Pursuant to Standing Order 87, Mr. Roger Fitzgerald, M.H.A. (Bonavista South) substitutes for Harvey Hodder, M.H.A. (Waterford - Kenmount)

The Committee met at 7:00 p.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN (Gilbert): Order, please!

I will now welcome the Minister of Social Services and his staff. We are going to examine the estimates of his department tonight. Before I ask the minister to make his opening statement and introduce his staff I have a couple of little formalities we have to go through. First of all, I would ask that someone make a motion that we accept the minutes of the previous meeting.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Maybe some of your officials don't know the members of the Committee so I will ask the Committee members to introduce themselves. Starting off with me. My name is David Gilbert, and I'm the MHA for Burgeo - Bay d'Espoir.

MS. VERGE: Lynn Verge, Humber East.

MR. LANGDON: Oliver Langdon, Fortune - Hermitage.

MR. SMITH: Gerald Smith, Port au Port.

MS. YOUNG: Kay Young, Terra Nova.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Now, Mr. Minister, you can introduce your officials. Under the rules of this Committee you have the right to speak for fifteen minutes to outline your department's achievements and results for the last year, or you can leave it open and let the Committee get right into the questioning. So, Mr. Minister, if you would now introduce your staff.

I would say to the staff that any time during the night you are called upon to speak, give your name before you speak. Because the people in recording know most of the people who are asking the questions but they don't know your voices as well as they know ours. If you would, if the minister indicates that you are to speak, introduce yourself first, so it will make it easier for the people who are transcribing. Mr. Minister, over to you.

MR. LUSH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Introducing the staff: to my immediate right is Mr. Bruce Peckford, the Deputy Minister; then Mr. Noel Browne, Assistant Deputy Minister, Client Services; then Mr. George Skinner, Assistant Deputy Minister, Program Development; Mr. Dave Roberts, right behind me, the Assistant Deputy Minister, Financial and Support Services; and Mr. Jim Strong, director of Financial Operations. These are the people who will be able to provide technical information and other information which I, if I sense a weakness or an inadequacy, will call on them, or if you choose to direct a question to them.

I don't think I will give any introductory remarks. I will leave it to the Committee to get right into whatever it is they want to get into, rather than my taking up time at the beginning. We will just carry on in whichever way you function after this.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I will now recognize the Official Opposition critic who is going to be Ms. Verge, the vice-chairperson tonight. You have ten minutes of give and take.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. Twenty minutes, isn't it?

MR. CHAIRMAN: No.

MS. VERGE: One of my perennial topics is social assistance and maintenance and the problems faced by single parents and their dependent children living in poverty. Problems which were made worse by the Wells government in October of 1990 when the government began classifying maintenance as non-allowable income. The Wells government drew up a master plan for overhauling both federal and provincial social support programs, called the ISP, and that document took a different approach.

That document called for people on social assistance or whatever the new term would be who get maintenance from a non-custodial parent or an absent spouse being able to benefit. In other words, that document recognized the value of providing an incentive for somebody dependent on the government for income to supplement that income by getting maintenance.

I am wondering if the minister is willing to take the necessary steps to change the regulations so that once again maintenance is classified as allowable income so that single parents and children on social assistance will be slightly better off thereby, and so that there is once again an incentive for people on social assistance to try to get as much as possible in the way of maintenance.

MR. LUSH: The hon. member is correct when she says that under ISP maintenance was to be an allowable income, and that's as far as the government has gone right now.

As the hon. member knows, presently the maintenance is the reason why - it's one of the reasons why - the major reason why it's not considered allowable income is because of CAP, the Canada Assistance Plan, and under it we are required to do what we're doing, but with respect to ISP that was a broader program under which we were soliciting the support of the federal government. The ISP could not have been brought in without the support of the federal government, so it was our hope that we could come to some agreement with them so that under this program we wouldn't be under the same regulations as we are with CAP.

MS. VERGE: I have to contradict the minister. There's nothing in the Canada Assistance Plan that says that maintenance cannot be classified as allowable income. It was classified as allowable income until October 1, 1990, and when the change was made without consultation, without even warning to the people hurt, I personally checked with the federal government and was assured that this was entirely a provincial decision and that there was nothing in CAP that required such a change.

The minister's predecessor, John Efford, who was minister at the time the change was made, didn't pretend that was the excuse. Mr. Efford and the Premier always simply said fairness and balance; they should basically lower everyone to the lowest common denominator. If some single parents on social assistance are not getting any maintenance, why should the ones who are getting it be better off? That was always the official line, but I was somewhat encouraged to see a different approach taken in the ISP document, and I thought perhaps with that apparent change of thinking that maybe now the regulations would be restored to the way they were pre October 1, 1990 and maintenance, once again, would be allowable income, because the people working in the system for the Department of Justice support enforcement agency and for legal aid will freely say that it's nuts to have it the way it is now because all you are doing is inviting the social assistance clients whom you coerced to go to court for child support to get a token order, because there's no incentive for them to get a high award. If they get an order for $1, it's better for them.

Now last year we went into this in some detail, and we talked about - I talked about it, anyway - the unfairness of subtracting, dollar for dollar, maintenance from the meagre social assistance. We also talked about how single parents getting maintenance are actually worse off because in many cases there are gaps, and the deputy minister then said that there was a pilot project in the St. John's area to try to improve `the interface between social assistance and support enforcement that both the Departments of Social Services and Justice were involved in'. Would the minister give the committee a report of that pilot project and indicate how the interface is working now?

MR. LUSH: I just want to come back to the CAP again. I'm not sure that requirement is the right word but my understanding is that were we to allow maintenance as allowable income then CAP would not be forthcoming.

MS. VERGE: Would the minister table a document to verify that? Has the minister ever asked the Department of Health Canada?

MR. LUSH: Of course the minister asked.

MS. VERGE: Because I did, I asked Health Canada back -

MR. LUSH: If the minister would like to hear some official comment on it with respect to -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible)?

MR. LUSH: Yes. What the hon. member has said is that correct?

MS. VERGE: There's nothing under the Canada Assistance Plan that prohibits the Province from classifying maintenance as allowable income the way it was up to October 1, 1990.

MR. PECKFORD: The Canada Assistance Plan is an agreement between the Province and the federal government that outlines the manner in which eligible expenditures are cost-shared. In the case of the item we are discussing now, maintenance payments, were the Province to change maintenance from a non-allowed category to the allowed category, it would eliminate the cost sharing for that portion, while the Province has the right to decide what is allowable and what is not allowable. The Canada Assistance Plan prescribes then on that basis which would be shared and which wouldn't. So if we were to permit maintenance payments to not be considered as income, cost-sharing for those clients would be lost under the Canada Assistance Plan.

MS. VERGE: Why then was there federal cost-sharing under CAP up to October 1, 1990?

MR. PECKFORD: I don't think there was. We lost that sharing.

MS. VERGE: Well would you table documents to prove, number 1, that presently CAP would disallow sharing if maintenance were categorized as non-allowable income and number 2, showing that there was not cost-sharing before October 1, 1990? I personally checked in the late fall of 1990. The federal government has some mole working in the Confederation Building, buried in some department enforcing CAP but he assured me that there was nothing in CAP and the government was grilled on it at the time because the change was quite controversial. The minister of the day, Mr. Efford and the Premier didn't even give that as an excuse. That wasn't their reason for making the change. Their reason for making the change was that everyone on social assistance should be uniformly miserable. If some weren't getting maintenance none should be better off because they were getting maintenance, fairness and balance was the excuse.

MR. PECKFORD: It's my understanding that - as I mentioned a moment ago - were we to allow maintenance payments, cost-sharing for the increased portion of social assistance that the individuals would get, cost-sharing of that amount would be lost.

MS. VERGE: Well I'll believe it when I see the documents verifying it. What about the pilot project involving the interface between social services and justice? Last year at the estimates committee the deputy minister - it was Page 6 of Hansard where the committee said, `at the present time the Department of Social Services, together with the Department of Justice, is looking into the question that you posed and which we are very much aware of. In particular, looking at it from not just the aspect of when there's a delay in the forwarding of the maintenance payment but the other legal procedural and administrative barriers associated with the whole maintenance and social assistance interface.' We have a small pilot project here in St. John's right now. I'm wondering what happened with the pilot project?

MR. LUSH: The pilot project still went ahead but I don't think it dealt specifically with this matter of maintenance. It was a matter of getting the maintenance. It wasn't a matter of seeing that it was an allowable income.

MS. VERGE: No, it had to do with what happens when a social assistance recipient who is entitled to maintenance under a court order being enforced by the Justice agency doesn't receive the court order payment on time, and with Social Services subtracting it in full obviously the client is worse off because of the maintenance order and the agency. My understanding of the pilot project into the interface is to improve the interface so that there wouldn't be gaps. With everyone computerized Social Services should know the same time Justice knows when a court order maintenance payment is late.

MR. LUSH: That was its purpose but it wasn't to -

MS. VERGE: What happened with the pilot project?

MR. LUSH: As far as I know it is still ongoing.

MR. PECKFORD: The pilot project is still ongoing. I don't have a current status on just how it is progressing right now. I do know that a development of a few months ago in this area resulted in the judges in, I guess it was the Provincial Court, agreeing to recognize social workers as advocates on behalf of individuals who are seeking maintenance orders. With that particular agreement there were quite a number of additional maintenance payments, or court orders for maintenance payments, secured. It increased tremendously the accessibility of single parents in order to get court orders. That is the most recent item on that project that I am aware of. I must confess I haven't had a report on its status in the last month or so.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you Mr. Peckford, thank you Ms. Verge.

Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you. I wasn't here for the introduction. I'm Jack Harris, St. John's East.

Mr. Minister, I'm looking at the budgeted items that have to do with Services To Children and I'm looking here in general on pages 304, 305 and 306. What I see under Child Welfare, the amount to be voted is $5.9 million in total. In fact, a decrease of I suppose about $185,000 from the amount spent last year for Residential Services and Support To Families in the Child Welfare field. On the other hand I see a vote of $7.7 million, an increase of $2.7 million, for Youth Corrections. I want to ask a general question but I would like the minister to try and be a bit specific in his answer.

My general question is: What are we doing wrong here if the kind of services that we are providing for children in need is apparently being decreased in emphasis, and the provision of secure custody and community correctional services after something goes wrong - we are increasing that budget by almost 50 per cent and we are decreasing the support to children who need the protection of society. It seems to me that if we were doing more in the prevention field and looking after the needs of children, providing services to them and support to their families, that we wouldn't be doing, or wouldn't have to do, the kinds of things that we are paying for with the 50 per cent increase in spending on Youth Corrections.

Would the minister care to comment on that overview that I perceive in looking at the child welfare budget versus the youth corrections budget?

MR. LUSH: First, what the hon. member is assuming is that the amount of money that one spends in child welfare will be reflected in youth corrections. I am not going to argue with the hon. member because I do not know. I am not sure there is always that type of correlation. The hon. member would like to see it the other way and so would I, where you spend $7 million in child welfare and only spend half as much in -

MR. HARRIS: No, I am talking about the increase. In one year the increase goes from $5 million to $7.7 which is over a 50 per cent increase on the one hand for youth corrections and the child welfare budget has decreased from last year. We are talking about serious changes in caseload. I have some stats here showing that in 1991-92 - now that is not the year we are talking about, we are talking about 1993-94 - but I do not suppose it is any different and if it is perhaps the minister can tell me.

