April 29, 1997                                             SOCIAL SERVICES ESTIMATES COMMITTEE


The Committee met at 9:00 a.m. in Room 5083.

CHAIR (Mercer): Order, please!

If we could get started, I would just like to welcome everyone here this morning to the Estimates of the Department of Human Resources and Employment. I have that right, have I?

WITNESS: Yes.

CHAIR: The new language is hard to get used to at the beginning.

Just to start, I would like to introduce the members of the Committee, starting with Mary.

MS M. HODDER: Mary Hodder, MHA for Burin - Placentia West.

MR. G. REID: Gerry Reid, MHA for Twillingate & Fogo.

MR. H. HODDER: Harvey Hodder, MHA for Waterford Valley.

MR. WHELAN: Don Whelan, MHA for Harbour Main - Whitbourne.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: John Ottenheimer, MHA for St. John's East.

CHAIR: I'm Bob Mercer, MHA for Humber East.

In a moment I will call upon the minister to introduce her staff, but I would just like to lay down a few of the procedures that we are going to follow. Very simply, we would ask anyone who is speaking, any of the officials, to identify themselves for the purposes of the gentleman here who is obtaining records for Hansard, so I would ask you to do that. If anyone in the back has occasion to speak, would they please come forward to one of the mikes.

What we will do is simply ask the Clerk to call the first head, then the discussion will start and I would anticipate that the entire budget Estimates will be discussed under that one single head. The gentleman to the right, the Vice-Chair of the Committee, will start, and we will then proceed to ask questions, as I said last night, until all the questions have been exhausted, or we and you have been exhausted. We hope to have a full, free and frank discussion.

MR. H. HODDER: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: Well, lunch will kind of intervene.

With that little bit of an introduction, minister, you are on. You may introduce your officials.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you. I would like to thank you as well for the opportunity to meet here this morning and answer your questions. We look forward to your exhaustive list, or until we become exhausted, whichever comes first.

I would like to introduce my staff. I would ask if you would introduce yourselves.

MR. LEWIS: Dave Lewis, Director of Income Support.

MR. SKINNER: George Skinner, Assistant Deputy Minister of Programs and Client Services.

MR. STRONG: Jim Strong, Director of Finance.

MS DAWE: Joan Dawe, Deputy Minister.

MR. ROBERTS: Dave Roberts, ADM of Financial Employment and Support Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: We also have a couple of extra support people with us today.

MR. FRANEY: Ray Franey, Director of Labour Market Development.

MR. GALLANT: I'm Don Gallant, I'm the Director of Family and Rehabilitative Services.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you very much.

Would you like me to do an introduction to the budget process?

CHAIR: If you would do an introductory statement, then I will ask the Clerk to call the first head and we can start the debate.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Fine. First of all, this is a very interesting year for all of us, because in addition to Program Review we had a number of other challenges to meet as we moved forward to try to do some long-term planning. I guess the evidence of our Program Review is here today in our new department, the Department of Human Resources and Employment.

I guess for explanation purposes, the new department includes all of the Department of Social Services, and in addition the labour market component of the Department of Development and Rural Renewal. That means that in addition to all the existing programs and services of Social Services, we have all the labour market programs, and particularly, I guess, as you have heard, the summer program is what we are working on right now, the Student Work and Services Program. In addition to that there are a number of other responsibilities added in under the department as it relates to skills training in the job market in particular.

Also, this has been a very interesting year for us because, as you know, it was announced in the Budget that a significant portion of the service component of this department will be moving over under the Department of Health. We have a task force in place which has just really gotten off the ground with most of our, I guess, planning put in place to make that transition over the next year. We will be moving out all our child welfare services and programs, as well as our family and rehabilitative services and programs, under the new department of health and community services, as of April 1, 1998. It is quite a busy year from that perspective.

The intention is that we are trying to eliminate many of the gaps and disincentives in government departments by streamlining services, trying to find a single entry system for clients and focusing more on prevention and early intervention. Through the Social Policy Advisory Committee consultations, as if we didn't know already, it became more and more obvious that there is a very fine line between social services and health with respect to the needs of clients. We are really trying to realign that department.

Other initiatives: This year we will also be, under the auspices of my department, with me as lead minister, putting forward the Social Strategic Plan for the Province. What we are doing this year as a transition, of course, is very important because we will be realigning the department to help offset and address many of the issues and concerns that were raised through that process.

For the purposes of the Budget, I think what I will do is say that there are a number of areas in this year's Budget that we never had before, obviously, with the labour market component, and I would be happy to address those questions specifically as you ask them. I think it is worth knowing this year that we still have fifty offices in place. We did not lay off any of our front-line staff. As a matter of fact, we increased our positions by, I think it is, 5.5 to address the increase in the adoptions, the post-adoptions issue that was announced in the Budget.

Throughout the year, I think it is fair to say that as we work to realign our services and work more closely with health, we do not anticipate having fifty offices at the end of the day, but again that would be a planning process and that will happen over the course of the next year or so when we put those types of initiatives in place. We have, again, a task force in place as we move forward, looking at those types of issues and how we can best serve clients, and try to meet the needs particularly by de-stigmatizing social services and moving more in alignment with the health needs of the Province.

I think, from my perspective, that is what I would like to say, and I would invite you to ask the questions that I am sure you would like to ask of me.

CHAIR: Thank you, Madam Minister.

CLERK (E. MURPHY): Head 1.1.01

CHAIR: John, would you like to start the day.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

What we have done in the past, and as we did last night in the Health Estimates, was basically, in random fashion, members of the committee asking questions representing their concerns. There is no formal style, I guess; we just ask questions arbitrarily.

I would like to begin, as Vice-Chair, by asking a question of the minister which will probably be followed up particularly by Mr. Hodder whom, as you are aware, is the critic for this particular department.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I am aware of that, yes.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: You are aware of that, yes. He may have a number of specific questions and perhaps is much more in tune with many of the -

MR. H. HODDER: Sure, be complimentary there now.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: - specifics and intricacies of the department.

My first question, Madam Minister, has to do with your beginning statement in terms of the re-designation of the department, now being referred to as Human Resources and Employment. I am just wondering: This integration process presumably had some budgetary consequences, maybe not to any significant extent but, obviously, any integration or amalgamation has a cost associated with it, and I am just wondering, could you perhaps give us some idea of what was involved and what those cost factors or cost consequences may have been as a result of this recent integration?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: First of all, call me what you like but don't call me Mr. Minister.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Oh, I am sorry, Madam Minister! My apologies! That happened in the House yesterday, didn't it? Was it you?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: It did, yes. Bob French called Julie Bettney Mr. Minister twice yesterday.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Madam Minister. My apologies!

MR. H. HODDER: I have to have some sensitivity training, as the House Leader, for my caucus.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Exactly. We have ours in training as well.

Obviously you are right, there is quite a combination of people and services. I think the main issue was, that we wanted to realign many of our social assistance recipients whom we would consider employable, to have more direct access and less disincentives and gaps in the services. What we have attempted to do is bring - again, the various programs are in the department but we are still at a point where we are trying to shift the culture, I guess, of our front-line workers, because, as you know, many of our front-line workers, when they meet with clients, say, allocate cheques. Now we are trying, over the next number of months, to focus on not only asking what their needs are but also if they are employable and if they need training and skills in trying to shift that process.

