty-six, as you see, in delivering client services but you have to remember that in hiring on a number of those individuals most of them went into the Child Welfare Division and because you are hiring that many you need some supervisory positions, so the thirty-six were actually out into the client services and the remainder would be the supervisory staff to improve the Child Welfare Department, which is the part of the Department of Social Services which need the additional workers. I am very pleased that we did maintain the number of people we did over the last couple of years and again this year. You have to work very, very hard within the Department of Social Services, and while the needs of individuals within the community go up the dependency on the Department of Social Services increases. I want to point out, and this is not something to be taken very lightly, but the community development projects that the Department get, and everybody together understand the need for improvements, but occasionally, and I keep a scrap book of just about everything I receive, not all the good things but some of the negative things, too, this is a letter that we received from a person who went through a training program. I do not want to read all the letter but it says, 'Just a little note to thank you for your hard work and perseverance in achieving a placement for me,' now she got trained, 'but most of all it has given back my dignity and my self esteem. The training program cannot say enough about the staff of St. Lawrence College.' That is all I can read as it is very difficult to read, but the point this person is making is that she had the opportunity to go back to school to be retrained and to be on a worthwhile program and get their self esteem and their dignity restored so they can become independent and not now, or in the future, be dependent on social assistance handouts. That is what we are trying to do in the Community Development Program. We are spending a lot of money. I notice the expression on the face of the Member for St. John' s East and I have to say that $25 million is a lot of money and if we are going to spend that kind of money it has to be put to some good use and restore some educational programs and put self esteem and dignity back into individuals. That is the new direction. I know the hon. Member for Port au Port is sincere when he talks about making blankets but believe me there have been an awful lot of blankets made in the last twenty-five years in this Province and I know that people are genuine when they sit down to do it but there are a lot more greater needs out there and this letter, and I do not know if it is my eyesight or the writing, but this letter very clearly states how important it is to an individual. If you could only take one individual and restore that kind of self esteem and dignity back in their life then the money you spend, in my estimation, is well worth it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. HARRIS: I noted at the outset that the exchange, the comments of the Member and the Minister together, were about fifteen minutes and since I am going to be asking questions of the Minister I would hope that similar leeway can be given to me for this portion of the meeting. I have a number of questions because I am kind of interested in using this as an opportunity to get information about the Department's projects and spending. I am looking at Subhead 5202 which is in a category called, Employment Opportunities, and I would heve expected that any of these programs that were related to employment opportunities would be in that total head, but obviously the Minister is using a different term for community development projects than the Budget Estimates documents do themselves, so I am going to confine myself to the ones that are here. I see under Subhead 5202 a decrease from what was spent in 1991 of $5.7 million. I want to ask the Minister what the explanation is for the - under salaries there is a decrease of $5.7 million. Everything else seems to be relatively the same except a small decrease in professional services, and a small increase in purchase services. Everything else seems to be more or less the same except salaries which are down by $5.7 million, and I wonder if you can explain that.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, the hon. Member is quite right. There is less money in 5.2.02 than there is in this year from last year, and the purpose of that -

MR. HARRIS: What is the difference?

MR. EFFORD: The reason is the money is taken and put into another area of community development, the training programmes. So the overall total budget is the same, but the re-allocation in different areas is we are placing more emphasis on training and vocational services than we are on actual community development projects, and that is the point that I was trying to make earlier. Also the special warrant of $3.5 million, as we joked about earlier about the brush cutting, that was a special warrant that was implemented sometime late in the fall if I am correct, in October month, and that is there in that amount also.

MR. HARRIS: I see that $2.4 million is added to vocational services. This would be salaries paid to people undertaking vocational training I take it?

MR. EFFORD: Well the cost of the training programme would be paid to people.

MR. HARRIS: I am looking at salaries here. 5.2.04, the vote for salaries 01, is that salaries paid to recipients of social services, or undertaking training programmes as opposed to paying them to work in projects?

MR. EFFORD: That is right.

MR. HARRIS: And the professional services down there, is that people who are hired to give the vocational training, or is that something else?

MR. EFFORD: Are you talking -

MR. HARRIS: And in 5.2.04 there is a $690,000 -

MR. EFFORD: Yes, now what we do under that area is we purchase equipment and we purchase service from the community colleges. So if there is a new programme designed we would have to purchase equipment or the programmes from the community colleges, which is very expensive. That would be the cost there. And the purpose for that, as I have explained before, is that we want to place more emphasis on training and give people the opportunities to become educated or trained for different professions. So that is where that money goes.

MR. HARRIS: I would like a better explanation than that because I do see property, furnishings and equipment, purchased services, and allowances and assistance there separately, but professional services strikes me as you are paying somebody to provide a professional service. Would that be -

MR. EFFORD: No, -

MR. HARRIS: Who is that? Is that payment to individuals to teach programmes or is that payments to vocational schools?

MR. EFFORD: That would be (inaudible) to the community colleges and it is there as professional services, not purchase services.

MR. HARRIS: So we have an explanation here for a decrease in $5.7 million. You say some of that, $2.4 million we see going to vocational services. Where do we find the rest of that, the other $3.5 million. Is that the brush cutting you are talking about?

MR. EFFORD: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: So you did not consider that community development last year.

MR. EFFORD: Well that was not under the community development project. That is what Government brought in late in the year for a special work initiative. It was just Social Services, the Department of Forestry and Agriculture and Employment and Labour.

MR. HARRIS: I am trying to get it straight now because we have two sets of language here. We have the Minister's version of community development which is different than the version in the Budget and it seems to be different from year to year because, like last year, for example, this money was spent and was called community development projects in the Budget Estimates. The Minister is now saying it is not community development so that you can then -

MR. EFFORD: Do you want me to explain it to you?

MR. HARRIS: No I do not want you to explain it because you are saying that last year it was not community development because if it was community development you cannot explain the decrease. So where is the other $3.5 million? We have found $2.4 million here.

MR. EFFORD: If you would slow down I would tell you.

MR. HARRIS: Alright, I am waiting.

MR. EFFORD: Now very slowly, because again my Port de Grave accent may be getting in the way, last year in the original estimates done we had $25 million in community development projects.

MR. HARRIS: So, you are talking about the Estimates not the actual -

MR. EFFORD: In the Budget last year.

MR. HARRIS: I understand now. Am I right in saying that when the Minister says there is no decrease, what you are saying is that there is no decrease from last year's Budget to this year's Estimates regardless of what was spent last year?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I see. Okay, as long as we understand the language. I do not want to get caught up in lingo here. We have to translate the language because I think if last year you spent $14 million and this year you are suggesting you will spend $9 million that to me is a decrease. If we want to go by the Minister's lingo I am happy to do that at least for the purpose of getting information because that is the purpose of the Committee in my understanding.

Can the Minister tell us in the subhead 1.2.03, Systems Support, page 262 of the Estimates, Executive Support Services, why there is an increase of $400,000 in professional services?

MR. EFFORD: That is the new computer systems that we are putting into the Department, that is pretty well totally paid for by the Federal Government, 50/50 cost-shared by the Federal Government, because an agreement was signed a few years ago that we would put in a complete new systems support in the Department of Social Services, so that is the amount of money the Federal Government allowed this year to be cost-shared by the Federal and Provincial Government to finalize the continued implementation of those computers.

MR. HARRIS: This programme has been going on for the last, it looks like - 1990-91, for example, it was the same for the estimates and the revised, and the year before.

MR. EFFORD: So it is just an increase this year, and I think that is great. Is the hon. Member suggesting that it should not be increased?

MR. HARRIS: I am just wondering why we need to spend $400,000. This is paid to people who are implementing computer programmes is it?

MR. EFFORD: Yes, that is the development cost and the actual cost of the computers.

MR. HARRIS: I am just trying to find out what these expenditures are and whether they are necessary, that is all.