There were 4538 reports of children in need of protection in 1991-92. About one third, 1407, were for alleged sexual abuse, 953 for alleged physical abuse, 438 for emotional abuse, and 1700 and some odd cases of neglect, so we have a considerable claim against the department asking for assistance for children in need of protection. Anybody who has had any familiarity with the court system as lawyers, judges or social workers can probably tell you -and I am sure Mr. Browne and others who have been involved directly in the social work field, and Mr. Peckford as well, that the people you see in youth court and the people you see in the secure custody down below, or wherever they end up, are people who have been, shall we say, clients of the department a little earlier in their lives as children in need of protection, or come from families in need of support, or have family problems that if proper programs existed could perhaps save them the need of this kind of corrective behaviour.

Are we doing it wrong, Mr. Minister? Have we got the wrong end of the stick, as they say sometimes? Are we placing our emphasis in the wrong place?

MR. LUSH: I do not think we are. The estimates made on child welfare are estimates made taking into account the trends right now and the estimate made there of the amount to be spent, the amount to be voted, which is the more accurate figure of $10,950,000 in child welfare, is the figure that the department thinks it will need this year. If we need more we will certainly do it, but this is the figure that the government in its wisdom figures it will need. The same thing applies to the youth corrections.

Now, the hon. gentleman is looking at the net figures which discounts the federal transfers in a way, but the bottom line is that the estimates are made on the basis of what the department assumes it is going to need for this coming year. As I said with child welfare if more money is needed it will be found there.

MR. HARRIS: That money, Mr. Minister, much of it goes to support, in some cases, residential services, social workers assisting and preventive action. I am looking here at the expenditures that the department undertakes in prevention which quite often show up in a number of social workers, for example, and as you know, and I presume that you not only release these reports, Breaking the Cycle of Child Abuse, one written by a former director of Child Welfare, and also the report of the Child Welfare League of America. A proposal was made to deal with some of the problems identified in the Child Welfare League of America's report. The proposal of Mr. Stapleton, Terry Stapleton's proposed initiatives, in terms of helping families to care for their children and safely look after them, the children who are in need of protection.

Part of the strategy proposed and the initiatives that were proposed to assist these families was to increase the number of social workers, and the proposal included an additional twenty-five social workers in 1993-1994, and an additional fifteen social workers in 1994-1995, an additional twelve in 1995-1996. This was a plan to over a period of three years try to address that need for assistance to families with children in need of protection and support by increasing the social workers available for that. Federally-provincially cost-shared, the estimated cost in 1993-1994 being $966,000 altogether with the provincial share being half of that, at $483,000, and the estimated cost in 1994-1995 of the provincial share being $323,700.

Can the minister tell us whether any of those actions were taken in 1993-1994 with respect to the suggested budgetary action for 1993-1994? The twenty-five social workers. Is the minister proposing in 1994-1995 to address the need by adding an additional fifteen social workers at a cost of $323,000?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris' time has expired but I will give the minister....

MR. LUSH: First, just to comment on the allocation for child welfare. The amounts we are talking about here under Child Welfare are not the only monies that are spent in child welfare. In all of our district offices we have social workers who would be doing child welfare work where the monies would show up under different headings. This is just in this specific heading. The monies that we are spending on child welfare here far exceed than what is here, specifically under Child Welfare.

With respect to the Stapleton report the department is in a restructuring mode and in that restructuring we are looking at the maximum use of the personnel that we now have. We are limited in times of restraint. I think people would realize the difficult economic times that we are in. We are looking at the maximum utilization of the staff that we have, collapsing offices throughout the Province so that we can bring together all of our people in a specialty and offering the best services that we can.

This year because of the growth in the caseload it was determined that FAOs were the concentration for this particular year - financial assistance officers - and clerical people who, in their combined effort, assist with child welfare in an indirect way. Because a lot of the clerical people there now are quite overloaded. As we bring in these extra clerical people, along with the financial assistance officers, that is going to ease the situation. Because what we were having in many district offices is that we would have social workers doing the work of financial assistance officers. I think all hon. members would agree that that certainly was not a maximum utilization of the personnel that we had.

That was the step that we took this year. It was reacting to a crisis that came upon us because of the growth in the caseloads, so that's where we determined where the greatest need was in this particular fiscal year. As restructuring advances, I am sure that we're going to get into the area the hon. member refers to with respect to social workers for child welfare, and it's certainly an aim of the department to do this.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Verge?

MS. VERGE: Five years ago the Liberals, on taking office, promised a new daycare act. Considerable work had been done on drafting a new daycare act before that. The Premier specifically made that promise when he campaigned for election in 1989.

Also on taking office the government, specifically the first Liberal minister, John Efford, promised that he was working on getting a new child welfare act before the House of Assembly in the fall of 1989. Five years later neither one has seen the light of day.

When I asked Minister Eric Gullage two years ago, he said that he had a Cabinet paper in the system on the new child welfare act, and that he was expecting the bill to come before the House of Assembly that fall - that was 1992 - and that somebody in the system was working on a Cabinet paper for the new daycare act. What happened, and how much longer are we going to have to wait for (a) the new child welfare act, and (b) the new daycare legislation?

MR. LUSH: Both are being worked upon and, as the hon. member would appreciate -

MS. VERGE: Are you paying people by the hour to work on these new bills?

MR. LUSH: I think they're under a monthly salary, like the member and like myself, but it is being worked upon. I hesitate to get into times, but I would certainly hope that -

MS. VERGE: The next five years? Not the first five years, but maybe the second five years.

MR. LUSH: I would hope to be able to see it during my time as minister.

MS. VERGE: Do you have any hope at all that it might come to the House of Assembly in 1994, either one of them?

MR. LUSH: Yes, that's my hope, but I don't know what obstacles we will run into. I think we are very close, but it's just one of those things. I am hoping, certainly, that -

MS. VERGE: Has the Legislative Council drafted a new child welfare act?

MR. LUSH: I'm just trying to think now which one is likely to come first.

AN HON. MEMBER: Daycare.

MR. LUSH: Daycare, that's the most likely one.

MS. VERGE: Okay. Has Legislative Council drafted a new daycare act?

MR. LUSH: I think it's been drafted and redrafted.

MS. VERGE: Has Cabinet approved the redraft for submission to the House?

MR. LUSH: No.

MS. VERGE: Is it in the Cabinet system now?

MR. LUSH: I believe it was in the Cabinet system and then referred back again. Since it was referred back again it hasn't come the second time.

MS. VERGE: Okay. Has Legislative Council drafted a new child welfare act?

MR. LUSH: I can't say whether they've gone that far, no.

MS. VERGE: So there's no hope that will come to the House.

MR. LUSH: No, I wouldn't say there's -

MS. VERGE: There are some glaring problems with the child welfare act that some of us have been asking about year after year after year. One of them is the gap in the provision of services for young people between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Why can't we just cooperate and plug that gap? I ask about that every year, so... I am just asking the same questions that I ask every year, because nothing seems to get - nothing improves; everything just festers.

MR. LUSH: I'm glad the hon. member does it, because I would like to see it, too. Every time there's a problem -

MS. VERGE: Well, you can do it and we in the Opposition... It's a simple little amendment; we could write it up here tonight and come in tomorrow and whip it through.

MR. LUSH: The hon. member knows it's a little more than that. It's actively being pursued, that we bump up the age to eighteen, but as the hon. member knows, there are budgetary considerations there too, so that is a consideration. But it is being actively pursued and I would hope that by the next time, if I have the opportunity to come before the Estimates Committee, I will be able to say something more definitively than what I'm saying now.

MS. VERGE: The social assistance caseload is what, now about 36,000?

MR. LUSH: No. My latest figures were thirty-four - we've got them here.... It is not 36,000, I don't think. Here we are. As of the end of March, which is fairly accurate, it was 35,416, or -

MS. VERGE: That is an increase by the way of over 15,000 since the change of government five years ago. Five years ago it was 19,700.

MR. LUSH: Yes, right.

MS. VERGE: I see that this year you are budgeting only slightly more spending on social assistance than you ended up spending last year. The department has consistently under-budgeted social assistance requirements. I would suggest that history will repeat itself and that you've under-budgeted again this year. I've heard the minister say that the UI changes were factored into this projection. How can that be if you are budgeting spending only a tiny amount more than last year? Only a 1.5 percentage increase from last year. You wouldn't have known about TAGS when the Budget was done up so those negative changes couldn't possibly have been figured into this. Would you be willing to estimate now how much more you will have to get by way of special warrants? Another $20 million or $40 million maybe?

MR. LUSH: Nobody is saying that. We are a bit optimistic that things will change but nobody - when these estimates are done - the hon. member is as aware as anybody how that is done. Take into consideration the global picture and the economic trends at the time and the caseload at the time, and make a projection. The department was aware, the government was aware, of UI changes, although we weren't totally aware of the specifics. We were aware of what was happening in UI. I think the department estimated $7 million for changes - or a negative impact of UI.

With respect to TAGS the hon. member is correct. That wasn't known at the time. All that was factored in was what was known of the fisheries at the time, the downturn in the economy. But it is very difficult speculating about all of this because one doesn't know what is going to happen. We could be naysayers and prophets of gloom and doom and to suggest that all of the people who are displaced from the fisheries are going to be on UI. That is a bit unrealistic too, to think that all of the people on UI are going to be there. What is the department to do?

We could take the very worst scenarios and put in this figure which would be unrealistic, or we take a reasonable estimate in terms of what we've done. At this point in time we see no necessity to revise the figures upwards. Again social assistance is a statutory requirement, so we have to provide social assistance when people establish the need. As of this point in time, we don't see any need to revise the figures upwards.

With respect to the fisheries package, TAGS, the major impact from that is going to come near the end of the year. That is quite some time yet. A number of things can happen in that time.

Number one, we can begin to see some of the effects of the government's own Strategic Economic Plan, and hopefully the federal plan, so we're hoping there are going to be some things happening in the economy in the next eight or ten months that are going to relieve the burden somewhat that all of these people aren't going to come to social services either with UI or with the fisheries.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Verge. I will now recognize Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, first of all in your budget item 4.1.01, page 307, just a general comment with regard to daycare services. I notice that you are projecting there a slight increase. I did have some experience in my previous profession in working closely with the department in trying to provide services, although ours were related more to a school setting, in providing preschool programs, and I just wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to point out that I really feel that the support assistance that your department can provide in that area is certainly very beneficial, because from our experience in Port au Port I would venture to say in all modesty that the program we have operating there now, which is in it's fifth year, by the way, could never have operated without the active support of the Department of Social Services.

So I would like to commend the department, and especially recognize the efforts of the people in the field, the local manager, and some of the officials here. Certainly Mr. Browne would be quite familiar with some of our earlier discussions and some of the difficulties that the department felt in being able to get involved in this program, but with the efforts of the people who are working at the local level we are able to bring this about. So I just wanted to mention it for the record and to commend the department and encourage that continued support, because I think that kind of effort - and this is an example of cooperation between two departments, because I think initially when we started looking at that it was from the point of view that the response that we were getting was that this was really the responsibility - should be - of the Department of Education. Of course, the Department of Education refuses to recognize responsibility for it, so without your department it could never have happened.

I just wanted to mention it, and certainly want to encourage you, Mr. Minister, to see that this kind of support is continued, not only in the Port au Port area, but I do know there are other areas in the Province as well where this is happening.

MR. LUSH: If I just might comment, there are a lot of things going on with respect to daycare and early childhood education. I just this week opened a conference here - Friday, the weekend - the early childhood educators, and it was a fantastic conference that they had, some 200 people in early childhood right throughout the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It's rather heart-warming, really, to know the kind of activity that's going on around the Province. I tell you, as a person and as an individual, I only wish that we could make a greater effort, but it's a new area and we're developing it, and I think that within a few years we're going to have a level of daycare that's on a par with anything else in the country. We realize that we have some miles to travel, but we're moving.

MR. SMITH: Item 4.2.04, The Right Future, can you give me some idea what that particular program is? I think I've heard it referenced before.