We did have a significant change in the programs that came over. We had an additional, I believe it was, twenty staff come over from the labour market which brings our total staff in the department up to about 1,173. That includes all our staff in the various departments of social services as it previously existed, plus our new people who came over. Most of our people are here in head office. We have recently hired five new people in the regional offices to serve as the front-line people to assist with the jobs and the transition from the two programs, trying to get the integration moving. Particularly, they are focusing right now on the summer programs, the SWASP in particular.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: So would all of the additional workers you mentioned, the twenty new staff, have been related to the labour market component?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes. We didn't involve the economic component of it at all. The people who came over, as I said, are mostly operating out of our office, are labour market specifically.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Could you give us some sense, Madam Minister, of their particular responsibilities? If we have twenty new people to the department representing the labour market component, what specifically would be their responsibilities?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Many of their responsibilities are the same as they were with the Department of Development and Rural Renewal. I think what is more important is the realignment of the strategic and economic component of our department, trying to match the whole concept of determinants of health and recognizing that a person's economic status and income status has a big overall impact on their social status. So their roles and responsibilities have not changed, in that they will be implementing the new labour market development agreement, over $300 million, over the next three years.

I understand it will probably be increased to five years, because there was a `me too' clause added to the labour market development agreement, in that if another province was to negotiate successfully a longer period of time, then any and all of the provinces that wanted that extended agreement could get it. From my recent knowledge, as of last week the Quebec labour market development agreement was increased to a five year period, so we will have access to that five year period. That is one of the main initiatives they will be undertaking.

Of course, under the labour market development agreement, there are a number of initiatives like the wage subsidy programs, employer subsidy programs, those sorts of issues. Part of that will be allocated out under the Department of Education. They will do the skills, loans and grants component of that. In addition to that, they will work with other issues as it relates to employment, for example, issues surrounding liaison work with the federal government on EI and TAGS issues, issues with respect to older workers as it relates to the mining industries or other resource based industries, those sorts of initiatives.

The same job descriptions, the same overall work, that was outlined last year is there. In addition, we have a new labour market development agreement to work with and we also have the transitional jobs fund, and they are the same initiatives. Except now we are trying to work much more closely with the social sector, and recognizing the interdependence of both.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Was the primary reason or philosophy behind the integration, in your view, to, I guess, send a message to the public that there is much more to what traditionally has been referred to as the Social Services department, and really there was a need to expose to the public, really, a broader picture of what social services entails? Was that, philosophically, essentially behind the integration?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: It was, yes. That is a good point; philosophically it was. I think what is more important is that that was the message that came from the public. The public has asked government to start working more collaboratively among departments, to try to decrease the disincentives and the run around that people currently get. We talked about that here last year.

In addition, in the Social Policy Advisory Committee, one of its main recommendations was to try to realign social and economic development. I think this is sort of a beginning step. We had an economic plan. We are working on a social plan. We saw our department as really a bridge to government helping people move from where they are to the employment and the skills training sector. So it is a philosophical decision in one way, but it is very much supported.

When we actually did a research project with our own front-line and management staff, in two pilot areas last year, on the West Coast and in St. John's, which covered over half of our total employees, one of the main issues they raised with us was the ability to recognize the economic needs of people as well as the social needs, to work more closely with health and to try to focus more on prevention and early intervention. All of this is part of that strategy to work more closely.

I think it goes back even further than that. Because if you look at some of the initiatives that were done, if you look at Steve Neary's contribution, you know, taking away the food stamps and giving people an option to buy their own food, if you look at what we are trying to do now to de-stigmatize social services so that when you come in for a service you could be coming in for employment opportunities counselling, you could be coming in for health services, you could be coming in for nutritional counselling or you could be coming in to see a financial assistance officer to get income-support payment - so, the de-stigmatization was also a big part of it.

CHAIR: Harvey.

MR. H. HODDER: Let me just first of all say, that many of the initiatives that are taking place are consistent with the directions that I heard when I was part of the team which did the Children's Interest study, and particularly the integration of the Department of Health. In some provinces it is advancing. I am happy to say that we are probably as far along as most, and further than some others. I say that in a very positive way because I happen to believe that the further we can integrate services and have them client-based and focused is a positive thing. I think it is something that I certainly shared with the deputy minister on a number of occasions and shared with the minister as well. In getting to that, though, of course there is obviously going to be some transition and there are going to be some difficulties.

I want to go back to the last comment here and then I will get back to other comments in a moment. When we talk about de-stigmatizing access to social services, one of the things that I have mentioned on a number of occasions before is, de-stigmatizing access to the purchase of school text books by teenagers. As you know, it is very difficult to disguise the fact that in a junior high school or a high-school setting - you can implement all kinds of elaborate ways to not make it obvious but you cannot disguise it. You can try to get around it any way you can. I have been an advocate for some time of trying to de-stigmatize that and quoting the fact that we should be - as Steve Neary would say: Do away with food stamps. We stopped paying the rents directly to the landlords in most cases, and now I think it is time to say to parents: Here is your money to get your children ready for school.

A big fear some people have is that some people might not spend that money where it is supposed to be spent. I think that is hogwash. Yes, there will be exceptions, there will be need to monitor it, but I do think that we cannot say it won't work unless we have tried it. Why should those people who are trying to do the best they can to raise their children, very straightforward and honest people who just happen to be on social services, why should their children have to be stigmatized by the approach we now use? Are you going to do anything about it?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I was going to say: Speech! Speech! Speech! What is your question?

As you know, last year it came up as an issue close to the end of the year. Actually our department raised it with the Department of Education. It was quite late in the year and I think it was not an appropriate time to implement it.

I think what we are doing - and I think it was an issue that you raised last year, the concept of why we were providing books to social assistance students and letting them keep the books, and then at the beginning of the next year re-issuing books all over again. That initiative is one that we are following up, and that is we are now in the process of having a letter sent out to all the parents whose children are receiving text books under the program whereby they are provided by the Province, and ask that these books be returned to help offset the costs so that there will be more money available for other books and resources in the schools, if that is how they choose to use the money. That was an issue that you raised last year, in particular, why, in fact, are we paying for books for social assistance students and then letting them keep them. They go and sell the books and then we have to issue new ones. So, that is something we will be implementing this year, asking students to return the books and we will be recycling them to other students.

With respect to providing the money, that has not been an initiative that we have spoken about, allocating a set amount for books. I think the initiative is something that I could raise with my colleague in the Department of Education but, quite frankly, we have never heard that issue. What we have heard is: Why are these students not asked to bring back their books to recycle and re-use, rather than have them sold at a second-hand store and then have to issue new books again?

I have never ever been asked that question with respect to, why not just give everybody the money they need to buy the books. Quite frankly, I could certainly raise it with my colleague, but it is not anything that has ever been raised with me before. As I said, the only issue that has come up to me is: Why don't we try to recycle and re-use the books in a more effective way, by asking parents and students to cooperate by returning them at the end of the school year? That is the initiative we will be following this year.