MR. EFFORD: Is it necessary to put computers in or should we leave files and information stored in the system we have now to probably not keep a good trace on things? One of the biggest problems that we have in the department right now is the post adoption, and the adoption services and the way their records have been kept for the last fifty years. God, the hon. Member is not saying that we should go back to that route should we, especially when the Federal Government is paying an equal portion of it? Let's suppose that the Federal Government decides next year to cancel and we only have half of the computers in, then the total cost is on the Province, so it very wise to take advantage of the Federal cost-sharing.

MR. HARRIS: Well I am not aware of any study that the Minister is referencing in terms of computer services so I do not know whether it is wise or not. I am just asking the questions as to what this is for. Obviously you could computerize everything in the world if you wanted to. Whether it was necessary or not would be a management decision that presumably somebody is able to advise you on. In any event, I will leave that.

Perhaps the Minister or maybe Mr. Roberts could give an explanation on this if it is more technical. In 1.2.02, Administrative Support, I see a big decrease in the federal revenue allocated to that particular sub-head, like cut in half, although the expenses up above are all exactly the same. Is there a technical explanation for that, why that is gone back to a quarter of a million dollars from $600,000 that was received last year under that sub-head, or allocated to that sub-head?

MR. EFFORD: Without giving you the accurate dollar figure, but in previous years there was some overpayments made and they had to adjust to the overpayments in previous years, and that is the reason why. So it is Federal adjustments of money given to -

MR. HARRIS: So it is allocated to the Minister's support for whatever reason.

MR. EFFORD: For claims and stuff.

MR. HARRIS: Moving to the Services to Families, page 271. There appears to be a slight decrease overall in day care expenditures, and I see the salaries under Administration down by $100,000. What is the reason for that? There appears to have been a Budget figure similar from this year and last year, but we spent last year an extra $100,000. Can you explain why there was an additional $100,000 spent last year for salaries, administration and day care?

MR. EFFORD: Well, what we have done this year due to the layoffs, we have cut back in the number of staff within the day care division so there will be less money spent this year than last year in salaries.

MR. HARRIS: So these were people who you budgeted. You had a budgeted amount last year of $244,000. You spent $349,000. Did you hire any people -

MR. EFFORD: Why we spent more money last year? I am sorry, I thought you said -

MR. HARRIS: Well you laid people off, so you must of hired them last year for a one year period and then laid them off. Is that it?

MR. EFFORD: We are bringing in new legislation, a complete new day care and homemakers act. I think the last time it was brought in was 1972, again another fault of the former administration. So in order to do that we had to bring someone in from the region, and because we have done that, that salary then was charged to the Day Care Division. So we had an extra person in there trying to bring in and draft new legislation, and for that reason you will find more monies spent in the day care salary budget last year.

MR. HARRIS: Is that all for one person?

MR. EFFORD: No. I wish it were. That would be a good salary for an individual, but we cannot afford to pay those salaries with the debt we are carrying in this Province of $5.7 billion.

MR. HARRIS: Certain people get paid those salaries though? Let us not be coy about this. There are certain people who do get paid considerable salaries.

MR. EFFORD: Lawyers, especially.

Anyway we are now in the position of letting some people go in the division. The Assistant Director is there. Mr. Cook who was brought from the regional has gone back to the regional, so therefore we spent less on salaries in the day care division this year. It is a very efficiently run Department and that is another small area where we used individuals and they can now go back to their different jobs within the region.

MR. HARRIS: The allowance and assistance for day care service, is this money given to people to subsidize their day care?

MR. EFFORD: No, that is for grants that we give to day care centres across the Province.

MR. HARRIS: The allowance and assistance that is given to the centres?

MR. EFFORD: Yes. Grants and subsidies, yes.

MR. HARRIS: Have you made any allowances for increases in salaries in these centres?

MR. EFFORD: Pardon?

MR. HARRIS: Have you made any allowances for potential increases in salaries?

MR. EFFORD: Which one are you talking about now?

MR. HARRIS: Number 5.1.02.

MR. EFFORD: Number 10?

MR. HARRIS: Number 9.

MR. EFFORD: Number 9, allowances and assistance. Those are the ones we pay to the single parents and families requiring day care services who qualify under the regulations of the financial assessment carried out by the Department of Social Services.

MR. HARRIS: Can I ask about that? Have you made any allowances for the increased costs as a result of the minimum wage changing?

MR. EFFORD: We cannot, until we find out right across the Province what it is going to do. The people within the Department, the Director of Social Assistance is doing that now and hopefully within the next week I will be able to make a recommendation on what we can adjust, but it is going to have an impact on some of those individuals. You have to remember that only the people who bring people into their home have to pay the minimum wage. If you bring your child out it does not cost you that amount of money.

MR. HARRIS: The allowance that is here under 09, is that paid directly to the individual and then they pay for the day care service, or is that paid to the child care centre?

MR. EFFORD: It could be both.

MR. HARRIS: On the page before that, Page 270, there is certainly a decrease over last year's Budget overall for development rehabilitative services, although not much of a decrease from the revisions of last year, but I do see a substantial reduction in vote 4303, support to organizations. It is down by $400,000. Could the Minister tell us which organizations have lost their grant?

MR. EFFORD: Last year we were funding the Orange Home which used to be the old cancer hostel on Forest Road and that is no longer operated or funded by the Department of Social Services. Those individuals who were residing in the Orange Home are now out in their own apartment units, therefore that was approximately $350,000, that is one area there, $355,000 to be exact.

MR. HARRIS: There must have been another organization.

MR. EFFORD: There were a couple of small organizations that we will not be funding this year. For argument sake one was $5,200 to the Royal Canadian Legion that we will not be funding and there were a couple of other small ones, integrated housing $46,000 -

MR. HARRIS: To which organization?

MR. EFFORD: The integrated housing. The other one was under the Association for Community Living, a provincial organization, we were also funding for Labrador, so what we did was combine the two grants and gave it to the provincial organization and with approximately $20,000 left we gave them approximately $100,000 a year and they will distribute the money provincially instead of giving it to two organizations.

MR. HARRIS: Can you explain why the level of support to the integrated housing group was removed?

MR. EFFORD: What we have done is the money coming out of the social assistance program because it can be cost-shared under the Canada Assistance Plan if we pay for that there, so we shifted it from that there and over to the social assistance program so it comes out of the total social assistance funding. That integrated housing is supported totally in co-operation - I do not say supported totally in funding - but we do support the integrated housing program here in St. John's.

MR. HARRIS: I will defer now, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Just a quick comment, seventeen minutes and seventeen seconds have elapsed since Mr. Harris began. It was appreciated by the Chair that the questions were obviously very direct and the Minister and his staff responded. That is my interpretation of what an estimate committee is all about. I want to thank Mr. Harris and that is why I did not cut him off.

And I thank the Minister.

MR. HODDER: A point of order.

Mr. Chairman, my understanding was it was going to be ten minutes/ten minutes. The Chairman just said seventeen minutes. I enjoyed the exchange myself but -

MR. CHAIRMAN: The reason I let it go beyond fifteen minutes and the Member for St. John's East requested the fifteen minutes because I gave other people fifteen minutes namely the critic.

MR. HODDER: The reason I asked the question is so that we will know what we are doing. But I understood it was fifteen minutes/fifteen minutes, and each Member would have ten minutes to ask a short question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just wanted to let the Minister, Mr. Hodder, clean up the answer to the last question from the Member for St. John's East and now I would give the same courtesy to the Vice-Chair. After the Vice-Chair has finished her time allotment we should probably recess for a coffee and when we come back we will go to Mr. Oldford.

MR. HODDER: Do we have the names down in order because I have been trying to get the Chairman's attention for some time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, you are after Mr. Oldford.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, I am proposing to use my time the same as the Member for St. John's East. I will ask bite size questions to the Minister and then wait for his response.