MR. LUSH: The Right Future is the program whereby in cooperation with the funding from the federal government we are moving people from the Waterford out into a community, family environment. I think there's some 100 people involved and a little over that. We've got twenty-five moved now and hopefully by the end of the year I think we'll probably have over sixty. So it's a five year program and it's totally funded by the federal government, $10 million. What we see there now in the figures is what would be spent by the end of this year. So the program is an excellent program of moving people out of the Waterford, people who went there with physical disabilities or mentally challenged. Under normal circumstances today they wouldn't have been put there but for whatever circumstances they got put there, placed there and with our humanitarian people today, somebody - I don't know who it was, I guess somebody in the department - somebody saw the necessity of doing this. This is what the program is and it's moving along very satisfactorily with some excellent reports at this point in time of the way residents are feeling about the moves and the quality of life. Already people can see great changes in these people.

MR. SMITH: So these people who are being moved out from these institutions, are they being moved back into an institutional type environment within the community or is it back to the homes?

MR. LUSH: Back to the homes and not necessarily to their families but in some cases they are. In some cases they're families, some cases they're relatives and some cases it's just alternate families and people who wanted to do this. So no institutionalization at all. It's every case into a home, into a family or alternate families.

MR. SMITH: Thank you. 5.1.01 on Page 311, community development projects. In this area, Mr. Minister, this again as well in my own district is something that is certainly of interest. We have availed of this over the years and I'm certainly pleased to see the allocation is there for it. I'm just wondering, in terms of last years effort in this area, how many projects would we have been talking about across the Province and how many people in total would have been employed?

MR. LUSH: I should say to the hon. member, this whole area of employment opportunities is an area in which we're making a major change in emphasis this year, again in line with the governments Strategic Economic Plan, that tied in with our economic social plan. The emphasis is on training and creating a situation that will make people permanent members of the labour force, in as much as that can be done, moving from dependence to independence. That's the major thrust even though all other programs that we had are still there but the major thrust is towards creating self-sufficiency. Now last year, in the community development program specifically, we employed 3,768 people. So there were jobs for 3,768, no training, it was all jobs. This year with the change the prediction is that there will be 4,042 jobs this year along with 783 involved in training in community development.

MR. SMITH: How many projects would that involve? Do you have those figures? You mentioned 3,768 people involved.

MR. LUSH: No, I do not have the number of projects. I expect we should be able to get those but we do not have them now.

I will try and provide them for the hon. member.

MR. SMITH: I have another question with regard to that. How are those funds allocated? Is that done on a regional basis? I would assume there is some attempt made to try and distribute the funds equitably across the Province?

MR. LUSH: There are regional budgets but as the hon. member would know there are some areas would spent more of it than others because of their need for it, so every region is given a budget but at the end of the year when this region has money left over we will reallocate it to another area, so it does not end up being an even distribution.

MR. SMITH: Are there controls placed on the flow of these funds so they are not all expended within the first quarter? Is there any attention given to that?

MR. LUSH: There were. That was not my experience last year. As a matter of fact I said to my people that some reminded me of a young boy, who, when his mother gave him his weekly allowance he spent it all on Monday. My experience last year when I became minister was that almost all the money was gone then. The reason for it, of course, was that there was a backlog of applications. People have them waiting there now so as soon as the money is let loose I suppose the projects are assigned.

Personally I do not know how we can do this. Number one, it is not a lot of money to that extent but I would like to see it the way that the member is suggesting, an even gradual distribution throughout the year, but that is not the situation right now.

MR. SMITH: Do not get me wrong I am not suggesting that you do it that way. I was just curious as to whether or not that was happening in reality.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired, Sir. You want to be down again, do you? Okay. Before I recognize Mr Harris I want to point out that Mr. Fitzgerald has now joined the committee. He is replacing Mr. Hodder, and for the benefit of my colleagues on the committee his credentials are in order and he can now speak as a regular member. He is a bona fide member at this point, so I now recognize Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: I want to go back and talk about the issue of the protection of children and looking after children who are in care. The minister has indicated that the department has chosen to place the priority on the increase in financial assistance officers and clerical support, but what I see fairly starkly in the report of the Child Welfare League of America is the discrepancy between the caseloads that this report says are compromising the department's ability to protect children. It says that the Department of Social Service's caseloads are sometimes double, triple, or more in some instances.

The Child Welfare League of America has recommended minimum standards within the field of child welfare. It says in the report of December 18, 1992 that it is not possible to determine the actual individual work or caseload ratios in Newfoundland because of generic caseloads in child welfare and the use of child welfare workers in conducting other business such as processing social assistance claims. It says the department's own rough analysis suggest 103 additional child welfare staff are necessary department-wide.

First of all, I want to ask you whether or not that is accurate, that the department's own analysis suggested at that time that 103 additional Child Welfare staff were necessary. If that is not accurate please tell me. If it is not accurate please can you provide me with the report that tells us what it actually is.

Because it strikes me that if the level of operating - and I won't use the word efficiency, because we are not talking about efficiency when it comes to children - but in terms of the operating caseload, if it is that far off the kind of minimum standards that are needed to protect children, then I've got a real concern. If this report says that the department's own analysis suggests 103 Child Welfare staff are necessary then I have a real question as to why the government, and the minister and his department, is placing the emphasis where it is.

MR. LUSH: Well, when you see social assistance caseload of 35,000 I think that pretty clearly tells you what the immediate crisis is. We are not certain that the caseloads identified by the Child Welfare League of America reflect the true situation because of the way in which the caseloads are kept. In many cases a person can be off the caseload and it is not eliminated, it is still there. Sometimes when a person comes in, for example, like social assistance, and they've established their claim, there is no great effort to that after that is done. The person is there and as long as they are on the caseload it is not causing any great degree of frustration because it just keeps on going.

MR. HARRIS: I'm talking, Mr. Minister, about children in need of protection, not people who are receiving a cheque.

MR. LUSH: I'm pointing out to the -

MR. HARRIS: I guess the specific question was: Is he correct, is this report correct in saying that the department's own analysis showed a need for 103 additional workers in the Child Welfare area? If that is correct I question why the minister's department is not addressing that. If that is not correct could the minister provide the actual number that the department's analysis feels is deficient in Child Welfare staff?

MR. LUSH: I'm not sure that the department has its own analysis of precisely how many people we would need. We have added seventy-five social workers to the system in the last two or three years. I say to the hon. member again, because of the circumstances of this particular year the department's priority was in the area of FAOs and clerical staff. Which I suggest to the hon. member will be of great assistance in helping those social workers in working on their cases. In many instances - and I think if the hon. member reads the report as he is doing he will see references to the fact that record keeping wasn't great. A part of that record keeping obviously reflects upon the inadequacy of clerical staff. The clerical staff who we've added is certainly going to help social workers. The FAOs who we've added to the staff are going to free social workers to work in the area of Child Welfare.

So even though we did not have people specifically assigned to Child Welfare the people we've added, particularly the clerical staff, but I again say that the FAOs are going to help, because it is going to free social workers to work primarily in the area for which they've been trained, rather than working in the area of social assistance. It is not what we wanted. I would be the first to admit that we could use several more social workers right throughout the Province, but it is a matter of priorities, it is a matter of what we can afford at this particular time.

MR. HARRIS: The seventy-five social workers who you are talking about, the only ones I'm aware of are the ones who were put in place several years ago when Mr. Efford was the Minister of Social Services, several ministers ago. I believe it would have been in 1989 or 1990 that that was done. This report was done in December of 1992 and at that time it suggested that the department's own analysis said there was a need for 103 additional staff in Child Welfare. The Director of Child Welfare in March of 1993 before he resigned the position produced a plan which suggested that there be certain administrative actions taken to look after risk assessment for children who are in need of protection, amendments to the child welfare act to provide for the provision of services to families to prevent the child from coming into care, and to support the notion of the presentation of a case plan to the court to ensure that children who do come into care have a plan either for return to that home or for permanent care.

One of the weaknesses identified - part of it I suppose was the lack of reporting - but in part of it, some of these reports that we are talking about that were lacking - in other words in about 60 per cent, 58 per cent of the cases, there was no case plan. No plan for what was going to happen to a child who was in need of protection, already defined - and these are the 4,500 we are talking about. Either children who were neglected or who were sexually abused or emotionally abused. We are talking about serious cases of children in need of protection. A plan was proposed by the former Director of Child Welfare to provide for, over a three year period, fifty-two additional social workers to deal with it.

Either there is 103 necessary or there is fifty-two necessary. I want to know whether the minister has seriously examined the need for additional social workers to conduct the services that are required to protect children in this Province who are, for one reason or another, in need of protection. It breaks down that about one-third are neglected children, about one-third are sexually abused children and the other third are either emotionally abused or for other reasons are in need of protection. Someone has to look after the needs of these children, I say to the minister. I recognize you have other problems in terms of handling the bureaucracy and in dealing with welfare claims or social assistance claims. These needs have been identified as serious needs which are going to affect these children now and in the future, and potentially for their whole lives if something is not done at this early stage to provide for their needs.

I want to ask the minister again. If the minister says that this figure of 103 is not necessarily accurate because there are some Child Welfare workers doing FAO work that is now being taken over, what is the new number? If it is down from 103 what is it now? What does the minister's analysis say about that?

MR. LUSH: We never ever said it was 103. We didn't say it was anything.

MR. HARRIS: Is this report inaccurate then?

MR. LUSH: I'm not saying the report is inaccurate, but what you have there is a report that is suggesting ideal situations. We've never been able to get to ideal situations in this Province in terms of ratios, be it in health, be it in education. That is not to say that we couldn't do with more social workers. What I've said to the hon. members, in these times of economic malaise that the government has been taking steps towards the maximum use of the personnel that we have in this Province. I want to just say that the people in Social Services, the workers in the field, have been providing yeoman service and we are aware of that.

But we have done things. The hon. member mentions risk assessments and case planning. I can tell the hon. member, all that is happening right now as a result of that report. We've taken the initiative and risk assessment is in place, planning is in place. There is a tremendous amount of training going on throughout the Province. Hardly a time you can visit any Social Service office in this Province as I've done but three or four of the staff are out somewhere on a training session. There is a great coordinated effort right throughout the Province. I think we've done those things because we realize that achievement of the numbers that has been recommended is probably a little out of reach at this particular time. We believe if we can maximize the effort of the people that we have that we can go a long ways towards dealing with this problem, offering children the best protection possible.

One other thing I wanted to say that we've done is the consolidation of our offices, where we've closed out small offices with probably just an FAO there or an FAO and a social assistant and brought that under a bigger umbrella where we can offer a more effective and a more efficient service. These are some of the steps that we have taken. Yes, we realize that there have been some weaknesses in this area, but we believe we've taken some real large strides towards improving the situation. I would suggest that if the Child Welfare League of America were to do a study today that they would find many of the things that they addressed are corrected as of this moment.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris?

MR. HARRIS: Is the minister prepared to invite them back for a review of progress to date?

MR. LUSH: I'm prepared to invite them back, yes, any time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. This is the fifth anniversary of the change of government. I've got here the estimates for 1989-1990 and Hansard for the Estimates Committee's examination of that first 'real change` Budget. What I see is that when the Liberal government took over the social assistance caseload was 19,600, which the first minister called shameful and promised that it wouldn't be that much next year. Government's total spending on social assistance then in 1988-1989, the last PC year, was $104 million. Total government spending on employment opportunities in that last PC year was $18.7 million. For the last PC year the caseload was $19,600, by the way, of whom the minister, Mr. Efford, said: 4,100 are able-bodied people. Total spending on social assistance was $104 million; total Social Services spending on employment opportunities was $18.7 million. In that last PC year 18 per cent of what was spent on social assistance went for employment opportunities, and at that time 4,100 people on the social assistance caseload were considered by the minister to be able-bodied.