MR. H. HODDER: There are two aspects to it. One is, of course, the issue that you raise, which I raised last year, the issue of people who are on social assistance getting their books and then they get new books every year. They don't necessarily transfer them down to their younger siblings. That is one part of it, and that was certainly brought out in several of the consultations that I was part of.

The other aspect is the one that says, as we progress to make people who are on social assistance more self-actualizing, more independent, more responsible for their own decision making, should we not be moving to the point of saying to them: We believe we will assess your needs. You can do that quite easily, you know what is needed to subsidize school textbooks. In some provinces they are talking about doing a school preparation fund, because it isn't just school textbooks. Let's say the parent is given $100 for a Grade IX student. They can then choose to buy new textbooks or they can go and buy second-hand textbooks, but it is their decision. They may choose, after having bought the books as a priority, that it might be that the child needs a new pair of sneakers or something like that. Therefore by doing that we are letting the parents have more control and more participation, and we are also teaching the children more responsibility for the disposal of funds and that kind of thing.

I wonder if the minister could take that further program, as we did years ago with people getting food stamps. Some people said: It won't work. In fact, it probably won't cost you any more money in total budgetary dollars between the two departments, because there is shared money here with Education, as you know. Take that as a further suggestion. It would really make the lives of some of the teenagers out there a lot more comfortable when it comes to accessing school textbooks; and they are very sensitive. A fifteen-year old doesn't want anybody to know that he or she is living on social services. It is nobody's business, including the school principal. The teachers don't need to know, unless there is a demonstrated need to know, that a child is on social services. If there is a need, yes. But as a general rule, there shouldn't be a list of people in anybody's office saying: These people in my class are on social services and these are the ones who aren't. From an educational point of view, I think it is important.

You spoke, in your comments, again about the new ministry and listening to others. I just want to refer back to a comment that is on page 17 of what the people said in the Report of the Strategic Social Planning Public Dialogue Newfoundland and Labrador. It talked about the difficulty some employees are having. I will just read you the paragraph and get a reaction to it. It says:

"In rural areas especially, some government employees describe the widening distance between themselves and the senior people within their departments. They believe their concerns are not given due consideration by upper management, that they are not asked for their opinions and they are not listened to. They express concern that they frequently cannot meet the needs of the people they are expected to serve because of a lack of resources, high caseloads, and constant pressure to tighten service delivery. Many operate on a reactive basis and have little latitude for early intervention in addressing social problems."

So on and so forth. On that issue, obviously in the consultations that Penny Rowe and her group did, there must have been a concern by some of the front-line workers in the different parts of the Province that the upper echelon, maybe not exclusively in Confederation Building, but there is a perception of a widening gap. How are you addressing that, particularly as we try to address that, plus try to amalgamate and integrate the two Departments of Human Resources and Employment and Health and bring a client-centred approach?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, I think there are two issues. The first issue is that, I think this particular comment is probably covering a number of areas, departments and centres?

MR. H. HODDER: Oh, yes.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Whereas, if you are asking me specifically about our department, I just referenced a previous cultural research process that we had completed which finished last October, which had addressed all of our staff, from front-line right up to management in St. John's and in the Western Region, covering over half of our staff. What we found was somewhat dissimilar from what is in here, in a lot of ways.

They encouraged us to move with the other departments. They encouraged us that in many cases there is too much management and in other cases that they wanted to have, I guess, more decision-making on the front-line. You have to look at: Historically, in the Department of Social Services, we have as many as five layers of management. So when you try to reduce any of those layers, there is a perception and a reality that there is less management because there really is. What we have been trying to do is maintain our front-line workers, which we have. We have been trying to, I guess, flatten our management structure which we have. I think that the reality of it is, that in many cases some of those in management are not as accessible as they were before.

We have tried to stabilize our offices by putting a direct supervisor in there, either with respect to income-support issues or child welfare issues, whatever sort of needs there would be in that particular area. I think, in many cases, that has helped a lot, because last year was a very de-stabilizing year, because we have taken out a lot of our management and replaced a lot of our distant managers with more front-line supervision. I think that has helped.

I do not necessarily agree that this comment is specifically about our department, because remember Penny Rowe covered all the departments, Health, Education, Social Services, Municipalities, Women's Policy, a number of them.

Our research, which is what we are using and which came from our front-line staff, and which we are using now in the task force that we have in place to implement these changes, is that front-line staff want more decision-making ability and they want access to more information on how to do that. We recognize there is a need for increased training to do those kinds of things. We have not, for the most part, had that type of comment about not enough management in the system. That is not a common complaint from our front-line supervisors.

MR. H. HODDER: So, I can ask the Minister of Health and he will tell me that, you know, it must be the other department we are talking about. Right?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: No, no. I can tell you specifically what our staff said, because it was done specifically only with social services employees, it was not done with any other sector. We have incorporated that into what we have fed back out to the system and into our task force plans, and that was specifically why we asked to have it done. It is done by region, it is done by age group, it is done by issues, so it is very specific.

MR. H. HODDER: However, turfism and protectionism, of course, are well-recognized as issues within the bureaucracy. I mean, any literature you read, in the philosophy of it - it does not matter what government level you are at - there will always be a certain amount of turfism and protectionism that will be there. That is human nature.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, you can hear it in the media even when people talk about it. I mean, we heard from you, we heard from our social policy, that we need to work more closely, we need to bring our departments together and we need to decrease disincentives and gaps. What do you hear? That people feel that we should not change, we should do this, we should do that. Change is always stressful and there is a certain degree of turfism or turfdom, whatever you want to call it. I think we have tried to work very closely with our other departments and I think this department is a good example of inter-departmental collaboration, because we have a number of initiatives and pilot projects, not only with Health and Social Services, but with Justice, Education and Women's Policy. We are really trying to work through many of those perceived and existing problems that are out there in the bureaucracy.

MR. H. HODDER: As we proceed - and again I say to you that I applaud the direction - there are obviously going to be frustrations, frustrations within the system and frustrations that are going to be at the client level as well. As we proceed, and before we have this thing put into final preparation, will there be adequate time and further consultation with the service providers to make sure that there is again some flexibility, some time for both the bureaucracy and the clientele that we serve to become totally familiar with it so that we don't end up with a de facto document that says: Here it is, and this is what is going to happen.

How are we going to make sure that, as we do move along within the whole bureaucracy, which is across the government, because I am talking to you and you, obviously, as a member of Cabinet, would have some ideas there, particularly since it directly affects your department and you are considered to be the lead minister for this particular integration, how are we going to make sure that we don't get the process stifled by unnecessary obstacles that result from lack of communication?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I think communication is always a challenge, and there is always room for improvement, but I think if anybody has been around in the system - and I have been around from the health care system for close to twenty years - for many of the people we have spoken with, particularly the community health boards and the service providers, this is a dream come true for those to try to realign health and social services and put it closer to the community, put a community development focus on it. When we mentioned this in our feedback, when we met with all of the CEOs of the community health boards, I guess way back - when was it, the week before the budget maybe - and threw it out as a possibility of where we would like to go, we had a lot of positive feedback, because people see this as the obvious way to go.