I will begin with the topic of single mothers and their dependent children who live in poverty. Last October 1 the Department of Social Services started treating maintenance and child support as non-allowable income. The Government did not get around to adjusting the law to sanction this until I pointed out they were doing it illegally five or six weeks later. Nevertheless, I would like the Minister to tell the Committee how much money the Government saved at the expense of those single parents, mostly single mothers and children.

Before October 1, when maintenance was treated as allowable income the beneficiaries were allowed to keep up to $115 a month without any deduction from their regular social assistance. On October 1 without any warning to these people they were cut, up to $115 a month, which for each of the families affected amounted to as much as 15 per cent or 20 per cent of their total income. A terrible blow to the families affected.

How much money has this saved the Provincial Government from October 1 until March 31 1991, the end of the last fiscal year?

MR. EFFORD: Out of the mouths of babes. I do not mind a person -

MS. VERGE: John Crosbie got in some trouble for using that term in responding to Sheila Copps, I say to the Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, well I am not going to get into any trouble with (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please! Order, please!

AN HON. MEMBER: Here we go again.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The problem is that if a question is asked, and it is directed by the Member for St. John's East, then the Minister should respond. So I would ask that the questions be as direct as the Member for St. John's East makes his. Then I think it does not force the Minister into verbiage other than the direct answer to the question.

Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: I do not care where members sit in the House or what Party they represent - if you can really have confidence in when they are being sincere and being really honest about the statement they are making. But when I find an hon. Member sitting in this House of Assembly and asking questions and making statements which she or he knows very well the former administration that they represented for seventeen years did nothing only to add turmoil and despair and poverty to the individuals in this Province. Now I have to sit down and listen to the sanctimonious words coming out of her mouth, that we are not doing anything for single parents in this Province, and that we initiated and implemented a programme last year with no warning to the single parents whatsoever? That is totally and absolutely false. And I am sick and tired of sitting down in the House of Assembly and in public and listening to the hon. Member trying to make political points when she knows she is absolutely wrong.

Now, secondly, we did not take away that programme and take away the maintenance income without looking at the implications it was going to have on those individuals. Did we save any money? No. The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the taxpayers of Newfoundland and Labrador, did not implement this new programme to save money. There was no money saved in the Department of Social Services last year. In fact, if I remember correctly, we had to go for a special warrant at the end of the year of $10 million. Now we saved a lot of money in the Department of Social Services last year.

Since doing that programme we have brought in two new projects, two new programmes for the single parents. Number one, we have treated the first child in the family as an adult. Nobody did that in the past. I did not see the hon. Member, who was Minister of Justice and Minister of Education and a Minister of Government, her government never brought that in. Fifty-five dollars a month, the first child in the single parent family. Secondly, all of the single parents who are occupying their own apartments and their homes who have a heating cost in their house will be given $50 a month for six months of the year for the heating subsidy. That is $105 a month right there. Thirdly we are bringing in this new programme now under the education programme to assist individuals in obtaining a better education and not treating the loan portion of their income as an income. And that will not only be for people going to Memorial University, that will be for single parents no matter what education programme they go with in the Province.

So what we would like to do is restore some dignity, self-esteem and independence to those individuals, and not hand them out a few measly dollars every month. Because no matter how much money the Province can afford to put into social assistance programmes, it will only be demeaning, and it will never be enough to provide the essential needs and services that these people need. So work with the people, do not throw goody bags out to them. But let's be honest and let's be sincere about it.

Now yes, the maintenance income was taken away from those people last year, the $115. We did the same thing as every other province in Canada with the exception of British Columbia. And British Columbia, only because they were going through an election last year, would have done the same thing. And I spoke to the Deputy Minister myself and now they are looking at putting the same programme in place out there. So all of the people in Canada are being treated the same under the Canada Assistance Plan.

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I asked a very pointed question and I am going to ask it again. How much money did the Provincial Government of Newfoundland and Labrador save from October 1, 1990 to March 31, 1991 as a result of changing the treatment of maintenance and child support from allowable income to non-allowable income? The Minister has admitted to the change and acknowledged that this resulted in a decrease in social assistance paid out to some of his caseload. But he has not told us how much. That is my question. How much?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: The Department of Social Services did not save any money last year at all.

MS. VERGE: I will ask the question another way. What is the difference between what the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Department of Social Services, paid in social assistance under the old regulations which treated maintenance as allowable income, and what was actually paid with the treatment of maintenance as a non-allowable income?

MR. EFFORD: I cannot give the hon. Member those figures off the top of my head because it was late in the year when it was brought in, it was about the last four or five months of the budgetary year. Because from month to month you have people coming off maintenance income. So I will get the officials to check that tomorrow and provide the figures if we return here another day, or I can provide the hon. Member with those figures in the House of Assembly. But we did not save any money because when you do not spend money in one area in the Department of Social Services certainly you need to spend it in another area.

MS. VERGE: The change took place on October 1 and it operated for six of the twelve months of the last fiscal year, that was one half of the year. I have asked this question many times before and the Minister has consistently avoided giving me an answer. I would suggest that the Minister and his staff know the answer but they are embarrassed to disclose it to the public of the Province.

MR. EFFORD: Don't let your pride run away with you. I can assure you one thing. There is no question the hon. Member for Humber East could ask the Minister of Social Services or his staff that they would find embarrassing. Absolutely not. When I am ready to give the answer to the hon. Member for Humber East I will give that answer, but I have stated very clearly that we did not save any money in that programme. We do not save money in the Department of Social Services. It is not our intent. Our intent is to treat people equally and fair and provide service where it is necessary, and also to give people the opportunity to get away from social assistance. That is the intent wherever possible. Single parents are characterized in that particular part of the program, and we are going to spend a lot of money this year on training and education programs so that we can get single parents into the education field. While she tries to make a major point of us taking away the $115 a month we also put in there a special allowance of $175 a month for single parents who are going into certain training programs. We are not just doing it to hurt people, the decisions we make are for the best interests of the individuals within the Department of Social Services.

MS. VERGE: Well, Chairperson, many of the single mothers who are among the Minister's caseload certainly do not understand what the Minister is trying to do, because they have been hurt. They felt the hurt and their children have felt the hurt because from October 1, 1990 they were dealt a bad blow. They instantly lost up to 20 per cent of their income when the Minister started treating maintenance as non-allowable income, and in that move the benefit of the new support enforcement program of the Department of Justice for the people who needed it most was taken away, was negated, and the incentive for people getting court orders for maintenance, or for judgement debtors paying, has been taken away, because the dependent family members who are suppose to benefit from maintenance do not benefit. The Government takes the money, the Government subtracts it dollar for dollar.

I would like to ask the Minister about his advisory committee. My colleague for Port au Port asked him earlier. Several single mothers, and now the Advisory Council on the Status of Women, the Government's own Advisory Council, has expressed disappointment with the way the Committee is functioning. The Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women issued a news release on April 29, two days ago, expressing disappointment that the Committee has no deadline for their report and no commitment to release their recommendations to people whom they had invited to submit briefs. Now, perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to tell us that he has reconsidered and set a deadline and will announce that he promises to share with the public and the presenters all the briefs and the final report?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When the hon. Member for Humber East was Minister of Justice - I will not tell you how good or how bad a Minister she was recognized as being - but when she was Minister of Justice for a short term, that is when the maintenance income factor was brought in and that system set up. The then hon. Minister of Justice stated clearly and publicly, as quoted in Hansard, that the purpose for bringing in the maintenance support program was to relieve the burden of the taxpayers in the Province. The spouse of that single family should be responsible for providing the income for their children or their family members, and there is no reason why the taxpayers of this Province should be burdened with that program. Now, that was out of the mouth of the hon. Minister of Justice at that time, but now she is condemning the very thing that we have put in place that she did not have the courage to do. Are we saying that parents, a man who leaves his wife, should not support his children? That is absolute nonsense. They should have to support their children.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)

MR. EFFORD: Ah, come on, that is very clearly what she said.