Now the caseload, according to the current minister, is 35,000. That is more than 15,000 more. The minister is acknowledging that that caseload is going to swell this year because of the UI changes and because of TAGS. The government is estimating spending of $204 million this year on social assistance. That is $100 million or almost double what was actually spent in the last PC year. The government is estimating spending $14.9 million on employment opportunities.

The employment opportunities effort estimated for the year ahead is $4 million less than what was actually spent in 1988-1989 and in percentage terms of the outlay on welfare it's less than half. Presumably, most of the people who've joined the welfare roles in the last five years are able-bodied and they've had to resort to social assistance because of the collapse of the economy. How can we possibly justify cutting, so terribly, the effort for employment opportunities? I mean wouldn't it be better to spend money for able-bodied people to do useful needy projects rather than simply send them welfare cheques and give them no opportunity to work, contribute, serve their communities or train. How does that make any sense?

MR. LUSH: Let me see all the comparisons that the member made there. We could take any comparisons in that period of time with respect to the economy and it would be proof positive of deterioration in the whole of the Canadian economy. The hon. member would do well to look at the unemployment statistics at that particular time and compare them to what they are now. I think the analogy the hon. member was making in the meantime with the effort put into job creating -

MS. VERGE: To employment opportunities by social services.

MR. LUSH: - to employment opportunities by social services to what it is now. I think the hon. member has made some allusion to the able-bodied figures. Now the able-bodied figures at that time - was it four?

MS. VERGE: 4100 out of a caseload of 19,600.

MR. LUSH: Out of 20,000 - okay 20,000 which is a fifth.

MS. VERGE: About 20 per cent, yes.

MR. LUSH: Now it's a third, roughly, that's what the able-bodied figures would be if you take a third of thirty-five and - that's not right, probably closer to 28 per cent but we're talking about I believe about 11,000 would be the able-bodied. Now in terms of what's happened to the economy, the total collapse of the fishery and as I said, the tremendous economic malaise we're in I don't think that's an unreasonable percentage - we wish we didn't have them at all but in terms of the growth that a third - not quite, about 30 per cent more likely, between thirty and thirty-three per cent of the able-bodied -

MS. VERGE: But why are you spending so much less for employment opportunities when you've got 11,000 able-bodied people on social assistance then was spent in 1988-89 when we had only 4100 able-bodied people on social assistance?

MR. LUSH: Because the thrust of this government - the philosophical approach of this government is different. This government doesn't believe that it should be the sole creator of jobs, that this should be left to private enterprise and anything that we're into -

MS. VERGE: But the reality of what you're doing is that you're sending welfare cheques to way more able-bodied people without assisting them to work in service sectors. I mean there are lots of social service operations who desperately need more people and many people who are healthy on social assistance would dearly love to work there but they don't have a chance because the community development funding doesn't stretch far enough.

MR. LUSH: Again it's a matter of a philosophical approach. This government doesn't believe that it should be the one creating jobs, that that's the job of private enterprise.

MS. VERGE: Well I know you're not creating jobs and I know that the economy has gone down the tubes but why can't you just switch money from social assistance to community development? You've got all these healthy, able-bodied people drawing social assistance. Most of them would be happier -

MR. LUSH: So the hon. member must like our ISP plan. That's what all of that was about. The philosophy of this government is to provide incentives, but -

MS. VERGE: That's not going to be implemented. Why don't you do what you can with the power that you've got in the meantime?

MR. LUSH: Because I think that we probably thought that in conjunction with the federal government we might be a little bit more advanced into the federal government's social plan, so we were working in conjunction with them in many of the things we wanted to do. We had to get their cooperation, so rather than -

MS. VERGE: Now that you know that's not going to fly in the short term, why don't you transfer $20 million from your social assistance vote and put it in your employment opportunities vote, and work in conjunction with a whole host of social agencies -

MR. LUSH: To do what? You just can't pull out $20 million. There's got to be a plan, and we have a plan here. It might not be as much as we would like to see, but at least it's a plan that we now have.

MS. VERGE: But the plan obviously involves paying most of the healthy, able-bodied people on social assistance money without giving them any opportunity to serve or work where they can and where they're needed.

There have been cuts in schools in teacher aides or student assistants, and for many years they were funded by social services. Why can't social services do that again in conjunction with the Department of Education to augment the staff they have?

MR. LUSH: Because we have a plan and we are waiting for that plan to become a reality. We didn't have two plans. We had a major plan, and a good one, I should think, with respect to income security. The hon. member would like to see us with a backup plan, and we didn't have a backup plan other than our regular.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Fitzgerald.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I apologize for being late, and if I ask a question and the answer has already been given maybe you can let me know that and I'll just move on.

The first question I would like to ask, Mr. Minister, is a question on the VRDP program, Vocational Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons. From what I understand, the agreement is a federal\provincial cost-shared program designed to assist disabled persons become employable.

I have a case which has been brought before me just recently, and I think you are familiar with the case, the situation where a registered nurse who had gone and paid for her training and got her Bachelor of Nursing was working as a registered nurse and was injured in a car accident, and visited your office some time ago looking for funding to complete her Master of Nursing. I understand that she's had a very limited time in order to complete that, and that some of the courses are only offered every four to eight years.

She has indicated to me, and I think she has brought the case forward to you, that she's not looking for a hand-out as such. She's looking for the loan of money, to borrow money through the VRDP program. She's injured now, unable to go back and practice her profession, but with her Masters Degree can make herself employable and go back and get a job as a lecturer or a teacher of nursing.

I am wondering why the Department of Social Services hasn't responded to that request.

MR. LUSH: I believe we've responded. I remember -

MR. FITZGERALD: Positively - responded positively to that request?

MR. LUSH: Oh, the hon. member didn't put a qualifier in there.

It's a sad situation. Governments and government policy, unfortunately, doesn't always meet every need there is. They're usually blanket policies, and as much as we wanted to help this young lady, I'm afraid that we couldn't do it.

The VRDP, the community itself decided on the way that money was going to be spent, and decided on who would qualify. It wasn't the department that drew up those regulations. The community itself made these regulations, so they're quite happy with what they have.

The hon. member mentioned she wanted a loan. Well, unfortunately, we are not in the business of lending money. Whether we should be is a different matter, but I can tell the hon. member that there was nobody in the department who spoke to that lady who wasn't moved by the situation, and we did everything we could to see if we could assist her, but I'm afraid it was just one of those situations where the person fell through the cracks, and unfortunately we were not able to assist her, but I can tell the hon. member that her case was researched thoroughly and done with empathy, with sympathy, and with concern. We all felt rather badly that there was nothing we could do about it. Coming at the end of the year, too, it sort of pushed us all, but in the meantime I am not sure had we six or seven months to work on it could we have done any better than what we did. It was one of those situations where there will always be some people who fall through the cracks, and I can tell the hon. member she is not the only one. I can think now of two others who came to me before she did, so you might think there is only one and say there is something you can do, but when it ends up it will be a very unusual situation if there is only one. There is usually a goodly number of them, but that does not address her situation.

I just want to tell the hon. member that I am quite familiar with it. We have dealt with it and unfortunately that was the situation. She did not qualify under the program rules. Sometimes you wish there was some flexibility. I am sure there is, but sometimes you cannot go beyond a certain point without changing the regulations entirely.

MR. FITZGERALD: It appeared to me that she might be a prime candidate for this program. You mentioned that you were not in the business of loaning money, but I think her approach in the beginning was a situation where she came to look for funding and the final approach for help was, look, if you can allow we funding then I would be more than willing to repay it after I get back to work or once the insurance settlement is made. Are you saying the department has made a final decision and there will be no help coming forward for this lady, Mr. Minister?

MR. LUSH: I say to the hon. member, yes, but another point I had forgotten in this, another important issue, quite apart from qualifying in her own right, but one of the requirements in the program, the stringent requirements, is that people not be funded for a second degree and I think that is for a very good reason. People get a degree and that puts them in a position, it gives them an advantage and sets them on a par with everybody else, so to sponsor them for another degree would be discriminatory to the other section of the population. So, again it was the community itself, the disabled community itself that decided they should only be sponsored for one degree so this lady already had a degree.

MR. SMITH: But I do not think it was a situation where your department sponsored her for that degree.

MR. LUSH: Oh, no, it wasn't.

MR. SMITH: So you are not sponsoring her for another degree. What you are doing is looking at making her more employable by helping her with the second degree. You made it sound as if you had sponsored her for the first degree.

MR. LUSH: I did not mean to.

MR. SMITH: Getting back to an issue that the vice-chairman raised on able-bodied people on social assistance. Mr. Minister has there been any indications that the Department of Social Services may look at mobility funding to help some of those people move to other places to access employment? I know a lot of cases, and I am sure other members do as well, where we have able-bodied people on social services right now who can identify a place where they could probably go to work but because of funding they are unable to travel to attend work and find themselves stuck on the social services roles much longer than they would probably like to be there.

MR. LUSH: It is something that the department is actively pursuing. Like him I know of all kinds of situations where people could very well do with that kind of assistance but it is not actively in pursuit at this moment.

MR. SMITH: It is not part of the policy of the Department of Social Services?

MR. LUSH: No.

MR. SMITH: The Newfoundland and Labrador Correctional Centre at Whitbourne. Is it an ordinary situation where we sentence youth and intermingle them with people on remand. Is that an ordinary situation?

MR. LUSH: I don't know what the hon. member -

MR. FITZGERALD: Okay, maybe I should clarify it. Is it an ordinary situation where we - sometimes when the remand centre, and I understand the remand centre in Pleasantville is capable of handling ten individuals, if I recall correctly, is it an ordinary situation where sometimes sentenced youth are taken from the Newfoundland Labrador Youth Centre in Whitbourne and transferred to the remand centre in Pleasantville when there's no need to bring extra people into the Whitbourne Youth Centre. I am wondering the reasons why they are being transferred.

MR. LUSH: I'll let the deputy address that.

MR. PECKFORD: Yes, we have ten beds here in St. John's and occasionally there is a need to transfer a youth from Whitbourne here to St. John's. That usually occurs when the youth is accessing services here in the St. John's area, so rather than transport the individuals back and forth to Whitbourne on a daily basis, or something like that, maybe medical services, psychiatric services, or some other services, they are often placed in the remand centre here in St. John's for a short period of time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired, Mr. Fitzgerald, so I think it's possibly a good time to have a break. There is coffee in the government members common room. The officials are welcome to take part and socialize over a coffee with members of the committee. We won't have any burning questions for you during the coffee break, so with that we will adjourn until 8:45 a.m.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, I will now call this meeting back to order, and I will recognize Ms. Young.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The question is for the minister regarding client services. There is some concern, I guess, about regionalizing the social services offices. How many centres will be considered?

MR. LUSH: (Inaudible).

MS. YOUNG: You say that under client services, 2.1.01, page 303, there is a network of fifty-three offices situated throughout the Province. Are you planning on reducing that number, and to what level?

MR. LUSH: There are scattered throughout the Province probably three or four or five smaller offices that in today's society are not able to carry out the full range of services offered by the department. I indicated a little earlier this evening that some of them may just have an FAO and one social worker, and a clerical person, and that is not designed to carry out the job effectively the way it should be today in terms of giving the full range of services, so where that is the case the department, in its restructuring, has decided for the maximum use of the staff, and for a more effective delivery of the service, to bring the smaller units together with a bigger unit. Consolidation, I suppose, is the broad umbrella term that we can use.

Right now we are doing that in three communities, as of this particular point in time. I think there's only three. There are some that would have to stay, for example, because of geography - the Coast of Labrador, in particular, wouldn't make any sense - but where we can consolidate, that's the plan.