How are we going to improve and communicate and keep it open? Well, the first thing we have done is put a steering committee in place. You know that when this initiative was brought forward it was very clear from the direction from Cabinet that we needed a time to do this right, and I think the fact that we have been given a year to make the transition is a sign of the time that we do need. We have put together a health and community services steering committee with representatives from social work, from the university, from health, from the community boards, from government, from other departments, and also from consumers; and we are planning to follow up on the many recommendations. I guess, to quote you, in many ways we have consulted quite a bit on this one and maybe it is just time that we move forward with it.

We heard from the Select Committee on Children's Interests that we should go in this direction. We have heard it from the Social Policy Advisory Committee, and the Ministerial Council for Federal/Provincial Relations. We have heard about it from the Provincial Strategy On Violence for the Province. We have heard about moving and integrating, so we are moving and integrating. I think your point is well taken, we do need to continue to communicate, we do need to share information, and we also feel that we have some fairly good information from our front-line workers on how they want us to do that, and that is what we are using as our main guide.

MR. H. HODDER: I have just one more question. It won't be long. I want to comment on your post-adoption program.

I support what you have done in adding the extra staff, but we still have not addressed the whole issue of the rights of adoptees to access to information. In my opinion, we have not gone far enough. I believe that we should be looking at the European model. We should be looking at British Columbia. We still have a ways to go in terms of our giving adoptees the same right to information about their birth families as all of us who grew up with our parents. I am wondering if you intend, as the minister to - what we have done now is really speed up the backlog, which does not address the fundamental, philosophical issue. I wanted to get your comments on what you feel about the viewpoint I would have, which is more like the British Columbia experience, which is not being copied extensively across Canada, but I think that it is recognizing the rights of adoptees and treating them like everybody else. They didn't decide to be adopted. Are there any new directions coming? Are we going to change the adoption act?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, there are two issues. The first issue is the backlog, which is obvious and quite extensive, and one about which we, as well, were quite concerned. That is why we made the recommendation, which was approved, that we hire the extra staff to clear away the backlog. As you know, we are hoping to have that done within the year. I think that is long overdue, and we are also quite pleased to be able to do that. That is the first issue.

The second issue is what to do in the long term. In order to address many of the issues and concerns with respect to open adoptions, rights of the adoptee, we have to change the legislation. In order to change the legislation we have to, I guess, have some sort of framework or discussion Green Paper on what we would like to do. We are hoping to move in that direction probably for the fall, to have that Green Paper out there with a discussion, because there are a number of varied views.

We have the rights of the adoptive parents who are very panicky when it comes to revealing that type of information that would allow the adopted children to have access to all of the information. They become very concerned about that. They figure, and they are right, that they are the parents and that the biological parents have no rights; they gave up their rights.

Then you have the rights of - I have had a number of very sad inquiries where we have had people who are actually dying and have had a child out of wedlock and want to see this child, but because the adoptee has not registered then I cannot give that biological birth parent the name of that person, because that is the way the legislation is written. I don't even have it, to be quite honest, and maybe there would be something we could do if we had it.

So there are a lot of glitches and errors. It is old legislation, just like our child welfare legislation, and we recognize that. We are looking at all of the models right across the country, and also some of the European models and some of the American models, and we will be putting forward a discussion paper in the fall to begin to address that issue.

MR. H. HODDER: I am glad to hear that, because I think that we have to give people the right to choose. Today, with computerization, with the ability to be able to access information a lot faster, then certainly if we get the right kind of programs in place - and I mean informational programs - we can make certain decisions very quickly.

As you know, of the 50,000 adoptions from British Columbia between 1924 and 1996, the number of adoptive parents who choose to deny access to information was something like 1,200, which shows that 97 or 98 per cent of the people who are involved support the opening up of the information. They went through the same processes and had their Green Papers, or whatever you call it, if you are NDP out there. I don't know the colours in British Columbia.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I am just getting it figured out myself. The White Paper is an information one and the Green Paper is a discussion one. I am just following the lingo, that is all.

MR. H. HODDER: But it is a case of where I think that is the right direction to go. There will be open dialogue, and there will have to be protections built in, but it is a direction I would commend to you; that direction.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you. I take your commendation.

I think there is another point, though, that I would just like to add to that, and that is while right now we are in a very sort of important time because we have a group of baby boomers who went through the post-war era and there were a lot of children born out of wedlock - that was sort of a very common trend - what we are finding now is that the number of adoptions have decreased, so it will probably end up taking care of itself. We have so few adoptions right across the country, with a declining birth rate and more and more people choosing to keep their children even when they do have them out of wedlock, because the stigma is not there like it used to be, that it will probably end up taking care of itself. It is important to address that, because the issues are happening now, but I think in another twenty years that will not be an issue because a lot of these people will either have given up on searching out their children or the parents would have died.

MR. H. HODDER: Just to (inaudible) my point. On my desk out there now there was a call from Sarnia. Again, it is a young lady who went to the school system where I was teaching in Mount Pearl. She ended up in Sarnia and now, of course, she is looking for information, that kind of thing. So with the public dialogue we probably are going to get more enquiries in the short term.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: We get hundreds ourselves, yes.

MR. H. HODDER: Hundreds, yes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

CHAIR: Mr. Whelan.

MR. WHELAN: Minister, a number of different things have happened in your department of late, and one of them, I believe, is the wage subsidization for students. I think a lot of the responsibilities that HRD had are now with the Department of Human Resources and Employment, is that correct?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Are you talking about SWASP?

MR. WHELAN: Not necessarily. The SWASP -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: The labour market agreement is what you are talking about.

MR. WHELAN: Pardon?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: The labour market agreement.

MR. WHELAN: Yes.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: The employer subsidy and wage subsidy, yes.

MR. WHELAN: Yes. I had a constituent call me shortly after the Budget Speech. She was having some problem negotiating an agreement with HRD for her training allowance. They wanted to give her x number of dollars for babysitting. She figured she didn't need it. They could have put it into a different slot so that she could have used it for tuition or something. She was having problems along those lines. I suggested she call the Department of Human Resources and Employment.

She enquired about this particular problem she was having, without having said that she had gone to HRD, and they said: Why don't you go to HRD and they can give you all the information, because that is exactly what we are doing? I wonder if it was just taken as a composite unit and taken from the federal Department of Human Resource Development and put into your department, or has it been changed somewhat and your own mark put on it? What is the situation?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I think a lot of people are getting confused by the names of the departments, because they are somewhat similar. We have not taken over all the roles and responsibilities of the federal government's programs. We co-design many of the programs to try to meet sort of the needs of the community or the Province, as opposed to a few years ago when all the programs were developed in Ontario and we all had to fit into them. We have had a lot more activity in terms of designing them, but they are managed, and I guess delivered, by HRD. They aren't delivered out of our office.

MR. WHELAN: That leaves me even a little bit more confused now, because I understand that you took on the responsibility, your department, of providing training allowances for people who at one point or another decided to go back to school. Not necessarily a young student who has gone from high school into college or university and looking for a summer job, but people who have been out of school for quite a while and want to get back into the job market and want to be retrained and that type of thing.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: With the new labour market development agreement that we signed about three weeks ago we do have the four components that are outlined, or the four tools, wage subsidies and those kinds of things. I would ask Ray, if you want to speak to that specifically Ray, on his question. I don't know if he has an issue there with respect to the constituent.