MS. VERGE: I certainly did not Chairperson.

MR. EFFORD: You cannot receive two incomes from the Department of Social Services. So, the responsibility lies with the parents to support them. Now there are other ways in which we are helping out the single parents so it is very clear that the hon. Member is confused and frustrated and she is trying to make political points. I can honestly say this very clearly: the single parents she was associated with last fall when she was trying to get them to sign petitions would not even talk to her, they kicked her out of the office in there. In fact, this morning I had a single moms association in my office at 8:30 from St. John's who were opening up another office in Corner Brook and one in Port aux Basques, I have a great relationship with the Single Parents Association and the Single Moms Against Poverty right across the Province. We are going to work very closely with the single parents.

One of the ways we are going to work jointly with those individuals is we are going to bring in a new program so that these people can get into the schools and talk to the teenagers now and the young people to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, my time is being frittered away. I asked two specific questions: Will the Minister set a deadline for the Committee? Will he promise to release to the public the Committee's report and the submissions that are being made to the Committee?

MR. EFFORD: Let me tell the hon. Member one thing, when any hon. Member in this House of Assembly asks me a question I will take the opportunity to answer the question. If the hon. Member does not like the way I answer questions then do not ask me any. But do not interrupt me when I am giving an answer to a question and expect it to be answered only the way you want to hear it.

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I will call on you to have the Minister stick to the question. I am trying to ask precise questions and the Minister is wasting my time rambling discussing things that are irrelevant.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The first question the hon. Member asked, the Minister's answer was that he would respond under advisement and bring you that information. The second question, the Chair would feel was deserving of a long answer. I do not know how it could be answered without an explanation.

MR. HODDER: I have been on many committees Mr. Chairman and I have never seen the likes of this before. Run the thing fairly, run it fairly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If the hon. Member is going to constantly continue to question the Chair -

MR. HODDER: Perhaps why I am so upset tonight is that since the Estimates Committees came in I was a Chairman or a Vice-Chairman of these committees. Last year I was Vice-Chairman for the first time for a long time but I did take over the Chair on a number of occasions. Now, one thing that happened when I chaired meetings of this Committee was that everybody got an equal chance, the other thing was I did not get involved in whether a Minister was doing this, this is not question period. I certainly did not choose one side over the other. I did not make little innuendos when somebody else asked a question or how nice it was or how nice it was not. I certainly did not make decisions, value judgements, as when the Minister was speaking when it was my side or the other side. What I am saying to the Chairman is that I am getting a very big whiff of this there tonight and I think the Chairman should act as a Chairman and forget being a partisan person.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I have no trouble with the right of the hon. Member for Port au Port to have an opinion that I totally disagree with. I used the hon. Member for St. John's East, who does not have the same political persuasion as the Chair, as to what I feel asking questions associated with the estimates are all about.

Now, let me say to the hon. Member without interruption. I did not interrupt you. When certain types of questions are asked, obviously the response is going to take the same tone. If the hon. Member does not like the tone from the Minister when the tone of the question is similar to the response from the Minister, then the Chair has to give the Minister the right to respond in the same sense of dialogue to answer the question. Now if the hon. Member feels that the Chair is protecting the Minister and/or not being fair in these estimates, then I totally disagree with the hon. Member. And the Chair will rule. If the hon. Member does not like the ruling of the Chair then he has been around long enough to know his option.

MR. HODDER: To that point of order, Mr. Chairman, would you allow me a response?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, certainly, by all means.

MR. HODDER: No, I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, that I do not think that the Chair should partake in discussion as to who is right or wrong. This is not Question Period. I think the Chair should be a facilitator, from my point of view, that the Chair would be well advised to just act as a neutral person in this forum.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Having said that, I think we might adjourn for ten minutes. It is now 9:00 p.m. There is coffee and tea -

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, before we break could we just finish off those two detailed questions, the deadline and making the report public?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to use the break to have a discussion with the Vice-Chair and then we will come right back to the Vice-Chair. So we would reconvene in ten minutes.

Recess

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I want to welcome Mr. Larry Short, the Member for St. George's, who is here, a little late, replacing Mr. Art Reid, the Member for Carbonear.

MS. VERGE: There is another letter there (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, (Inaudible). Now before we go back into session the Chair would just like to make a few points. I suppose it is fair to proceed with the Chair's opinion, I guess, to some degree, but I do not want to do that. If the Committee wants to decide that ten minutes is the allocation for questions, then if the Minister takes a few more minutes and/or one of his staff to answer that then we will extend ourselves somewhere to twelve or thirteen or fifteen minutes per Member. If the Committee wants me to hold that ten minutes totally to the line then the Chair is prepared to do that. But I am a little reluctant, to be quite honest with you. I would like to have a question answered and completed and the Committee Members satisfied. So I see that there is no response from the critic.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, I just want to say that, and I asked the Vice-Chair for some guidance here. I do not see any of the Members disagreeing with the Chair's decision to allow it.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Chairman, if you look at the rules of the House, the Member in a certain debate has twenty minutes speaking time, in another debate he has ten minutes speaking time, and the reason that this is so is that it is fair - and I think it is. I do not say this with any other reason than for the running of the Committee. I think that a strict time limit is the only way that we are going to be able to get through this and do it fairly. I mean, why should I get seventeen to nineteen minutes and the Member for St. George's get four - you know, I mean, it is judgement. And I just say that I think we should do it and -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay then is it the wish of the Committee to say that at the end of ten minutes, if the Minister is in the middle of a response, that the Chair interrupt him and moves on to another Committee Member?

MR. HODDER: Yes, Mr. Chairman, because everybody can come back, the Minister particularly. He gets to come back for ten minutes every time somebody speaks. For instance, if I have ten minutes he gets ten minutes, if the Member for St. George's gets ten minutes he gets ten minutes plus the fact that he is responding all the time. The Minister is not going to be without a word to say here.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: Either we follow the rules strictly, which is perhaps what the Member is saying, but in that case the Minister does not have a chance to have ten minutes every time someone else speaks. So what I suggested is that I would take ten minutes or whatever the allocated time was and use it as a question and answer period with the Minister and then we move on. Whether it is ten minutes or fifteen minutes I think perhaps we can agree, but the reason I got the ten or fifteen minutes was because the Member for Bonavista South had spoken for ten minutes and then the Minister responded for four or five. Well that is a reasonable period of time, let's use the same thing again.

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I agree with the Member for St. John's East. That is how I would like to use my time. However in response to my bite size questions I am getting lengthy tirades from the Minister, which may prompt me to revise my approach and I may speak for ten minutes at a stretch. However, I think it would be more useful for the Committee if we could have short exchanges of pointed questions and direct answers. And as soon as we get out of this procedural wrangle I would like to get back to my question for which I am still awaiting an answer.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think we have discussed the point of order long enough. Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: I agree with the Member for Port au Port, and I agree with the Member for St. John's East that ten minutes is what is allowed in the rules and Members use the ten minutes how they see fit. If it is a speech for ten minutes, fine, if it is question and answer for ten minutes, fine, but let's have a rule that it is ten minutes and move on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, well what the Chair will do is when the Chair gives another Committee Member leave to question then I will start the stop watch at the end of ten minutes, that is the end of it, and then we will move on to another Committee Member.

MR. HODDER: And he can choose whether he wants to ask short questions, and if he asks short questions and the Minister answers the ten minutes is up when it is over, but if he speaks for ten minutes, then the Minister gets to speak for ten minutes.

AN HON. MEMBER: No.

MR. HODDER: Why not?