MS. YOUNG: Thank you. My next question is regarding transition houses - that's 4.1.02, Page 307 - there's counselling referral services to battered women and their children, is there any consideration being given to counselling for the offenders?

MR. LUSH: I'm not sure whether there is a deliberate plan by the department for offenders. I know that we've considerate it in other areas but I don't think there's a deliberate plan for the offenders at the moment.

MS. YOUNG: I was involved, at a national level, in developing a video with a study guide that deals with family violence. One of the things that we were looking at there was using the whole community and the study guide and video was not meant to resolve the problems. It was meant more to involve all of the people out there as an awareness and to bring together all the services that are available, all the expertise that's out there. It's something that your department might be interested in obtaining a copy. It was produced by Birdsong Communications out of Saskatchewan and was produced with funding from Health and Welfare Canada with the cooperation of the Canadian Farm Womens' Network. It was an excellent piece of work and we've had rave reviews on it from the people who have used it.

The employment support services; you talk about developmentally delayed adults and they go through job training and job placement, how successful have the trainees been in obtaining employment?

MR. LUSH: I think it's been fairly successful, probably more successful within the groups themselves. There are agencies that work in this area, I'm thinking for example of an agency like The HUB, which would give a priority to hiring somebody that's disabled but I think that as the business community becomes more inclined to take these people - these programs are certainly being proven to be successful but I don't know that we've actually done a study kind of thing to analyze how successful it is. In terms of the programs themselves, just visiting the people and talking to the people involved, it's a great program for them in terms of gaining dignity and self esteem. Without any clear statistics off-hand, I can tell the member that it is successful.

MS. YOUNG: I was sort of interested in the vice-chairs comments regarding some of her ideas on how the social services program should operate and I'm surprised that none of these programs were implemented in her government's reign. I understand too that some of the programs that are coming out through your department may not be just painting the fence sort of thing, there would probably be more meaningful employment and I'm very pleased to hear that. Will you be involving the business community and organizations, both or -

MR. LUSH: Basically the structure in the past is remaining the same. Now we're not dismantling everything, the change is more in emphasis, the kind of work that's done. So the main components of the program are still in effect. If I could just give a list to the hon. member for example of the different types of things we're into here. We're into the community development projects; under this program, the Community Development Projects, there will be three sub-programs. One is linkage and that will be administered by the Department of Employment and Labour Relations, because they've been very effective in working in this program. Working with youth at risk, troubled youth, from ages fifteen to twenty-five, or somewhere in that area.

The second group will be private sector programs. Under that there are three programs. Subsidized employment initiative - a lot of members will be familiar with that one, that is the thirty-two week thing, I think it is thirty-two, twelve, ten, ten. On the job work experience, training on the job. Then the third one under the Community Development is called community development, and under it will be economic development initiatives, community support services, volunteer profit organizations, short-term funds. These are the areas that will be done under Community Development.

Under the Community Services, under that particular program, which is the one on the next page, page 312, these are the kinds of programs. They are divided into three sub-programs. The first one is a refurbishment program: basic repairs to group homes. The second one is home support services: training work placements in the field of home support. The third one is support staff. That is community organizations.

Basically all of the components of the program are still in effect but the thing that will change is the emphasis on the type of work and training. Two things, training and the type of work. The work would have to fit in with the Strategic Economic Plan. Work that is going to contribute to the economy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Minister. The member's time has expired.

MS. YOUNG: I thank the minister.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Smith.

MR. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The minister has already referenced a couple of things I wanted to touch on.

Item 5.1.02. I notice under this item that there is a reduction in Salaries and an increase in Professional Services. Maybe if you could just speak to that.

MR. LUSH: Again, this reflects the training and the change in the direct emphasis on training. This program was always training, in the meantime, the Employment Enhancement Initiatives. I think what is happening here, and I will stumble through it, and then if I haven't done it accurately I will ask one of my officials to address it.

I think this is where in the area of training that we are hiring professional people to do the training. People coming to a classroom. We've got groups out there, companies, that are into training. Rather than classify it as a salary it is that amount of money. For example, you would have some in Clarenville, people involved in training, teaching, upgrading, this kind of thing, so they are companies. We would be paying for their services. You can see that it is a big discrepancy really between the salary there and the $2 million.

I don't know, Mr. Peckford, whether I've done that adequately. If not, if you would like to add a word....

MR. PECKFORD: Yes, Mr. Minister, that is essentially correct. There is a shift in emphasis from just straight employment there to an employment which has a much larger training component to it. Clients for this particular program are selected with greater consideration given to their potential and their motivation and things like that. They are provided with a fairly complete assessment initially to ascertain just what their levels of skills and education are right now, and then routed into upgrading, ADE, that type of thing, and then on into other training programs.

There is a continuing shift in emphasis on training versus just straight employment. Some of the individuals would become involved in, as you can see by the amount - $965,000 in Salaries. That would be largely training allowances, but it would also include payment of wages while an individual would be working with an employer to get work experience and that sort of thing. You are very correct. As you can see, over the last year or two there has been a shift from straight employment-related to more training-related, with the hope that the investment in training will lead to a more secure, long-term placement rather than a short-term one.

MR. SMITH: Thank you. Mr. Minister, just three questions about the general operations of your department, and if you could just respond.

First of all, the social service investigators. There was quite a debate about this when these positions were created and this program was introduced. I wonder if you could make a comment or two as to how this program is working out in terms of the success of the program to this point in time. Maybe a number of charges that have been laid, or any information that you might have with regards to this particular program. In your estimation, is the program working?

MR. LUSH: Yes. I can tell the hon. member that the program is working and living up to all of the expectations which we had of it. The latest statistic that I saw which was for the end of February, and the actual savings to that point in time was - the Deputy Minister whispered a figure in my ear -the figure at that point in time at the end of February was $1.7 million, I believe.

That was to the end of February.

MR. PECKFORD: The end of March.

MR. LUSH: End of March, okay. The Deputy Minister tells me that to the end of March the figure is $2.1 million that we have saved. It is broken down into another category it also includes overpayments.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. LUSH: Yes. Overpayments is $800,000, so the total up to the end of March, year-end, is $2.1 million. We should say that that is not the full year, because these people didn't start working until October. That is when they were put out in the field. Probably it was more like November before they -

MR. SMITH: How many positions are we talking here?

MR. LUSH: Thirteen.

MR. SMITH: Thirteen positions.

MR. LUSH: Thirteen positions.

MR. SMITH: Thank you. Mr. Minister, this is a question as well with regards to - one of the major concerns in my District as you would be aware is housing and your urgent repair program that is being administered by the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation. It is my understanding that in the not-too-distant past the housing was handled directly by the Department of Social Services. I know from talking to some of the people in your department, depending on who you talk to, that the reviews are mixed as to how presently the program and the relationship with NLHC is working out. I'm just wondering from your perspective and that of your officials: Are you satisfied with the way this program is presently being delivered or are you receiving a large number of complaints with regards to the administration of this program?

MR. LUSH: The hon. member asked a question I'm sure that many of us have to deal with from time to time. I can't say that the department has encountered any real problems with the program since we - under the new arrangement, Newfoundland and Labrador Housing. At least, nothing really comes to mind. I don't know again whether my officials would like to make a comment on it, whether they have anything new to add to the situation.

MR. PECKFORD: Previously before becoming involved with the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing in the administration of this program the department experienced a lot of difficulty in administering this particular area.

As you can appreciate, the offices of the department do not necessarily contain people who have a good or any expertise in the provision of repairs, the provision of estimates, supervision of the work and so forth. So we were very unprepared to be able to undertake what is largely the estimation and monitoring of construction projects such as that. So our staff in the departments, unless they happened to possess a good understanding of that area, generally had a lot of problems coping with it. So when we decided then to work with Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, what we feel there is now we have a group of people who will understand the housing market, are able to provide adequate assessments and supervision of the projects.

Initially up front when we began working with them we did encounter some difficulties in the interface between ourselves and the Housing Corporation, who got referred and who didn't get referred and so forth. I think we've since worked those out and given the fact that the program is designed to provide for urgent repairs - this program is not at all intended to take over from the RAP program or other such programs that provide for more major upgrading and refurbishment of homes. This is to make a house - essentially the rule of thumb is, weathertight, where you have windows out and that sort of thing. So in a word, yes, we are quite happy with the arrangement right now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Peckford. Now, Mr. Smith you said you had three questions. You've got two questions answered. Maybe by leave of the committee you can ask the third.

MR. SMITH: Yes, it will only take a second and I'll be finished, that's it for me.

AN HON. MEMBER: By leave.

MR. SMITH: Mr. Chairman, the other thing with regards to that, how long has this particular arrangement been in place now? Two years?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. SMITH: It might be in order to just do a review of that because I did find in my own situation this past year that it was necessary to convene a meeting with the officials of the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation and the managers of two of the district offices that serve my district. Subsequently, we found the meeting to be very productive in bringing all of the players together there to have a discussion. In light of that, it might be in order to just forward a letter from your officials down to the regional office to request information as to how the arrangement is working out and if there are any concerns, just a suggestion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to commend the minister on his commitment to invite the Child Welfare League of America to revisit the issues that they've discussed in its December 18, 1992 report. As the minister indicated, I think he said that he thought that the child welfare league would be impressed with the changes that have been made and I'm delighted that he's prepared to be so open about the progress that he has achieved since this report was released. I do say, I think after some delay by previous ministers, I think perhaps cautiousness on the part of previous ministers and maybe officials - this is the first minister who had agreed publicly and has made available the policy manuals of the department, the Child Welfare League of America report, the internal report of Mr. Stapleton and has now expressed his willingness to invite the Child Welfare League of America to come back again. So I commend him for that and I look forward to following up on that.

I know that I ask a lot of questions here that perhaps the minister doesn't know all of the answers to and no doubt has to defend the department but I think it's even better to have someone with an objective viewpoint, such as the Child Welfare League, to come. I want to say that I'm delighted that the minister is prepared to extend that invitation.

Can I ask the minister: Are there any women in senior positions within the department? This is the first committee that we've had here where you look over across the way and the Department of Health had three or four senior executives who are women, and the other departments who we have had the pleasure of -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: Pardon?

MS. VERGE: Education had one.

MR. HARRIS: The Department of Education had one. I wasn't here for that meeting.

MS. VERGE: Justice had one.

MR. HARRIS: Justice had one. There were two or three here from the Department of Health. Environment and Lands had a senior executive who was the assistant deputy minister. I thought we had some sort of policy of promoting gender equity and appointments to senior positions in the public service? Is that policy enacted in your department as well, minister?

MR. LUSH: If there weren't a policy we would do it, of course. As I am looking at the management of the department, for example the programming planning and planning activity of the department is into five separate administrative units, and I will just take a quick glance here. Out of the five separate units three are female. Strategic and social planning, the director of that is female; child welfare administration, the director of that is a female; and youth corrections, the director of that is a female.

I should comment with respect to the members talking about the Child Welfare League of America. I can only add to that by saying we have a very close relationship with the Child Welfare League of America. The representative for Canada, I don't know what her position would be - is it vice-president of the Child Welfare League? Whatever the position, the head person in Canada for the Child Welfare League of America has a very close relationship with the Department of Social Services. As a matter of fact, she's a frequent visitor to our offices, so we feel very good with the relationship we have with the Child Welfare League of America.

We did run into a problem with the American representative, but we sort of discarded that and we have a good relationship with the Canadian, and I think the American representation will improve as a result of some of the actions we've taken.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you.

There are a lot of detailed recommendations here that obviously have to do with professional aspects of child protection and child welfare and are not really appropriate for this kind of forum, although this seems to be the best forum that we as opposition members have in dealing with policy as well as financial issues other than questions in the House.