MR. WHELAN: There is no particular issue. I was just wondering if you had evolved - If it was only a few days after the announcement of Human Resources and Employment, then I could understand the individual in your department referring her to HRD at that particular point in time, within a day or two. I was wondering if there had been any further development with regard to your own program and policy and your own mark on the particular program, so to speak, since then.

MR. FRANEY: The labour market development agreement was signed to come into effect April 1. Essentially we who were formerly in D2R2, the Department of Development and Rural Renewal, moved around the same week into the new department. There was a package of information that was sent across the Island, to people like yourself, that explained what the labour market development agreement was. It was given out in the House.

Essentially, the labour market development agreement is an agreement that allows the Province to have a say in what before was controlled entirely by the federal government. So we, through the labour market development agreement, will have a say in joint management and joint design of federal programs, but the federal group of Human Resource Development Canada will still administer that particular program. Their programs look like some types of program that we have also delivered in the Province: Wage subsidy, wage supplementation, job creation partnerships, a training component which is under Development and several support measures of which different groups could avail.

It is fairly complicated, information counselling and that kind of thing, but essentially it is a program that we will now embark on. We are just fresh into this, a process of having our say in what the federal government is doing in Newfoundland. So we are hoping that we will shape the approach to Newfoundland, building on our aspirations, our priorities, our growth agenda and saying: this is how we would like or how we would like to see you operate in Newfoundland.

MR. WHELAN: How is it developing? What do you feel the priorities are and what changes (inaudible).

MR. FRANEY: It is moving fairly fast. The management committee has been structured. Again we are talking about an agreement that was just signed for April 1. The Secretariat spoke to the management committee which is a group of federal and provincial officials who are currently working out rules and procedures and orientation for these committees. The regional committees will be formed very soon and they will be responsible for developing a business plan for the four HRCC regions in the Province.

The business plan talks about how we will spend the money in that particular region. They, in doing that, will build on the zone strategic plans and will build on their knowledge of that particular region. That will be signed off by the management committee, and the management committee, in signing off that plan and in the formulation of the plan, will be aware of what programs we have in the Province and what the new department is mandated to do. Hopefully, all that will tie together in one, overall, strategic plan for the Province. The programs themselves, under the Labour Market Development Agreement, are for EI eligible clients and will be delivered by HRDC.

MS DAWE: I co-chair the Labour Management Committee with HRD and we are currently in the process of putting the infrastructure in place to co-design and identify the needs of our Province. We will be doing that in consultation with many stakeholders: the employers council, for example, and the new council on economy. We will be going to various groups, including the regional zone boards, and asking them to identify their needs in the community for training. Then we will develop the training programs to fit the needs of the Province. As the minister said, formerly, the programs were designed in Ottawa and we had to fit into that niche. We will be designing the programs ourselves.

While the funding is there, the programs are being delivered by HRDC now and they will for the next year, until we are able to properly design what is required in this Province. That is the process we will be going through over the next five to six months, with much input from various stakeholders.

MR. WHELAN: So basically, you will going to the grass roots for information and the information will filter back to you again?

MS DAWE: Right. We will be designing the programs around what is needed in this Province to help support people get into the workforce.

MR. WHELAN: And eventually you will be administering it too, I would say.

MS DAWE: No, we won't. The money for these programs will be co-managed by HRDC and the Province, but will actually be delivered by the HRD system, by the federal employees who are all across the Island. The benefit of this, is that we will have a chance to say how these programs should be structured to meet the needs of people in this Province. We are going through quite an extensive consultation process to get input from various groups now around the design.

MR. WHELAN: Okay, thank you.

You mentioned, Mr. Minister, in your introductory remarks, something about a single-entry system for clients.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: `Mr. Minister', that is what they are laughing at.

MR. H. HODDER: I am sure, Madam Minister, there will be a Ministerial Statement on this subject.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: You never know.

MR. WHELAN: My apologies!

MS J.M. AYLWARD: You are going to have to start again, Don.

MR. WHELAN: You mentioned the single-entry system, Madam Minister, and I am wondering if you could probably expound on that. What exactly does that entail?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Okay. What that means, I guess, is it is one way to address a number of gaps and departmental nightmares that you go through. A good example to use is the Central Newfoundland community board system where they try to put in place a way to address the long waiting lists for people who are trying to access long-term care facilities in nursing homes. The way it used to work years ago: If you knew someone here, you could get your mother in, or if you knew someone there then you could get your mother in.

What they did was that they developed a single entry list, so that when your name went on the list you were called and you went here or there. Now, you mightn't want to go over there, and you could refuse to go, that is fine, but you couldn't be number fifty on the list and get in over there. That is one example of a single entry system.

The example that we are hoping to use is that when you go in to the Department of Health, for example, and you have a child in your family on social assistance, and you need various programs and services, instead of saying: You go on over to the Department of Social Services and they will take care of you over there, because you happen to be on social services and you can't access these programs because these are not for people on social services, what we are hoping to say is: You go in to your social worker and they will be able to look at your needs. Then, because everybody will be working out of an integrated system, you will be sent to the occupational health and safety worker, the behaviour management specialist, the community health nurse, referral to a paediatrician or whatever. It will be that type of a system, instead of going back and forth, and that is what we mean by single entry.

We have, in many cases, a group from Social Services doing a full assessment, another group from Health doing a full assessment, and if you have community services the crowd out in community health are doing it. We are trying to minimise all of that and work people through the system a lot more effectively.

MR. WHELAN: Something like the banking system.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: No, we aren't going to automatic tellers.

MR. WHELAN: There is a problem or a concern that I have had, and I think every time I get an opportunity I bring it up. I suppose other members as well, and most social workers, realize that there are certain people in society who, though they aren't necessarily mentally or physically handicapped, they are somewhat slower mentally and physically than the average individual, and they have a problem competing in the job force. As a consequence, I guess they are perpetually attached to the social services department. It is a constant source of frustration for a lot of these people, and in some ways a constant source of frustration for politicians, because they are quite often coming to us looking for jobs, and it isn't very easy to find a job for a person in that particular niche, I suppose.

I was wondering if there is any particular program that may be addressed to these individuals. We have them in every community. There are a number of people in each and every community who fall into that category. I was wondering, as I mentioned before, is there anything there that would address that problem in your department?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes. We often address the people whom you have described as socially disabled. In many ways, as you said, they are probably suffering from a minor disability, or they may not have a visible disability but they have a learning disability and they aren't able to compete.

MR. WHELAN: Just a bit slower than other people.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes. I think what you would find is that it is just like the whole issue of workfare and that whole debate. When you have a burgeoning economy you find that there are a lot more jobs available through other types of markets and resources for a lot of these people. It becomes more and more difficult, like it does for everybody else in this economy, when there is such high competition.

In our department we do have the STEP which we have used to assist people, often times on social assistance. Well, in our department it has been specifically for people on social assistance. In the past we have kept that part of the program separate from the other programs that Ray just spoke about in the Department of Development and Rural Renewal, because we knew if these people had to compete for jobs with everybody else they wouldn't get a job. That is how we have worked with them.

We have had a number of initiatives like the silviculture program, as you know about, and other initiatives that we have held through the New Beginnings. We have had people assessed through the SAT Centre, and we try to work them in. In many ways we have supportive employment programs where we will pay a part of the subsidy for people to work. In some cases we have paid all the subsidy.