AN HON. MEMBER: Because the rules do not allow it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: Herein lies the problem, okay. Now what the Chair will do will be at the discretion of the Chair. No, I will not let you take over. It will be at the discretion of the Chair, and if you look at the Standing Orders, and you know and every other Member of the Committee knows they are right if they disagree with the Chair. So I will go with the Vice-Chairperson, the Member for Humber East, and I will give her ten minutes or whatever, to ask short questions and to receive short answers. Sometimes short questions take long answers; sometimes long questions can be responded to with short answers. So ten minutes for each Committee Member and then the Chair will bring that particular Committee Member to order and we will move on to another Member who has indicated that he or she might want to speak.

The hon. the Member for Humber East.

MS. VERGE: Thank you, Chairperson. I ask the Minister with respect to the Committee that he established -

MR. SHORT: I just want to make a comment in relation to last night because we sat and went through this same wrangle last night. Well we did not go through a wrangle, but what we did last night was we had an Opposition Member allotted ten minutes, and that could be questions back and forth, and then we moved on to the Government Member and then an Opposition Member, and that is the way we ran the whole thing last night.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes. If you had been here at 7:00, Mr. Short, you would have seen that that is what the procedure had been taken. It is just the time frame is where some of the difficulty is coming into play. And now the Chair has made a ruling that it will be ten minutes and ten minutes only and then we will move on.

Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: With respect to the Minister's Committee, the Committee the Minister had set up around the beginning of March to advise the Department on policies relating to single mothers on social assistance and ways of allowing these single mothers to get out of the welfare trap: number one, will the Minister set a deadline? If so, what will the deadline be? Number two, will the Minister promise to release to the public the Committee's report, together with the submissions made by groups and individuals making presentations to the Committee?

MR. EFFORD: A very short answer to the first part, no. To the second part, no.

MS. VERGE: Why will the Minister not set a deadline? Why will the Minister not take steps to ensure that the Committee's work will lead to some decisions that will help single mothers who want to go to school in time for the beginning of the 1991-1992 academic year in September?

MR. EFFORD: I have asked the Committee, under the directorship of Mr. Haire, and the other members of the Committee outside the Department of Social Services, to set the terms of reference, which they have done. They know when they are expected to have it back in. I will not set a definite deadline.

MS. VERGE: When are they expected to have it back in?

MR. EFFORD: They are very responsible individual people doing a job as long as it takes. I am hoping that it will be by mid-summer so that a decision can be made and finalized before the fall semester begins, not only at Memorial University but at the vocational institutes.

MS. VERGE: And why will the Minister not agree to release to the public the report of the Committee or the submissions made by presenters?

MR. EFFORD: When the report is received by the Minister and officials of his Department we will sit down and read the reports and look at all the submissions. I will then make the decision. But will I commit to making that report public this evening? No.

MS. VERGE: Well, that is too bad. Now, will the Minister tell us the -

MR. GOVER: Point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Point of order, Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: I understood when we came back from the break the Member for Humber East was going to get a response to her two questions. She started her questioning at 8:40. The Committee adjourned at 9:00. That was twenty minutes. We are now going on and on. And I thought we were under the ten minute rule. And I thought when she came back she would get an answer to her two questions. The two questions have been answered three times by the Minister. I suggest that it is time to move on to another Member.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No. The Chair will not do that. We started with the critic, we came down, and Ms. Verge was involved for ten minutes. And we will now go back the other way so that before we adjourn at least Ms. Verge might have been left out and only had ten minutes. So, she is two minutes and fifty seconds into it. Then we will go back to Mr. Harris and to you Mr. Gover, and to Mr. Oldford - no, excuse me. From Ms. Verge to Mr. Oldford, and back to Mr. Harris, yourself, Mr. Short and then Mr. Hodder.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. I would now like some -

MR. HODDER: (Inaudible) I really do not want (Inaudible) -

MS. VERGE: Jim!

MR. HODDER: I apologize to the Member for Humber East. But am I now being told that we are going - I was told that I was after Mr. Oldford. Now I just want to know the rules of this Committee. I understood that you took -

MR. EFFORD: Will you stop complaining?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I have given the Member for Humber East ten minutes, I have recognized Mr. Oldford to respond behind the Member for Humber East. I have given Mr. Harris and Mr. Gover the indication, and I have them in the order that they indicated.

MR. GOVER: But, Mr. Chairman, to that point of order. My understanding is - and I do not know if the Table keeps a time - that the Member for Humber East began questioning at 8:40 and we broke at 9:00, which is twenty minutes worth of questions and answers. Are you giving her an additional ten minutes of time?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No.

MR. GOVER: Then I suggest her time is up.

MR. HODDER: How did we decide the order, Mr. Chairman?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You know the Member for Port au Port earlier said that the Chair should recognize people who indicated they wanted to ask a question.

MR. HODDER: I did indicate and you did say that I came after Mr. Oldford. Now I hear that I come after a whole group of other people. I am just wondering how we do this.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair has the right, I guess, -

AN HON. MEMBER: To change the names.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No. I did not say change the names. The Chair has the right to -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: Pittsburg is leading one to one.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mrs. Verge. There is no point of order.

MS. VERGE: Two years ago the Minister said the social assistance caseload numbered 19,631 of whom 3,500 were single parent families, what are the statistics now for the total social assistance caseload and the number of single parent families included in the caseload?

MR. EFFORD: First of all, the caseload is gone up to approximately 25,000, it went up a little higher than that and then it decreased somewhat, I do not have the April month's statistics but the March month's is approximately 25,500.

MS. VERGE: So, that is over a 25 per cent increase in two years.

MR. EFFORD: The number of single parents in the Province today dependent on social assistance is 9,900, single parents of all different categories.

MS. VERGE: That is a 300 per cent increase.

MR. EFFORD: Hold on now. Do not twist the numbers. Those people include all different categories not only the single parents in an able bodied situation, we are talking about the widows and everybody in the Province, 9,900 totally. The figures I gave last year -

MS. VERGE: Two years ago.

MR. EFFORD: - two years ago is approximately 3,500 and that figure is in the age bracket where they could be going into the workforce and training programs.

MS. VERGE: No, you did not say that. I have the transcript here. What I am looking for is apples and apples. Two years ago, I have the transcript here, the Minister said we have a caseload of approximately 19,631 who were dependent on social assistance last year, shameful, it will not be that much next year. Then he went on to say that we have approximately 3,500 single parents dependent on social assistance and the greater percentage of those single parents is female.

So, is the Minister now saying that the 19,631 of two years ago has increased -

MR. EFFORD: Two years, yes.

MS. VERGE: - this was June 20, 1989, has increased to 25,500.

MR. EFFORD: Yes.

MS. VERGE: That is a 25 per cent increase.

MR. EFFORD: Yes.

MS. VERGE: When he said 3,500 single parents depended on social assistance two years ago, did he include all single-parent families?

MR. EFFORD: No. There are 9,900 single parents in the Province today, but that is not an increase. I mean no Government and no body has any control over the number of single parents. That did not increase from 3,500 to 9,900 but the true figures in the Province of all groups of people of single parents who find themselves in that situation is approximately 9,900.

MS. VERGE: That is the number of single-parent families.

MR. EFFORD: Families, yes.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

The Minister and, I think, everyone in this room would agree that it is desirable for the Government to assist these people to get off social assistance.

Last September an anti-poverty coalition in St. John's made a presentation to the Minister on this topic, on the desire of helping welfare recipients get out of the welfare trap. And one of their main recommendations was providing greater incentives to earn money themselves, and they recommended specifically that the definition of allowable income be made broader, more generous, so that welfare recipients would be able to retain and benefit more than they can now under the existing regulations from earnings from jobs, contractual work, part-time jobs, seasonal jobs, any kind of jobs. Has the Minister made any steps in that direction to allow social assistance recipients to keep and benefit more from earnings from employment?

MR. EFFORD: No.

MS. VERGE: Does the Minister want to do that?

MR. EFFORD: We are looking at the whole area of people dependent on social assistance and getting people retrained and educated to become independent and to get them into the work force. But very specifically the answer to the hon. Member is no.

MS. VERGE: Okay, in the area of child protection how many -

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms Verge. I am sorry, but the ten minutes has elapsed.