I note that one of the areas that the Child Welfare League of America report deals with is, I guess, recommendation number 12. In order to strengthen services to families and support children in their own homes, family support services and family preservation programming should be expanded. That is one of the recommendations and is consistent with the theme of my first question, which is: Are we doing enough to prevent things from happening? Mr. Minister, you've found an extra $2.7 million to lock children up, if I may be so crude as to say, on the correctional services side of things, and yet at the same time in the area of preventive services one of the action steps recommended here is that the social services should explore the development of formal contracts with service providers such as child daycare, mental health, family resource centres and other community services, to establish priority for services to child welfare clients.

I note that at least two agencies operating in St. John's, the working group on child sexual abuse and the Family Resource Centre here on Harvey Road in St. John's, two groups, one working on the sexual abuse issues which, as we know, represents about one-third of the child protection referrals to your department, and another which has placed emphasis on developing ways of working with families before problems come about, and providing resource to families, one which has been very well respected by the families that are here. In fact, I have received a number of letters on that supporting it, and I think I wrote the minister two months ago but I have not heard from him yet, asking him to support that organization.

In light of the apparent discrepancy between being able to find money to deal with people after they get into trouble, and not the other way around, can the minister tell us what efforts have been made by the department to deal with these problems? Outside of the correction side what new initiatives has the department undertaken in trying to develop supports in the community and work with the supports that are there? Why has the minister not been able to find some money to help support the organizations such as the working group on child sexual abuse and the family resource centre?

MR. LUSH: First of all I want to comment on the hon. member's reference to the fact that we are spending a lot of money on locking them up. Well, I do not know whether the hon. member has visited the youth centre at Whitbourne but I think if he did, and I am not suggesting he didn't, but if he did he would have to agree that there is a lot more to that particular facility than just a lockup. As a matter of fact it is probably one of the better facilities of its kind in the whole of the country. There is a lot of money being spend there on treatment and rehabilitation. As a matter of fact I would think that in the sense that we have to have a unit like that we ought to be very proud that it is one that is operating very effectively and very efficiently with a wide range of treatment programs there for the residents.

I tell the hon. member that if he had attended some of the events that we have he would be absolutely pleased with what is happening there and the tremendous staff that we have there. We attended a closing program in June almost resembling a closing program in any other school. I can tell you the activities of that day were excellent.

With respect to training in the area of prevention we are into a number of activities. The hon. member mentions two groups specifically that we did not fund and I only wish we were able to fund them. The working group on sexual abuse was never funded, that is core funding, by the Department of Social Services. This group got going back three or four years ago following the Mount Cashel affair. They got funded basically by federal funds and probably by private funding, I do not know, but the Department of Social Services involvement was to provide them with workers for certain projects. We never ever gave them any direct funding

The problem this year, again, in the difficult economic times was to try and fund what we had already been funding, and I felt very proud that through a major effort on the part of the department we were able to keep the status quo with all of the groups we had a history of funding. As a matter of an expenditure control the policy of government was that we take on no new funding and the same applied to the family resource centre. Because it was an area of new funding we just could not get into it but we had several others that were every bit as practical and as worthwhile as the family resource centre and the working group on sexual abuse.

I visited the family resource centre and there is no question that they were performing great work, but there is a limit on what we can fund. Unfortunately, as worthy as both these organizations were, we found ourselves in the position of not being able to fund them in this particular fiscal year.

Which begs the question: When the federal government gets into funding things it puts the Province in an awkward position. When they come up with these short-term funding projects of funding this and that, and then when they decide to pull the rug, invariably these people will come after the Province. We do all we can to ensure that we don't get into any of these funding arrangements. We get into something with the federal government; we want to ensure that it is an ongoing funding. It is not going to be something that is going to be here for a few years and then the rug pulled out from under these people.

This is the problem and we only hope that certainly the Family Resource Centre can continue and I would hope that the working group can as well. If it were possible that we would have found the money for both groups but it was - I believe we were looking for something in the order of probably $400,000 for both groups. I say to the hon. member that sometimes we are restricted by the financial limits of the Province.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I will now recognize Ms. Verge.

MS. VERGE: I have some questions about daycare. Daycare is an area where the Department of Social Services should be working in close cooperation with the Departments of Health and Education but there never has been the kind of coordination or cooperation that is ideal.

Within the past few months I've heard from people working for the Department of Health in the field of education in the Corner Brook area who are extremely upset at the shortage of Social Services daycare subsidies for children with special needs. These include children identified by the public health nurses and the regional medical health officer as having definite need of daycare because of severe problems in the home or because of disabilities. In some cases even after the involvement of public health the daycare subsidy wasn't forthcoming. I've heard complaints from people teaching in the field of early childhood education in the Corner Brook area that Social Services has pulled back subsidization for children with special needs.

On the other hand the Department of Education is embarking on universal full day kindergarten. When you consider the fact that teachers are paid way higher than daycare workers it seems to me the government is making an extremely inefficient use of very scarce resources. How can the government find the money necessary to have full day kindergarten throughout the whole Province, even for families whose parents are protesting full day kindergarten, when Social Services can't find enough money to pay the meagre subsidies for daycare for children identified by public health as having special needs? Why wouldn't there be a coordinated government effort to direct whatever money is available for children who are under five targeted at the children who need it the most, or the families who need it the most.

MR. LUSH: I don't really refute what the hon. member is saying. There is no question that there can be more co-ordination and I would hope that that would happen in the future. The hon. member would certainly know about the difficulty of co-ordinating things in various levels of government and this is one of those things I guess, but I certainly hope that we can do that.

In terms of the reduction in subsidies, we haven't reduced any subsidies and we haven't increased any, as a matter of fact, this again was a very difficult task trying to keep these areas at the level of funding where we previously had them when we are living in a time of cutbacks and restraints, and we had to do some real fine- tuning to make sure that we didn't reduce the subsidy, and if the hon. member looks, she will see that the same level of funding is there; although we can say that there should have been an increase and I fully agree.

MS. VERGE: That's what I saw but at the same time I had a report that in the past few months I have heard from public health officials and early childhood education educators in the Corner Brook area, who have called me and written me long, detailed letters with all kinds of references pointing out the woeful inadequacy of social services subsidization of children with identified special needs, children identified by public health as needing daycare but whose families can't afford to get them into daycare, and apparently what they characterize as a freeze or a cut back in special needs subsidies is jeopardizing the viability of some daycare centres, which have depended on a certain amount of revenue from social services funded children, and that, alongside the Department of Education launching an expensive expansion of Kindergarten, to me, indicates wrong priorities.

I mean, how does it make sense for the government to expand Kindergarten from half-day to full-day, necessitating more teachers for kindergarten, teachers, whose average salaries must be over $40,000 a year, when social services can't afford the comparative pittance required to get the children identified by public health as needing daycare in the daycare? It just doesn't make sense, I have berated the Minister of Education about this the other day, but he doesn't seem to appreciate the social services situation, and once again the appearance of two ministers and two departments operating without really understanding each other or without being integrated or co-operating the way they should. Both departments are mandated to serve the same children and the same families.

MR. LUSH: I can appreciate what the hon. member is saying. We are talking about a relatively new area in the meantime, but it's progressing and no doubt in time we will achieve the things the hon. member is suggesting with respect to more co-ordination and integration between what's happening in education, but what she is almost suggestion I suppose is a full takeover by the government of daycare and in terms of operating the same way we are operating day schools.

MS. VERGE: That is not what I'm suggesting at all. I'm suggesting spending whatever resources the provincial government has on the young children who need it the most. Yes, have full day kindergarten with all the necessary teachers, if you are rolling in money and you've looked after the daycare needs of younger children with identified special needs, but you can't afford to do all that. We don't have that much money. Spend whatever is available first on those small children and their families with serious special needs.

MR. LUSH: That is the emphasis of the Department of Social Services, to spend the money on those most in need. We've made every effort this year particularly in terms of the resources that we have to do just that. When the member talks about subsidies, I don't know - we have this year.... I just want to see how I should say this. We have stopped giving start-up grants and we have put that directly into subsidies for children. Rather than take money away from them and to address the need we have taken away the start-up grants and this kind of thing and we've directed that into direct subsidies for the children, for the clients, so that we could optimize the use of the money that we had in the system.

MS. VERGE: What will be available for subsidy in the new year compared to the old year?

MR. LUSH: There has been no change.

MS. VERGE: But I thought you said you had switched some money from start-up grants to -

MR. LUSH: That money has gone into subsidies.

MS. VERGE: Oh, that was done last year, okay.

MR. LUSH: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired. We are reaching a stage where we soon have to make a decision as to whether this Committee is going to conclude its business tonight. If you are able to clue up with another question or so we might ask the leave of the Committee and then to carry on.

MS. VERGE: I've just got a couple of quick questions. The next one is youth corrections. When the Salvation Army decided to shut down the closed custody group home in Little Rapids in the Humber Valley the minister said it tied in with a new Social Services policy of accommodating young offenders' sentences to open custody in foster homes or in some other -

MR. LUSH: Euphemism.

MS. VERGE: - unnamed community arrangement. What exactly is going on and where are the displaced open custody young offenders in the Corner Brook area now?

MR. LUSH: Let me just go back to the early childhood education and make one reference I should for the hon. member that I failed to do. That is the presence of Brighter Futures. We hope that is going to fill a gap in our system. I'm sure she would be familiar with that.

MS. VERGE: Yes.

MR. LUSH: With respect to the closure of the Little Rapids group home, the hon. member is right. The department has changed its philosophy with respect to institutions, not only in youth corrections but in the whole area where we have group homes. We think that the client is better served, be it a youth who has broken the law, a youth in trouble, or whether it is in some other circumstance. The physically disabled, the mentally challenged. That is the philosophy all the way through with the department, to place people into a situation that is more like the family home.

With respect to the Corner Brook area we have no indication that there are any problems there with respect to dispositions given by the courts. We have absolutely no problems at all since we've closed out the Salvation Army group home there. I don't know whether the hon. member has heard of any but we certainly haven't.

MS. VERGE: No, I haven't, actually.

Are there open custody young offenders in Western Newfoundland in foster homes now?

MR. LUSH: The hon. member is asking: Are there any there now?

MS. VERGE: Yes.

MR. LUSH: I can't address that at the moment.

MR. PECKFORD: We feel that there will continue to be a need for some time for open custody group homes all across the Island. In fact, there are two on the West Coast. There's one in Corner Brook still, and there's one on the West Coast which is now having a new -

MS. VERGE: Stephenville.

MR. PECKFORD: In Stephenville - having a new building being built; however, there are a certain number of youth who come to our attention who probably would function best in a foster type arrangement, and we have been experimenting to some extent - I am not sure experimenting is the right word - but we have enough experience to know that with the proper selection of a foster home, and the proper training, social worker support and the like, that these arrangements often provide much better facilities for the young offender than a group home environment. So we have young offenders in open custody, foster-like arrangements throughout the Province.

MS. VERGE: Is there any alternative to foster homes? When the minister was talking about the new policy there was some vague phrase suggesting that there was something other than foster homes?

MR. LUSH: (Inaudible) custody homes.

MS. VERGE: What does that mean?

AN HON. MEMBER: That's a foster home.

MR. LUSH: That's a foster home.

MS. VERGE: Okay.

Page 313 of the Estimates, the last page, home support services, I noticed last year $13 million was budgeted and $20,700,000 was spent, which is a huge increase. Why the increase? What did that cover?

MR. LUSH: Why the increase from the $13 million to the $20 million?

MS. VERGE: Yes.

MR. LUSH: There are a number of factors as to why the increase.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible) must have been that.