We are trying to work more into meaningful jobs where people will, even if we pay a subsidy, at the end of the day either have an attachment to the workforce or they will have a permanent job. Yes, we do have some programs, and we will still have those programs in our department.

MR. WHELAN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Thank you, Don.

Mr. Ottenheimer.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Minister, there are obviously a lot of changes taking place within the department, and certainly the impression one gets is that they are for the better, and there are a lot of positive initiatives taking place which, I think we agree on this Committee, are certainly for the betterment of our people and are moving in the right direction.

However, because of the nature of the department there are still a number of frustrations. I find it, I guess, as an MHA when I get a call from a constituent who perhaps may be looking for something like a fridge, or there may be a situation whereby emergency housing is required, you know, these sorts of immediate crisis situations which come up, and which obviously the officials in your department deal with on a regular basis, and we as MHAs deal with certainly on a weekly if not daily basis.

The impression one gets is that the direct representative of the department, in most cases the social worker, who is really the one-to-one contact that that client has, and really represents the department very often, often we, acting as mediators in dealing with that individual or social worker, feel the response time is not perhaps what it should be. That may be a result of the nature of the type of business we are in. I mean, it is a very high-stress, high frustration level. People want answers immediately, and, you know, it is just not possible very often.

I'm wondering, in terms of the social workers who are out there and the numbers that we have, is it at a level, in terms of the numbers of people, that you feel is acceptable? If not, what recommendations are you making as minister to see to it that we have a greater number of individuals on behalf of the department who can work in conjunction with the many thousands of people who are out there and who need assistance on a regular basis?

I guess my question in a nutshell is: Do we have the staff, and if not, what recommendations or suggestions do you feel may be appropriate to give us what we need to do as a response to these concerns?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: First of all, when you make the reference about the fridge, for example, it is hard to answer in a generalized question, the specifics of it, because there is a whole philosophical debate around a lot of the policies and procedures. Just like our child welfare legislation is over twenty-two years old, our income support legislation is quite old. It was done at a time when many of the initiatives that we had in place were put there to meet the federal government requirements under the Canada Assistance Program. Obviously we have to change those as well, and that will be forthcoming.

In terms of how do you meet them, I think one of the things that we have found, or I have found since I have been here in this year, is that a lot of people in the Province are experiencing some very difficult times. I think what we also have done, rightly or wrongly, is we have increased expectations quite a bit. Many of the people who we serve have a number of other, I guess, bills and requirements that we have no capacity to pay. I would say that well over 70 per cent of all the people on social assistance have cable bills, which we have no ability to pay. We have a number of them who have cars, which means you have to pay insurance. I know I myself pay $1,100 insurance a year. You have the upkeep of your car and all those other types of expenses which we have no ability, and never ever had any intention of paying for.

They have those types of requirements, and rightly or wrongly they have the same expectations as if somebody was out working and having to make all those types of payments. That is one issue, and maybe that is a philosophical debate. Maybe it is right and maybe it is wrong, but they are the expectations. People come in and say: I owe $50 on my Visa, I have my cable bill, I have my car payment, I have my gas, I have my food, my rent and everything else. We don't have those types of arrangements because that is not what a system of last resort is based upon. That is one issue.

With respect to the contact, I think that for information purposes it is important to note that most people do not speak to a social worker when they come into the department. They speak to a financial assistance officer, and then, based on their needs and requirements, they may or may not be referred to a social worker.

You are asking if we have enough staff. Our staff is broken down into a number of categories, as you know from the classifications. We have financial assistance officers, we have social workers, we have child protection workers, we have community services workers, we have various specialists within the system, and then we have supervisors and other layers all the way up through.

If you are asking what the average workload is for a social worker with respect to child protection cases, it is an average of twenty-two cases. As we know, with every twenty-two cases some are active and some are inactive. Some might have higher than that, but the average is twenty-two and not all of them are active at one time.

When you have over 70,000 clients, which we have, 35,000 cases, you have to obviously expect that there is some turnaround time. We admit that there is always room for improvement, and there is always a better way to work more collaboratively with other departments, and we are learning from that as we go.

You are right; we deal on a regular basis. Many of the complaints and issues that we get are issues we are able to address, and many of them are issues that we are not able to address, for some of the reasons that I gave. We cannot make car payments for people; we cannot pay Visa bills for people; we cannot pay cable bills; and we don't pay lights and phone. They make their own arrangements for that part of this new system of independence.

I would say there is always room for improvement. We do the best we can, but we have over 1,100 staff and over 70,000 clients. So I guess it is sort of a function of division there. Some people we never from and some people, I am sure as you can attest to - you have 5 per cent of your constituents that you hear from 90 per cent of the time, and in some cases, in some regions, that is the way it is as well.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: What is the ratio? You mentioned, I think, for child protection it is one to twenty-two, I believe. Is that correct?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes, an average of twenty-two cases.

MR. OTTENHEIMER: What would it be for the adult clientele, just the regular social assistance recipient and his or her social worker? What sort of numbers would we be...

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That would depend, you see, because any one person might be meeting with - for example, you would have your first interaction with the financial assistance officer. You might be referred one time to the social worker; you might be referred to a behaviour modification specialist; or you might be referred to a child protection worker. It is very difficult to say, because you might have four particular people dealing with the one family because of special needs, and that might be it; they might never have any follow-up needs. They might go off the system.

The other thing that makes it difficult is that many of our cases are on and off the system sometimes as high as three times a year, so we have about 50,000 clients in the run of a year, but when you average them out it works out to about 35,000 cases because many of them are the same. So it is very difficult to come up with those statistics. It is much easier when you have a client set of needs and a client to find out what the ratios are. If you are asking me what the turnover is to a financial assistance officer, in some communities they have all of the referrals done because everybody who is going to be on social assistance is on social assistance.

If you look at some place like Davis Inlet, you would expect all of them to be on social assistance. Very few of them are on social assistance. However, they do have a high child protection caseload; one of the highest. So it is very difficult to outline the exact worker ratio.

CHAIR: Perhaps with the committee's indulgence we could take a short break for coffee downstairs in the common room, the government caucus room.

WITNESS: That is fine with me.

CHAIR: Okay, so we will take a break for about fifteen minutes, and when you return the Vice-Chair will be in the chair. I have to be elsewhere. I apologize for that, but sometimes constituency matters do take precedence.

Thank you very much.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you.

 

Recess

 

CHAIR (J.Ottenheimer): Order, please!

Thank you everyone for returning.

In the absence of the Chairman, I have been asked, as Vice-Chair, to continue until the conclusion of our committee meeting this morning. We will continue with any further questions by committee members.

Ms Hodder, I do not know if you have any questions of the minister or any of her officials?

MS M. HODDER: I think I took advantage of the break to have my questions answered, but there is just one. I was just wondering: On the environmental support service for persons with developmental disabilities, I guess there has to come a point in time when these people can function independently, when they have gone through those programs for such a length of time. What has been the success rate?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Okay. That is a really good question because we are, right now, in the process. We had commissioned a report to be done, I guess it was last summer, called the Gosse Gilroy Report and it looked at all of these disabled programs and services that we offer in the Province. It was an outside group, and they actually assessed the outcome of a number of those programs and services. Right now, we have a committee of all those stakeholders working with our department as the chief service provider, to identify the ones that are successful and those that are not successful.