Mr. Oldford.

MR. OLDFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Minister, I -

MR. HODDER: Mr. Chairman, a point of order. I do not want to belabour this, okay. I just want to ask the Chairman on what basis he gave two orders. Earlier before the coffee break he said that after - and I do not mean to take the Member for Trinity North's time or to interrupt him in any way - but before we went to break he did say that I would be next. I am not asking because I have this important thing to say, but the thing is that the Chairman did change the order of speaking. Now that is something that I have never seen in this House of Assembly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, Mr. Hodder, I do not mean to interrupt you but I must. The Chair recognized one individual after Ms Verge, Mr. Oldford.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, the Chair did say that after we came back from break, Ms Verge would continue and then Mr. Oldford. There was nothing else said.

MR. HODDER: You said that I would continue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No.

MR. HODDER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I have had my hand up here since the first time I spoke and yet - who goes after Mr. Oldford?

MS. VERGE: Chairperson, I have to interject.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

MS. VERGE: To a point of order, Chairperson. I have to support my colleague from Port au Port for two reasons.

MR. EFFORD: Sure you would.

MS. VERGE: Number one because he signalled early on his desire to speak again and participate again, and number two, because there should be rotation. Once Mr. Oldford completes his questioning and presentation everyone who has been here since 7:00 will have had a turn and it would naturally go back then to the Member for Port au Port who began.

MR. EFFORD: To that point of order, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I have tried three times tonight to get in on a point of order. Am I allowed to be recognized over here?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Not really.

MR. EFFORD: I am not?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Not really. You are here to respond.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

MR. CHAIRMAN: I do not know if the Chair is going to continue to tolerate the indifference that has been shown by the Member for Port au Port.

MR. HODDER: (Inaudible)

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

I have no intention of kicking you out. I have absolutely no intention of kicking you out at all. I am recognizing Mr. Oldford and then the Chair will recognize who the Chair feels is next in order. Okay?

AN HON. MEMBER: To the point of order, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think we have discussed it enough.

Mr. Oldford.

MR. OLDFORD: Mr. Minister, first of all, I would like to say to you that in my former life as a job readiness training worker, and I dealt with your clients, I am pleased to see the shift that you have undertaken in your Department, and, of course, the change in emphasis towards rehabilitation rather than community development projects, I think is a welcome shift and a welcome change. Having said that I have just a couple of specific questions but I will not take up too much time. I want to ask, if you could tell me please, what formula, if there is a specific formula, that the Federal Government uses to determine what contribution they make to provincial programs? Is the formula the same for each of those subheads? And, more specifically, 3.2.02, the Whitbourne Youth Centre, the provincial funding dropped by about $80,000.

MR. EFFORD: Which?

MR. OLDFORD: The provincial funding for the Whitbourne Youth Centre, yet the federal funding went down by about $211,000, so I wonder if you could explain that to me. And, 4.2.03, support to organizations, provincial funding went down by $12,000 and, I think, federal funding went down about $285,000.

MR. EFFORD: On which one again?

MR. OLDFORD: That is on 4.2.03, support to organizations. First of all, I wonder if you could explain the formula to me and explain the difference in those two subheads, please?

MR. EFFORD: I am trying to remember the first part of the question, but I will come back to it after I recall. The formula under the Canada Assistance Plan in the social assistance program is 50/50 and under the Employment Enhancement Program it is 50/50. Under the community development programs the formula is a little different, and if the criteria meets special projects. In the first instance where we pointed out the $6.9 million under social assistance, that is partly community development and we get that 50/50 cost shared, but most of the programs under the Canada Assistance Plan in community development have different cost sharing programs depending on the type of training, or the services under social assistance, so it could go down to 70/30 or 60/40, but the overall formula in social assistance is clearly 50/50 in the total social assistance program. We try to use, to our own advantage, as much of the programs within the Department as we can, if we can meet the guidelines at all under social assistance so we can take full advantage of the 50/50 cost shared to our own advantage.

Now, under the Young Offenders Program one of the problems we have had with the Canada Assistance Plan that we are scared of is the capping. The Federal Government capped the Young Offenders Program two years ago, 1988/89, they capped that $8 million.

Any monies spent in that programme now, in the Young Offenders programme, over $8 million is on the total cost to the Province. In other words, if we spend $20 million this year we will only get cost shared up to $8 million.

So that is the reason why you see different amounts of funding from the Federal Government versus the Provincial input, because of the capping of the Young Offenders programme. And we only hope and pray that it is only going to be capped in the Young Offenders and not in any other programmes. Because if it is ever capped in the social assistance programme or any other programmes it is going to be devastating for this Province. But that is the reason why you see the different amounts under the Young Offenders.

SOME HON. MEMBERS: (Inaudible).

MR. EFFORD: You asked a question about the rehabilitation -

MR. OLDFORD: Ah, no, no. I just made a comment that I was pleased that your emphasis was changing and it was shifting to rehabilitation. I suppose I believe in that old saying, you know, you give a person a fish and you feed him for a day, and teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. So I am glad that that shift is in your Department, that you have taken that stand.

MR. EFFORD: Well, you know, we have looked at this and all over the years the emphasis - I think the intent of the former administration was to do the same thing. And you yourself have mentioned to me on a number of occasions where you were a part of a programme which taught basic life skills.

What we have to do, we have to concentrate more and more. Because we have a large segment of our population undereducated, not only people on social assistance. I am not saying the only people who are not educated are people who depend on social assistance. That is not true. But we have a number of people in this Province who are on social assistance who would not be if they had the opportunity to get away from it. I do not agree with all this nonsense and the public talk through the news media and whatever that Newfoundlanders like to be working ten weeks and off for forty-two. That is true in some instances. But for the most part people are genuine, they would like to be to work for longer periods of time. Unfortunately, through the second, third and fourth generations we have dropouts in schools for whatever reasons. So we want to try to restore that and put some pride back in to people, and we are going to place a lot of emphasis on that in the future.

MR. OLDFORD: The other part of my question was 4.2.03, Support to Organizations. I wanted to know why Provincial funding went down by $12,000, and yet Federal funding went down by $285,000. And that is under rehabilitation.

MR. EFFORD: 4.2.03, I will get that for you now. 4.2.03?

MR. OLDFORD: 4.2.03, on page 269.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, that is where we combined things, as I mentioned earlier, under a different question. We have two Provincial associations - at least they were operating under two associations. One was the Association of Community Living Provincially here in the Province, and the other was the Association of Community Living in Labrador. So instead of funding two organizations we give the funding now to the Provincial organization. The two of them total around $120,000. And so because of the Budget restraints this year we decreased that I think approximately $20,000. So we fund the Provincial body $120,000 and they will distribute it to their sub-chapter in Labrador.

MR. OLDFORD: Okay, thank you. I have no other questions, Mr. Chairman, at this time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Chair recognizes Mr. Hodder.

MR. HODDER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. EFFORD: My God, no more complaints.

MR. HODDER: Mr. Chairman, I just have a few simple questions. And I want to say to the Minister before I ask them that I have no bias. I have no opinion on those questions and I do not know the answers before I ask them. I just want to assure him of that. Certainly I am not asking them to embarrass or insult him in any way, and I will try to pick my words as carefully as I can. And I will try to be as good as I can, I will try not to heckle.

Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask the Minister about Coach House. Now that had come up in the House and I asked some questions on it before. I think, and the Minister may correct me on this if I am out by a digit, there were four or five people in Coach House when it closed. I also know the type of children that were in Coach House, these children turn up from time to time, so when Coach House closed that did not mean those children would cease coming, that a new one would not appear somewhere along the line. What I was wondering was, what happened to the children in Coach House? Exactly where are they? Has there been an increase in the need for special care for children of this nature or has there not? I am just asking what is the general feeling because I have been asked, lots of time people call me and ask: do you know anything about what has happened to the individuals who were in Coach House? So, that is what I am asking the Minister and I just ask for pure information.