MS. VERGE: Well, that would be a first; something I said actually made a difference?

MR. LUSH: I am having problems getting my audio working here, but the reasons for the growth in this particular area, I suppose, one, it's a relatively new program. I believe it started in 1986. When it started in 1986 - again, I wouldn't want members to rely totally on these figures, but I believe when it started in 1986 there was something like between $300,000 and $400,000 spent in this area, and it just escalated until now we're at the $20 million.

There are number of reasons. One can be awareness of the program. Now everybody is aware of the program, so that certainly creates a demand. The other one - we have three groups of people who access these programs; it's the seniors, the physically disabled, and the mentally challenged. These three groups of people access the program, so one is the awareness, and probably the biggest one is the change in direction that I mentioned earlier with the department with respect to moving from institutions to the home, and giving the support in the home, so these two factors would certainly contribute towards the growth in the figure.

MS. VERGE: Okay. I guess there are other questions I could ask there.

The Department of Health funds some home-maker services, too, in some cases through hospitals. For example, in the Corner Brook area the hospital has a contract with the V.O.N. to do home-maker services. Is there any kind of integration between social services and health?

MR. LUSH: I am going to ask Mr. Peckford to comment on that.

MR. PECKFORD: The funding provided by the Department of Health for home-maker services is, in my understanding, provided to individuals who are released from hospital and to support them for a period of time after release from hospital, so it facilitates an early release from hospital but continues to provide the necessary supports that an individual will need at home.

As the minister indicated, our home support services are not linked in any particular way to release from a hospital or admission to a hospital and are not medically oriented whatsoever. They're non-medical support services to individuals to enable them to live in their own homes, to stay in their own homes. In the case of seniors, to offset the requirement for the movement into nursing homes and that sort of thing and in the case of developmentally delayed and physically handicapped individuals, to enable them as well to live in their own homes. As Mr. Lush indicated, we have closed a number of group homes for the developmentally delayed and the supports that they receive to live in the community are provided through this program.

MS. VERGE: Thank you. On Page 305, 3.2.02, Community Correctional Services, which refers to open custody and alternative measures. I notice that the projected provincial total spending for the new year is about the same as the old year but there's a massive drop in federal revenue. The federal revenue is estimated to be going down from $3.7 million received last year to $1.5 million this year. So it's more than $2 million being lost in federal revenue, why is that?

MR. LUSH: That's a technical matter and I'd like for Mr. Peckford to explain it.

MR. PECKFORD: In fact that's not a reduction in federal revenue at all. What it is, is last year we were able to get a correction of previous years cost-sharing arrangements which enabled us to get a readjustment -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. PECKFORD: Yes, so we were able to achieve, last year, a cost-sharing associated with previous years that we weren't able to get before. So we have an ongoing relationship with the federal government, not only in this cost-shared program but in all our cost-shared programs and I think you'll notice in some of the other areas there was also a correction of previous years claims that were positively affected. In fact, if I could just mention, Mr. Strong behind me here, as a result of some of his efforts, has enabled us in the last year to get a $4 million cost-sharing of services provided by the Department of Finance to the Department of Social Services. We received it last year and we'll receive the $4 million continuing in future years.

MS. VERGE: Just one last question. Last year in the Budget one of the low lights or high lights, depending on your point of view, was cuts to a whole list of third party organizations, many of which were social services grant cuts and I think they were strung along through the election for the first three months of the year but where are they now? How much is Big Brothers, Big Sisters getting now for example?

MR. LUSH: I mentioned earlier that we maintained the status quo with all of these organizations. All of them got the same funding as they did last year with the exclusion of three that were - I think there were three that were dropped last year. Three church groups, the -

MS. VERGE: Counselling centres in St. John's?

MR. LUSH: Yes, there were three dropped and in the review that ensued - as the hon. member mentioned, after there was a review set- up and after that review we decided to maintain the original position that these three groups would not receive any funding. They got the funding for the first quarter of the year but they got no other funding. All other groups remained at the same level of funding as they did last year and no new groups.

MS. VERGE: But last year they were told in the beginning that they were going to be cut. So are they getting now what they got two years ago or are they getting now the reduced amount that was in the original March 1993 Budget?

MR. LUSH: The latter, yes.

MS. VERGE: Okay, so they were cut?

MR. LUSH: Yes.

MS. VERGE: They were just strung along through the election and then they were cut -

MR. LUSH: Yes, this year they got the same as last year.

MS. VERGE: - because there was no election this year?

MR. LUSH: Yes.

MS. VERGE: Okay. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Verge.

Mr. Fitzgerald.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister, you mentioned that the social service investigators had realized $2.1 million. I am not sure if I understood you correctly; are you saying that they have collected $2.1 million or they have identified $2.1 million that are there to be collected? Could you expand on that please?

MR. LUSH: No. When I say they saved the Province $2.1 million, that is from people who were receiving social assistance and should not be receiving it so that was suspended. Claim - not claim suspended - what do they call them?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. LUSH: The annual value of what they would have received had the investigators not been there, would have amounted to $2.1 million, so that's the savings.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. LUSH: Yes, and $800,000 to be recovered, that's in overpayments by the time we got them.

MR. FITZGERALD: The $800,000 overpayment, what amount of that realistically can be collected?

MR. LUSH: I don't know.

MR. FITZGERALD: It is great to identify it but can we collect it?

AN HON. MEMBER: As long as they are on assistance we will collect it.

MR. LUSH: Yes, when they are on assistance we will get them; if they get off assistance, I don't know what would happen then. When they are on assistance we claim the overpayment.

MR. FITZGERALD: The other $1.2 or $1.3 million, is that because of fraud or, where does the extra money come from?

MR. LUSH: In some cases it is fraud.

MR. FITZGERALD: How many people have been charged with fraud?

MR. LUSH: Seventeen.

MR. FITZGERALD: Seventeen, and we have thirteen investigators?

MR. LUSH: Yes.

MR. FITZGERALD: So it is approximately a little over one charge per investigator so far?

MR. LUSH: Well, the main emphasis is not charging. The main emphasis is to try and spot any irregularities, people receiving social assistance when they don't qualify but the effort is not towards charging shall I say. It is difficult to explain but what we want to make sure of is that everybody receiving social assistance is receiving it properly, and the last thing we do, that's the very last thing we do, is charge. Two things; one, find it out, two, get back the money where we can. In most cases it is not fraud, really.

MR. FITZGERALD: Part of it are honest mistakes that have been made by overworked front line social workers and other people.

MR. LUSH: Yes, that's right, and the last thing we will do is - we are anxious, number one to find it out so the Province is not spending money unnecessarily and secondly to get it back. The case is a pretty bad case when we take it to the courts.

MR. FITZGERALD: Getting back to the Newfoundland and Labrador correctional centre in Whitbourne. Unit 7 and 8 of the old part of the boys home there, I am of the understanding that the only people who staff those two units are people who are on call-in duty only, when there is an oversupply in the correctional centre then they are put out into Unit 7 and 8 and this staff is called in as need be. I am wondering why the manager is kept on full-time when everybody else is on call-in duty only? Why would the manager be kept on with nobody staying at those units?

MR. PECKFORD: The old facility in Whitbourne is used as an overflow facility when the population goes above sixty. Really what we have there are two physical buildings but one overall facility. The staffing of that whole area is one integrated staffing so people get called in. We have on-call workers that come into both facilities. There isn't a differentiation between the staffing of the old one and the staffing of the new one. It is all one integrated group of staff. On-call workers get called dependent on the fluctuation in the populations that come in, so there is no distinction between one and the other.

MR. FITZGERALD: So when the manager is not working from units seven and eight plays an active role in the correctional centre?

MR. PECKFORD: That is correct.

MR. FITZGERALD: Temporary positions at the same centre. Am I correct in saying that after sixteen weeks those positions, even though they are temporary, should be advertised?

MR. PECKFORD: The collective agreement governs the manner in which the positions are advertised and so forth so as far as I am aware we are maintaining what the collective agreement requires.

MR. FITZGERALD: Can you tell me why the recreation co-ordinator and the resident unit supervisor positions have not been advertised and they have been in existence for much longer than sixteen weeks?

MR. PECKFORD: Not right now. No, I can't.

MR. FITZGERALD: Are they union positions?

MR. PECKFORD: I do not know.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Minister, in response to a question a few days ago in the House regarding open custody community homes, I think I understood you correctly when you said that social workers did some inspections on those homes to see if they were up to par as far as admitting young offenders? Can you tell me if some of those people are trained in the inspection of those homes as far as building code inspections and other areas where they might look at responsibly to see if such a thing as an insurance policy is in effect to make sure those young offenders are protected? Are those people trained in that regard?

MR. LUSH: Again, I have to defer to my officials on that.

MR. PECKFORD: The inspection of community custody homes does not extend to the physical facility in the same way as it would for an institution. Certainly the physical condition of the house that the resident has been placed in would be considered as part of the overall assessment of the capacity of the individuals in the home to accept the individual, but specific requirements around the size and the condition of the home in the same sense as it would be applied in an institution is not used in that case.

MR. FITZGERALD: I am also of the understanding that some of the operators of those community homes get paid holidays and days off with pay while others don't?

MR. PECKFORD: Individual arrangements are made with individual homes which includes respite holiday time and so forth, so each home would have its own contract with us as to the amount of respite that would be required, etc. This would depend upon the number of individuals in the home, the length of time the resident is there, and so forth.

MR. FITZGERALD: Transportation to and from schools or hospitals, etc. Who decides what mode of transportation is used, the social worker or the home care parent?

MR. PECKFORD: It varies. It can be both. It depends upon the circumstances. If a particular resident, for example, has a requirement on a regular basis to visit a hospital or visit a doctor the parent may be given the authorization to go ahead and do that on a recurring basis. If it is one of, or special transportation for long distances, or something like that, that may require approval of the social worker. So a general answer to that is not possible. It would depend upon the circumstances in each individual case.

MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Minister, did you state that the Social Services policy manual is a manual that is available to me if I requested it?

MR. LUSH: I certainly thought it was.

MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Your time has expired. Right on time. Before I recognize Mr. Harris I must point out that according to the rules this Committee has to clue up in three minutes time, but we've been giving leave. So if Mr. Harris could clue up within a reasonable period of time, say fifteen or twenty minutes, I've asked the Committee to give leave so we could clue up this tonight. As I don't have any other speakers other than Mr. Harris, so if he could indicate how long he would take?

MR. HARRIS: I'm sure I could clue up in a reasonable period of time and be quite happy to proceed to do so.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A reasonable period. Is that a legal word, or is it? I'm wary of them so I would like to know.

MR. HARRIS: It was your word and I accept your word and your definition.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Alright then, we will say fifteen minutes.

MR. HARRIS: Thank you, Chairperson. I was interested in the questions that the Member for Bonavista North was asking about -

MR. FITZGERALD: Bonavista South.

MR. HARRIS: Bonavista South. Actually, I must say, my geography must be terribly off because I could never figure out why Bonavista South was called South and North was called North. I will try and figure that out another time.

The Member for Bonavista South was curious about employment practices at Whitbourne. I'm just wondering whether the minister has been following the practice that has been in vogue in Whitbourne for a number of years of hiring only people from Port de Grave District whenever there was an opportunity to hire someone outside the collective agreement. Is that still the practice of the department or have you opened the field to residents of other districts?

MR. LUSH: I never ever knew that was the practice but I can assure you that if it were that it is not now. People are hired according to the rules of the collective bargaining, and outside of that by merit, regardless of where they come from.

MR. HARRIS: Do I take that to mean that outside of recall provisions and posting requirements in the collective agreement that all hiring even for temporary positions is through the Public Service Commission?