For example, there is a growing trend towards whether we should be running sheltered workshops, as they are called - for example, the Vera Perlin Centre - and some families have mixed feelings. Some people feel: Look, it is a place for my son or daughter to go every day, it is a place where they can socialize, it is a place where they can often do, you know, repetitive types of functions; and for some people that is helpful. There is another school of thought that says: You know, we should not be putting people in these types of environments, we should be training them or assisting them to become gainfully employed, but that is not necessarily always a realistic goal for some of the people affected.

We are right in the process now of working with the groups. We have the task force in place and we are trying to, I guess, identify some of the growing needs that we have. We have a lot of these people who are getting older and have a different set of requirements than they had before. We still have most of the children living at home with their parents but we have a growing number who want to have some sort of a program.

Some of our successes are very clear. I think people will say that the Vera Perlin Centre has been quite a success. There is another school of thought, however, that says there should be more integration, instead of having all these people come together in a place, they should be more integrated into society.

I guess, over the next six months, we are hoping to come up with a happy medium, that we will be able to provide some choices for people. If they want to be integrated into the community, that will be an option; if they want to have access to some day programs, that will be an option. That is what we are working towards right now. So we are working with all the stakeholders in the Province on that one particular issue.

CHAIR: Mr. Reid?

MR. G. REID: It looks like your total Budget has increased by $10 million. You say that is the result of the combining of divisions of the other department with yours?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That is a combination of the Department of Development and Rural Renewal, I guess, releasing the labour market component. I guess we have access to a lot more money than is currently in here because of our labour market agreement. We have over $300 million that we can have access to over the next three to five years. That is what it meant by moving the services together, but we will have a lot more monies that we will have access to through that federal-provincial agreement.

CHAIR: Mr. Hodder?

MR. H. HODDER: Oh, I have (inaudible) of questions.

I wanted to talk about the imbalance that occurs sometimes between the supports that we give to natural families as opposed to what we give to foster parents. I will give an example. If we have a case where a mother who is on social services has to bring a child, say, to the Janeway from out of town and they are housed at the hostel down there, they are given very low - the last time I checked it was seven dollars a day for food, which is very, very minimal. I don't know how anybody can ever live on seven dollars a day.

However, when we have a foster mother who has to bring her children to St. John's, they sometimes are housed in hotels or other accommodations. Then you have a mother who would say: How can I be expected to be able to welcome this child back to my family when this child is getting much more support in the foster parent arrangement where they have access to everything that is better? In terms of trying to integrate children back with their natural parents, it has to be the approach and the philosophy. That is the direction we should be all trying to head in, is reintegration. How can we justify this great divergence in support?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I think it is very difficult to justify it, quite frankly. That is one of the reasons why we are trying, over the next year or so when we look at our child welfare changes that are coming forward, to focus more on early intervention and prevention that will try to change that. I look forward to your support when we announce those types of initiatives, where we will in fact be offering to shift how we provide those supports.

I mean, it is very clear that a child can go to a foster home and get new jeans and a new jean jacket and new shoes, and they come home and they realize they don't have that access, and it is better in a foster home than it is at home. I think that is a very severe message to be sending to natural families that are trying to do the best they can. I think a lot of the children in the system are very aware of it and become quite aware of it very early, how the system works.

Our plan is that we will be moving more towards providing more supports to natural families. We are hoping to take advantage of the national child benefit, to have those monies to do those types of programs, to help people work through their problems rather than take children from their homes.

We felt that with programs such as the early intervention programs - we have some of them now in the department that we have had a freeze on for a number of years. Just recently with the Budget announcement we have been able to, I think, meet all the demands for the people on the waiting lists for some of these services that are preventative services, particularly for children who we are seeing more and more of with ADDH. They are requiring more and more counselling and support services which we haven't been able to provide; not just those on social services, either, but many low income families are also suffering. As we know, low income families are just as susceptible to problems with respect to child rearing as social assistance families. It is a very fine line there as well.

I agree, it is very difficult when a foster family has access to clothing, a clothing allowance, an entertainment allowance, and a travel allowance, and that natural families don't have that. I think we have to shift our priorities and look at how we are providing supports. That is certainly one of the things that we will be looking at as we look at revamping our whole child welfare legislation and implementing some of the programs of the national child benefit.

MR. H. HODDER: Just to follow up to that: Are you suggesting that within the next year or so we may see some redirection of that particular issue? Because this is a very significant issue, it runs counter to the philosophy we all share. If we identify the problem, we know that it isn't the fault of the foster parents. I mean, they take the children in. It is hard enough to get foster parents any time, and you know -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: For a particular age group.

MR. H. HODDER: For a particular age group. Younger children are much easier than teenagers, and that has its own problems as you know. In terms of trying to, for example, say to a mother whose child is at the Janeway - I just had an experience a few days ago of a baby that the mother had to bring in there. Of course, she wished to stay in the hospital because she is breast-feeding. She is on social assistance and, of course, was essentially told that her daily allowance is $7, which is ludicrous. This is something that you might want to look at as an interim measure, particularly as it applies to mothers and the Janeway itself. It is an issue that I've been aware of, but I've never addressed directly to you before. It is something we might want to do something about, it is very important.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: As you know, on a case-by-case basis, we would have to look at the individual. I mean, if a family is here and they have other alternative supports, that is something we consider. We have done lots of things that are above and beyond what the rules are, based on the individual needs, and quite frankly I wouldn't implement a program now until we go through the process of trying to identify the programs we want.

We know now that we are very interested in providing support systems to children, particularly at the earliest age possible, to do better assessments and more follow up and supports to try to keep children with their families rather than re-apprehend. Because when you apprehend and re-apprehend, the goal still remains - and the courts support this - the reintegration model, whether it is right or wrong. Our view is that if you can prevent the apprehension and provide the supports, in the long run you are better off because you don't have that whole withdrawal and reintegration and all the problems that it brings.

We will want to build the child care initiative that we announced in the Budget this year. We do want to provide some preventative programs, build on parenting programs, like with the Brighter Futures. We in our own minds have some ideas. The Social Policy Committee has given us some ideas. In terms of having it all outlined yet, we don't, because we are still going to be consulting with some of the groups to find out what it is they think we should focus on.

I think we know what we would like to do with it. We would certainly like to provide more education for foster families. We would try to strengthen the prenatal program for low income families, as well, similar to the CLSC model in Quebec, the milk, eggs and orange juice programs that they have. We have a number of ideas and we would like to do it, but we hope that by July of next year - that is the latest implementation date for the national child benefit - we will have programs well up and ready to run when that transition occurs.

MR. H. HODDER: On another issue dealing with housing, as you know you just adopted a new policy where if people are being paid out of social assistance dollars, or anything from family members, the maximum that you will pay is $100, I think it is, something like that, for rent. In the case where somebody is renting the basement or whatever, and it could be the mother; Are these being assessed on an individual basis?