MR. EFFORD: It is pretty difficult for me to tell you where the four or five kids that were in Coach House are today. I know that two of them are in a Mainland setting where they needed special training and special programming. But we have devised special therapeutic foster homes in the Province and that is where you will find most of the children who find themselves with a severe behaviour problem. You can never predict from day to day from month to month or from year to year how many of those kids are going to appear on the doorsteps or are going to require the specialized services from the department because you do not know. You could have ten this year, you may have none next year, or you may have fifty.

The Department of Child Welfare under the directorship of Mr. Stapleton, the Child Welfare Director, has been for the last couple of months and continues to be identifying therapeutic foster homes to place those children in individualized settings rather than place them in group settings.

MR. HODDER: Has the Minister had any problems finding homes for those children? I think he used the term therapeutic home care, or words to that effect. I was just wondering if the Minister has had any problems finding homes? The other part of the question was, is there a great demand for these? In other words, I understand from year to year, for example, Coach House might have six or seven children in there, or they might have two or three, depending upon need. Is there a greater now for these therapeutic home care settings, could he tell me something about that?

MR. EFFORD: First of all, the Coach House did not have six or seven. The most we would have in Coach House at a time would be five.

MR. HODDER: Well, I used that as an example, there could be six or seven individuals. I really do not want to get into a fight of picking holes. I just would like to know. At any given time, I suppose, the Department could find itself with a certain number of people, that is what I am trying to get across?

MR. EFFORD: Coach House could hold up to five residents and we were very careful about putting even five in there. In answer to the part of the question: do we have difficulty in finding therapeutic foster homes? We have now identified fifteen therapeutic foster homes who would take these children with severe behaviour problems. We cannot at any time, any day, any month, or any year predict how many people will require these services. It is something that comes and goes depending on the family environment depending on the children and depending upon the phycological condition of the children. How they are being treated in the homes, I suppose, is one of the main causes. So, I cannot give you a number but today we have fifteen therapeutic foster homes where the Coach House could only hold five. So we have three times the settings that we had with Coach House.

MR. HODDER: I had another question on that but I will go on to my next topic. The Minister mentioned when he started his comments that there was an increase of child abuse cases in the Province. I was just wondering - and it is something that I have always wondered about - is this really an increase in the Province, or is it an increase of an awareness in the Province? Is it that the problem had been here before, or is it that actually the problem itself is on the increase, or is it just the awareness?

MR. EFFORD: The hon. Member knows full well the answer to that question. Child abuse has always been around. It has been around since Day 1, I guess, the beginning of time. I cannot go back in history. From all the studies and according to the experts who advise me within the Department of Social Services and the people who come in contact with it, child abuse is just not something that cropped up two or three or four or five years ago. So it has always been around.

You are quite right. The increased number of caseloads that we are finding within the Child Protection unit is the result of more education, more awareness being made through the community, more identifications being made through the education of schools, and the programmes like we put in place last year, Put The Child First programme. More emphasis is being placed on awareness of these programmes. So I cannot tell you if there are any more cases happening today than there were 100 years ago. But I suspect child abuse was always around, it is just that it was not identified. I guess that could be argued but that is as close as I can come to giving you an accurate answer.

MR. HODDER: Now I should tell the Minister, now, that was my assumption. But it is just that during his opening remarks he made the statement offhand -

MR. EFFORD: -the increased number of cases that we have identified this past year, reported to the Department.

MR. HODDER: Another question which I had is one that we had a little battle about in the House a little while ago. Again I ask it straight. I asked the Minister why it was, when we were talking about the children on the street in St. John's which has had some publicity in the local media, of closing the gap between the Child Welfare Act, and the Minister in the House said that it could not be done. That he had spoken to his officials - if I quote him roughly, in one of his answers the Minister said: I went back to my officials and I asked them was it possible to just pass this little section of the Act without passing the whole section of the Act.

MS. VERGE: In the spring.

MR. HODDER: Pardon?

MS. VERGE: In the spring, then do the rest (Inaudible).

MR. HODDER: Yes, in the spring, and right away. And we would cooperate and do the rest in the fall. Now my question to the Minister is, can he explain this to me? Now I know the Minister is going to call me stupid and everything else -

MR. EFFORD: Yes.

MR. HODDER: - but can he explain to me why an amendment cannot be made? Because the whole Child Welfare Act is not only about this particular thing. This would only be one little section. And I would have thought that he could have made it - so I would just like the Minister to explain this to me.

MR. EFFORD: Before I start explaining I will ask the hon. Member how come, with his colleague the Minister of Justice, they never brought in a new Child Welfare Act and dealt with that during the whole seventeen years they were in Government? Why? And now it is such an important thing.

MR. HODDER: Why? Well this one was just -

MR. EFFORD: Now to get on to the answer to your question. I did not interrupt you so do not interrupt me or I will get nasty again. I am trying to be very sensible and very -

MR. HODDER: Oh, I am scared.

MR. EFFORD: Well, do you want the question answered? Well then, be quiet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please!

Mr. Minister.

MR. EFFORD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We find it is a very major piece of legislation that needs to be brought in. The Child Welfare Act is a major Act. It has not been touched since 1972. There is no question about it, there is a need for a complete new revision of that Act, and that is being done by the officials of the Department of Social Services, Department of Child Welfare. After the hon. Member raised the question in the House of Assembly, naturally I have concern about the vacuum age between sixteen and eighteen, so I went over and spoke to the Director of Child Welfare, Mr. Stapleton, and the Assistant Director, and asked their opinion as to whether or not they would advise me to bring in an amendment to that portion of the legislation, and then continue on with the remainder? The Director of Child Welfare is the expert. I am not the expert in that Department. I take advice from all the officials within the Department who work together as a unit. His advice to me was, no, we would rather not do that, because we are tying to listen and get briefs from people right across the Province, experts, and not only across the Province but also in other areas within the country. As I said in the House of Assembly his advice was, no. I knew the answer but I just wanted to double check because it is important as there is a problem out there in the community. His advice was, no, he would not like to see it done, but naturally he said, Mr. Minister, you can overrule me. Well, I can assure you that I am not going to overrule the Director of Child Welfare. He is the expert. They know best, and I am going to act upon their advice, so I will not bring in an amendment to the legislation until he is ready.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Chair.

In response to the questions of the Member for Humber East the Minister said that the Advisory Committee on the single parents who are students, that the purpose of this Committee was to determine whether it was possible to disregard student loan income, whether it would interfere with the Canada Assistance Plan and, unfortunately, do all sorts of other things. If that is the case why do you bother to have a Committee? Why did you not just ask for some legal advice, or some technical advice from your officials? I am sure that could be found out fairly easily and if it was really the intention of the Minister why do you not just do that and not waste the time, money, and effort in going the approach you have taken?

MR. EFFORD: I do not know what profession, other than law, that the hon. Member studied before but I studied business and I was into business for a number of years, and I must say I was quite successful. According to the Evening Telegram, they quoted me as being the richest person in the Province. I do not believe in jumping head first into the water unless I can see what kind of bottom or how deep the water is. I think it is necessary for me as Minister to show leadership within the Department and not jump into this not knowing where we are going. The officials of the Department advised me of the implications that could be found by implementing a program. We wanted to know if all the things we were hearing from some of the single parents were problems they were all finding, and I guess that will come out in the end. To take a couple of months and do a proper study is a very wise decision. I think the history of the past administration, without properly listening to the experts, is proof enough that we should do that in the future. This is a very responsible Government and I am the Minister responsible for the Department of Social Services. I act on the advice of the individuals within the Department, who are the experts, because I have only been there for two years, and God knows, I may not be there tomorrow morning. They will be around so they have to live with and advise the Minister how to put these programs in place. We are doing it in a responsible manner and, I think it will be ready for the Fall semister. That is our intention. It is not to delay, but to do it properly.