MR. PECKFORD: In some cases the hiring of non-bargaining unit employees are hired by the department under delegated authority from the Public Service Commission, whereby we must observe the rules as set down by the Public Service Commission and are subject to audit by them that we are following the procedures as they outline. In effect, all hiring is done in accordance with the collective agreement or in accordance with procedures of the Public Service Commission, albeit on occasion the Public Service Commission staff don't participate directly in the selection.

MR. HARRIS: That is for all positions, including temporary positions.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: Including temporary.

AN HON. MEMBER: Yes.

MR. HARRIS: The -

MR. PECKFORD: Permanent positions throughout the department usually, almost in all cases I think, include the Public Service Commission in the interview process. Temporary positions are often delegated to us.

MR. HARRIS: The minister indicated that it is done under the merit principle, could the department then have its own internal procedures such as in use by the Public Service Commission to have interviews and questions and that sort of thing? Is that practice followed?

MR. PECKFORD: That's correct.

MR. HARRIS: Well, things have changed. They must have changed a great deal since the new minister has taken over. I'm surprised that he hadn't heard of the previous practices of the department. Everybody else in the Opposition and the public seem to know about them.

I am looking, Mr. Minister, at pages 311 and 312 of the social services estimates, and I find it curious in light of the minister's comments about the federal government funding certain agencies and then the Province not being able to provide money because they don't have the fiscal capacity, or at least that's the excuse that's put out for this, but when I look at the employment opportunities budget as a whole, the $14.8 million in the three subheads that are listed there, what I see is under the community services head, 5.1.03, a decrease in that budget from one point - well, looking at the program itself, I suppose, the budget for 1993-'94 was $3.8 million. You only spent $3 million, and you are estimating for 1994-'95, $1.2 million for salaries for employment projects that are cost-shared with the federal government under the Canada Assistance Plan.

Basically we are talking fifty cent dollars here, and the so-called bang for the buck, as it were. The provincial dollar is enhanced and yet we see a decrease of more than half, from $3.1 million total amount of the vote down to $1.3 million, and obviously a decreased contribution from the federal government down to one-third of what was budgeted last year. Where last year was budgeted $2 million from the feds, and next year the estimates are for $633,000 and almost one-third - a little bit better than one-third - of the federal contribution budgeted for last year.

Can the minister tell us why he's cut that budget more than in half and caused a loss, if you want to call it that, of $1.4 million contribution from the federal government for a program providing employment projects, employment opportunities for people under the Canada Assistance Plan?

MR. LUSH: Firstly, that particular program, as the hon. member has pointed out, it's a 50\50 program, but it's a specific requirement such that you've got to be providing a service to a client, and to illustrate: For some time this is where we've taken our housing program, doing repairs to houses, and home support, because we have to be providing a service to a client.

We weren't satisfied that this was a good program. I mentioned to the hon. member that the emphasis today is towards training, and we weren't really into training. I suppose the main objective in this one was to give somebody a job to get stamps. That was almost, really, the main motive, so -

MR. HARRIS: It seems to be a sin now, according to The Globe and Mail, for people to actually get work and get stamps and be able to collect unemployment insurance.

MR. LUSH: No, not when it's the main motive. So the hon. member can see that last year we didn't go very far towards spending our money. We left a good bit of it, because we were reevaluating where we were going in this particular program. So we weren't satisfied, exactly, with the direction in which we were going, that we weren't giving sufficient thought to the kinds of jobs we were into, providing people with jobs that were ongoing, more lasting, and in training. We were more or less just into it for the job, for the sake of getting U.I.

We also felt that it was affecting our Home Support program. That is the one that appears over on the next page, which is the one that was more properly organized under the enriched needs program. People were confusing them. It was giving the Home Support Services a sort of a negative connotation, if you will, because people were associating the other, this program here. We were just sending people in to, people who had any kind of problem, send them in to work with the sole aim, almost, of qualifying for UI. That was the emphasis changing, changing to training and more meaningful work.

Secondly, out of that budget also we took our $500,000 for the linkages. Remember back earlier I talked about the linkage program. That is our contribution to the linkage program that is a very successful program. So we took $500,000 out of that to put with labour and manpower. The other one is, if the hon. member looks back to the Community Development program -

MR. HARRIS: There is an additional half a million dollars in there.

MR. LUSH: - there is an additional half a million dollars up there.

MR. HARRIS: I accept the minister's explanation. It seems that money was spent over on the other side. Obviously that is also under the Canada Assistance Plan as well. So that seems to me to be a very reasonable explanation, I must say. I don't often say that but you've done a very good job of explaining that, Mr. Minister. Since you are on such a roll here perhaps you can do as well to tell us why on page 307 you are decreasing grants to support family-related organizations in the Year of the Family, under vote 4.1.03, from $162,000 contribution last year to $104,000 this year.

MR. LUSH: Would you repeat that.

MR. HARRIS: On page 307, the subhead 4.1.03. What I said was that here we are in the Year of the Family and under the subhead for support to family-related organizations the minister has deemed that we should spend less money supporting family-related organizations to the tune of almost a 30 per cent or 40 per cent cut.

MR. LUSH: In the Grants and Subsidies the -

MR. HARRIS: That is correct, yes.

MR. LUSH: Yes, in the Grants and Subsidies. We budgeted for last year $192,000 and we spent $232,000. I said to the hon. member that this comes under the same general programs that I talked about earlier, the private agencies. There was a private agency in here that at one point had taken over the budget. We got it back in again, it doesn't show. What will result - it was $32,000 to an agency. Yes, $32,000 added to -

MR. HARRIS: That is Daybreak, is it?

MR. LUSH: No, it wasn't Daybreak. It was a council in -

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. LUSH: - Shea Heights.

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. LUSH: Family counselling on Shea Heights for the new centre. It has been funded for some time. That was cut but it got put back again. So with that back it is the same as the budgeted amount for 1993-1994 of $192,000.

MR. HARRIS: I don't see the $32,000 back, so that figure then, the $169,000, Grants and Subsidies, is not the correct figure then?

AN HON. MEMBER: (Inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: I don't see the 32,000 back so that figure then, the 169 Grants and Subsidies is not the correct figure?

MR. LUSH: No, there is a 32,000 to be added to that.

MR. HARRIS: How did that happen?

MR. LUSH: A typo.

MR. HARRIS: Typo? Any other typo's in the Budget?

MR. LUSH: I doubt -

MR. HARRIS: Did I see a delegation in here the other day from that organization?

MR. LUSH: There might have been but I haven't been talking to them. They did not come to see me; I am not aware that they came to see anybody in my Department.

MR. HARRIS: So what are the five figures changed as a result of that then? The vote changes the bottom 104 figure - perhaps the deputy could tell us what other figures changed as a result of the correction of that typo. Did you correct the other typos underneath that: the Vote, the Revenue, the Support To Family-Related Organizations? What would they - I am assuming if it was a typo all of the other corrections would have been made as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Peckford.

MR. PECKFORD: Yes. The federal revenue would be adjusted as well, accordingly.

MR. HARRIS: This is not really a typo, is it? This is a correction, a change?

MR. PECKFORD: No, it is not.

MS. VERGE: This is a Tom Murphy correction (inaudible).

MR. HARRIS: A Tom Murphy correction. The decision was made to cut this and then the decision was changed, I take it?

MR. PECKFORD: No, sir.

MR. HARRIS: No.

MR. PECKFORD: In the preparation of the Budget, the decision to fund this organization didn't get reflected in the numbers that we have here now.

MR. HARRIS: The decision to fund it?

MR. PECKFORD: Yes. Continued funding, didn't get reflected.

MR. HARRIS: Did not get reflected?

MR. PECKFORD: That's right.

MR. HARRIS: I should probably throw other questions now, seeing how the minister is on a real roll now, he has found a typo in one and he has done a very good job of explaining the other. I think we will wait until he comes back and see if he can go for a hattrick here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: When he sits in and adjusts his earpiece, you can carry on again now, Mr. Harris.

MR. HARRIS: Mr. Minister, could you tell us a little bit about the vote under subhead 4.2.04 which is under the heading: The Right Future? I see considerable change in the Budget figures from last year and the revised figures, and also the figures for this year; we have a considerable increase in that program, up to $4.8 million so clearly there is some flexibility in the government's plans to support particular types of services and not others.

It's easy to say: well, we don't have the money, we don't have the money, we don't have the money when certain people come knocking on your door, such as the Working Group on Child Sexual Abuse or the Family Resource Centre at Harvey Road. However, there seems certainly to be the ability to find money and to fund programs and perhaps the minister can tell us what is included in what's called the full array of community services and supports that attract an increase in excess of $3 million or just slightly under $3 million from the revised figures of '93-'94?

MR. LUSH: What specifically was the member asking?

MR. HARRIS: Well I guess it is a chance for the minister to tell us all about these: full array of community services that are attracting an increase in $3 million over here, when the minister has indicated that there is no money for new programs, there is no money for doing anything that we haven't already done, and no money to maintain the Working Group on Child Sexual Abuse, but there is money here. I am basically inviting the minister to tell us about this subhead and how this fits into that plan.

MR. LUSH: If the federal government were so generous in other areas as they are in this particular area - this is federal money.

MR. HARRIS: It looks like the federal contribution is $3.8 million but we found $1 million of provincial money to go there haven't we?

MR. LUSH: No.

MR. HARRIS: None at all?

MR. LUSH: We may, if we have it there we're going to be paid back. Mr. Peckford go ahead.

MR. PECKFORD: Maybe I could just try to give a brief report on the Right Future Project. The Right Future Project is a project that we have with the federal government aimed at taking approximately 120 individuals who now reside in the Waterford Hospital and putting them into community settings. The federal government has agreed to provide us $10 million over five years which will recognize the increased cost that the Province will have while maintaining the Waterford Hospital while at the same time putting people in the community. This agreement was signed with the federal government in the last fiscal year but the agreement itself is a $10 million expenditure. We've brought twenty people into the community, as the minister mentioned earlier, in this past year and sixty further are expected to move to the community next year. The whole purpose of the arrangement by the federal government is to give us that incremental cost that the Province will have to bear while it is keeping the Waterford Hospital open at the same time providing places for people in the community.

MR. HARRIS: So the $1 million then still shows up there as a contribution to the Province though, because the vote there is $4,893,000 and the revenue from the feds is $3,865,000 with a provincial contribution of $1,028,000.

MR. PECKFORD: Yes, that $1,028,000 has been reduced under the Department of Health's Budget in recognition for the amount of - they had been able to close a part of a wing or something like that and reduce some staff out there.

MR. HARRIS: So do you mean to say, as that happens that the provincial contribution is going to be increased?

MR. PECKFORD: Yes but it's coming off health. It'll appear in our department and be reduced out of the Department of Health's Waterford Hospital budget. You will see over in the Department of Health budget a similar number. It has been reduced by that amount yes. The whole objective of this project is that it would be cost neutral to the Province. As the cost in social services go up, the cost in the Department of Health will reduce by a similar amount.

MR. HARRIS: Well I didn't think you could do it but you did explain that too.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harris you are getting to the end of your time.

MR. HARRIS: I think that I've used a reasonable period of time, Mr. Chairman, so therefore I don't want to abuse the privileges that we've been accorded in this Committee under your wise chairmanship, so I'll end there. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Harris. I will now ask the Clerk to call the heads.

On motion, Department of Social Services, total heads carried.

MR. CHAIRMAN: At this time I would like to thank my colleagues on the Committee. We've concluded our work for this year's estimates and I thank them for the diligent work they've put in and the spirit of cooperation shown from time to time. Committees can work in this House. I would like at this time to thank the minister and his staff for coming here tonight. Thank you very much.

MS. VERGE: I would like to thank the Chair.

On motion, the Committee adjourned at 10:20.