MR. HARRIS: The point the Minister raised initially was that there was a potential problem with the Canada Assistance Plan. I do not know what this Committee can do about that, because that seems to be a technical bureaucratic problem that could be resolved by having one of your officials checking it out with the officials of the Canada Assistance Plan in Ottawa and coming up with the solution. I am hearing from people saying that the Committee is interviewing individuals each by each, asking them questions, and some people leaving in tears and the questions being asked about their personal finances.

That does not seem to me to be any ways in keeping with what the Minister is saying, that we are trying to resolve a technical problem about the Canada Assistance Plan. What is going on here?

MR. EFFORD: One of the things with the Canada Assistance Plan, one of the things is the single parents problem and their financial problems, the other thing is the other individuals who are going to educational institutions. Now, I am not going to be forced into this by the hon. Member for St. John's East or the Opposition asking questions. This is going to be done in a very responsible manner and you can sit there till your hair turns purple. The answer has been given. It is going to be done with the proper advice, it should be ready for a decision, and by all accounts it will be ready - unless something major happens - by the fall semester. And that is it.

Now the tears can come out of the eyes and the bellows can come out of the individuals, but when this is done it is going to be for the best interest of those individuals who need it.

MR. HARRIS: So you are satisfied to see people brought to tears by your Committee and being asked questions about their personal finances?

MR. EFFORD: That is absolutely ridiculous for the hon. Member to even think it, talk it or suggest it. No -

MR. HARRIS: But you are the one who mentioned that you do not care about the tears of people.

MR. EFFORD: I am talking about your tears. This hon. Member sees tears on a daily basis from individuals who are suffering in this Province because of many different reasons. And there is nobody who is going to sit there and accuse me of trying to cause that despair in people's faces, I can assure you. You may be at it for political gain but I am sincere. And not only me but all the people in the Department of Social Services are very sincere about what they are doing. So if you want to get nasty now let's take the gloves off and go at it. Because that is not the way we operate in the Department. We are concerned about the people, about their welfare, and not about political gains being made through the news media.

MR. HARRIS: Well, I want to assure the other Members of the Committee who are listening that this is a report from people who were at this Committee and attended.

MR. EFFORD: Yes, and I can tell you the names! You want to know their names?

MR. HARRIS: It has nothing to do with anything political at all. It has to do with the concerns raised by individuals who feel that this Committee is not necessarily listening to the proper concerns. Anyway, I will leave that to another forum.

The Social Assistance estimates, page 273, vote 5.3.02. The allowance and assistance has increased by approximately $7 million from last year's actual, and the actual from last year is $9 million over budget. Can the Minister indicate what change he expects to see in the number of social assistance recipients in the 1991, based on the revised estimates, and the 1992? What changes does he expect, what are you predicting?

MR. EFFORD: Well, last year one of the major problems we had was the influx of refugees into the Province which had an impact of approximately $7 million on our budget in the Department of Social Services. Combined with that we had a significant increase in the number of caseloads, clients come on our caseloads as I quoted earlier.

But what we project for the remainder of this year, 1991-1992, is approximately 3 per cent increase. And that is a fair percentage of increase. Because when you get up around a 25,000 caseload if you have an increase of 3 per cent on that you are talking about another...750? And that is not realistic - you know, I think the numbers will drop. But that depends on the fishery this year, on the job opportunities. So you can only operate under a projection. We are projecting a 3 per cent increase so we adjust our budget to that. We may have more money than we require. Although if the caseload jumps that high because the refugees come in again in large numbers like they did early last year, which we have no control over, we could have to go after another special warrant.

MR. HARRIS: So when you say the anticipated 3 per cent increase in the caseload, that is the number of family units or individuals, that is over last year's budgeted or last year's actual?

MR. EFFORD: Last year's actual. We take into consideration the possible influx of refugees and the increasing caseload, it is not just one factor. But you have to do that -

MR. HARRIS: But your overall projected increase is 3 per cent in the caseload. Okay, that is what I wanted to know the answer to. Going for a moment to the salary details, page 203, your Departmental salary details. Page 203 of the details here have the Minister's office - there is yourself and assistants. How many executive assistants do you have?

MR. EFFORD: One.

MR. HARRIS: Just one? In the Minister's office it says a total complement of four people. Are there any other temporary people in your office?

MR. EFFORD: No.

MR. HARRIS: I was told there is an individual by the name of Robin Russell who was an executive assistant. Is she or is she not?

MR. EFFORD: She is not my executive assistant.

MR. HARRIS: Does she work in the Department?

MR. EFFORD: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: Where does she work?

MR. EFFORD: Secretarial position to the Minister.

MR. HARRIS: She is secretary to the Minister?

MR. EFFORD: Why are you bringing up a name of an individual?

MR. HARRIS: I was told she was an executive assistant.

MR. EFFORD: Who would tell you something like that?

MR. HARRIS: Well, she is the secretary to the Minister.

MR. EFFORD: I would prefer the hon. Member would not mention the name because I do not -

MR. HARRIS: Well, the name has already been mentioned, we just want to know which position she is -

MR. EFFORD: I answered the question.

MR. HARRIS: She is the secretary to the Minister. That is the individual listed here, number three on that list, is it?

MR. EFFORD: Pardon?

MR. HARRIS: Number three on this list?

MR. EFFORD: Number three? No, that is my permanent secretary, number three.

MR. HARRIS: Well, now, you are going to have to explain this because the Minister's office has four people. You said there were no temporary people, and her job is not executive assistant, it is secretary to the Minister.

MR. EFFORD: First, let me tell you, there is the Minister's permanent political secretary whom he brought in to the Department the day he came in. There is also a secretary from the former Minister who was there, whom I saw fit to keep within the Department. So the two secretarial positions are there. Thirdly, my executive assistant, who the hon. Member knows full well - and will get to know a lot more in the next few months - is my executive assistant. The next individual is Robin Russell the secretary to the Minister, and that is all of the positions outside of the Deputy Minister and his secretary in my office.

MS. VERGE: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Yes, that sounds like it adds up to five people, not four that are listed there.

MR. EFFORD: I named them very clearly. I took my time and I named them.

MR. HARRIS: So there is the one executive assistant, one secretary to the Minister, one Departmental secretary to the Minister and...?

MR. EFFORD: Well, I just told you, Robin Russell, who you quoted.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ten minutes and some seconds have elapsed and the Chair would now entertain a motion to adjourn from one of the Committee Members, since it is 10:02 p.m. However, if it is the wish of the Committee then, I have indicated to Mr. Gover that I would give him an opportunity to put some questions to the Minister. So in saying that, and I see no move to adjourn, Mr. Gover.

MR. GOVER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I would make the motion to adjourn but I would require some information before I made the motion. Which is that if we continued on later on tonight would these estimates necessarily be passed tonight? Or do Members of the Committee have questions that would protract us into another three hour session? Because if it is going to be another three hour session then I would be prepared to move the motion to adjourn on the condition of course that when we came back that I would be recognized for my ten minutes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, if Committee Members would indicate to the Chair that we could clear the estimates for the Department of Social Services in a time frame that would not take us into the wee hours of the morning then the Chair is prepared to stay and continue the estimates. I would ask the Minister if he and his staff would be prepared, rather than bring us back a second time.

MR. EFFORD: Mr. Chairman, I understand the Committee's concern and I do not want to be seen as disagreeing. I have very early hours in my office, I usually get in there around 7:00 a.m., 7:30 a.m., and the staff is in very early. We have had a long day. If it can be done in ten or fifteen minutes, fine, but if it is going to take till 11:00, I do not think (Inaudible).

On motion, the Committee adjourn, carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: And we will inform the Committee as to when we will reconvene to continue and hopefully finish the estimates of the Department of Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Minister, and thank you gentlemen.

The Committee now stands adjourned.