Let me draw you a scenario. You can have a situation where a mother has raised her children in a home, and then, when that home is sold by Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, a son who was living out of town decides that this was his mother's home and he buys that home; not for her, but essentially he rents it to her. Social assistance continues to pay the rent at $433 a month, whatever it is. She is now told that after raising your five children in this home, which was for years owned by Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, that now she is going to be able to only pay $100 a month. She is told as well that if she would swap houses with the lady across the street, who is in a similar circumstance, we can move them all of 130 feet and then they qualify. In other words, you just simply say: You move over here, because another lady across the street is in the same situation. Is there any room here for individual circumstances like that?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: When we went through Program Review and had identified some money-saving initiatives which we had to do in our department, that was one of the ones that was brought forward. We felt that a lot of families are collecting from us the full market value of rentals which we are paying. There is no doubt about it, in many cases in many of the rural areas of the Province we are setting the market value rates. In places like Botwood we have paid as high as $700 a month for rent. We are setting the bench mark. I think that was one of the initiatives that was brought forward to us and we tried to look at a fair approach.

We believe a lot of families will allow this transition to happen, because they are there anyway and they aren't going to ask their families to leave. It isn't our intention - and it has come to my attention that people will move across the street - to do that, because then you would be paying the rental across the street instead of paying it there. We will be looking at it and seeing how it is working out.

The intention was to lower those kinds of rates so that we would be paying a fairer rate and, I guess, an initiative as well to ask families to assist. Because if my mother is living with me, to think that the government is going to pay me because she happens to be living in my basement - after the relationship that most people have with their mothers or fathers, to me, it is a bit of an unreal situation.

You talk about the European model that you put up as a goal, this is the European model, that people take care of their families and provide the support without government intervention. That was one of the initiatives that we put forward; and yes, we will have to look at it. The reason we put it forward was to avoid things like cutting back on child welfare monies and staffing monies, which is what we have been able to do, and to look at some of these initiatives without causing undue stress and harm.

MR. H. HODDER: In the actual example that I put, and it is a St. John's example, this mother raised five children, none of whom live in St. John's and none of whom live on that street. Therefore, the lady who is involved has extremely high levels of anxiety and does not know what is going to happen to her. She is in her sixties and raised a very successful family but, like most families today, they are scattered all across the country, and she now finds herself under great stress. Certainly the intention is not that she could just move across the street with her friend and they could swap houses. What would that achieve? It achieves nothing, but technically it would meet the requirements of the direction that she was given from her front-line worker. I am not saying that the front-line worker said: Do this. I am saying that when she asked the question, if she would meet the criteria by moving across the street, she was told she would.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, I can see Dave has been taking copious notes as you have been talking, and if you want to actually tell him, we can look into it specifically; we would be happy to do that.

MR. H. HODDER: I believe David may already be somewhat familiar with the general circumstances.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: But I am talking about the specific. It is always easier to deal with the specific case than make a generalization.

MR. H. HODDER: Yes, and I will share with him the particulars of it.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: By all means.

Mr. Vice-Chair, if I might: I was wondering if it would appropriate; I would like to ask a question. Is that an appropriate opportunity, or would you...

CHAIR: It may be unusual, but I don't think inappropriate.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Okay, well I think it is an opportunity just to ask a question.

I would like to ask both you and Harvey, and also my other colleagues as well, what your views are on a situation, I guess, that has been brought to our attention over the last number of years. I don't know if everybody is familiar with it, but in many cases - and it is not isolated to rural Newfoundland; it is also common in St. John's - you have a family who goes out and builds a house, or buys a house, gets a mortgage, and for one reason or another loses their job or whatever and goes on social assistance. We end up, as a government, paying off the mortgage for these particular families. At the end of the day they have the deed to their mortgage in their hand and they carry on, they sell their house and move on or whatever. We have had a couple of instances in particular. I guess, the way it was brought forward to me was from the next door neighbour who has been out working and slugging away for twenty years, still paying on the mortgage, and cannot do all of the same types of repairs and what-not. I would like your views on what you think of that situation, if you believe government, as we are all responsible for, has any sort of responsibility in addressing that type of situation.

MR. H. HODDER: I am familiar with the situation, and the answer for you is found in your own philosophy, to be consistent with your approach. In other words, if you are going to claw back income tax returns from people, if you are going to claw back the child tax benefits that are going to come in -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: We are not clawing them back.

MR. H. HODDER: No, but there was some comment that has been made relative to the new program.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Not by me. You are talking about my philosophy. Let's get to the answer here.

MR. H. HODDER: So when you look at the various ways in which we have said, you have said as a government, that those people who have extra income - when they are, shall we say, able to get additional income, whether it is from EI or whatever, as you know, you have to repay if you access social services. If you have EI benefits that come later on, you have to repay that under the system. I think before you adopt an approach to it, you have to say, to be consistent, that when people sold their houses, in other words when they got into difficulty, they then, shall we say, had to access social services - if, when they sold their houses they were to make a profit or a capital gain or something like that, then to be consistent you would have to treat them in that kind of a way. Because in essence, if you pay off the mortgage and there is a capital gain which comes as a consequence of that, then I think the taxpayers of the Province may be owed something.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Okay. John, what do you think?

CHAIR: Well, as Vice-Chair, of course, I am not in a position to either ask questions or respond to questions.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Oh, come on, it is just an opinion.

CHAIR: In all seriousness, I share the view of Mr. Hodder. The state cannot be called upon to contribute to a beneficial interest of an individual, which essentially means that if, upon the disposition of a property, a benefit is derived to an individual, clearly it is not the taxpayers responsibility to contribute to that benefit.

Having said that, I guess there is a requirement of the state which is really the rationale for social assistance, to assist a person who is in need, if a person on an interim basis requires interim assistance because of one's circumstances, to perhaps for a six-month period, a twelve-month period, an eighteen-month period or whatever the case might be, to assist that person during that interim because of the difficult times that person is experiencing. But, at the end of the day, if a profit has been derived -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well if you have your mortgage in your hands, whether you sell it or not, whether you dispose of it or not, it is certainly an asset.

CHAIR: Yes, and if a person has received a benefit, a monetary benefit above and beyond what ordinarily would have been derived, there may be an obligation to reimburse the state.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well if you are in Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, you have a place to stay but you do not own the unit at the end of the time. Whereas, if you are having your mortgage paid for you, at the end of the day you get your deed. So, it is a capital asset, that you would not ordinarily have.

CHAIR: I guess it is a debate you can argue either way. I mean, a person who receives social assistance because of one's circumstance - a person may have a full-time job, for example, and temporarily be out of work, obviously then that person -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I think temporary versus long-term is an issue.

CHAIR: Yes, and that is the debate.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I am talking about somebody building a house over the course of fifteen or twenty years and then having the deed in their hand, and the next person is there. I think that is the issue that was raised with me specifically.

CHAIR: Sure.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Does anybody else want to comment?

MR. H. HODDER: In the municipalities, Madam Minister - just a comment - do you find in municipalities that they have a practice, and it is not necessarily followed by all of them, that when people who are not able to pay their municipal taxes because of circumstances - and this was particularly before social services used to pay them automatically - when there are liabilities to the municipality, the municipality may carry these for years and years and years as contingent liabilities. Then when the property is sold, or it is inherited, the municipality will then collect the benefits that have been given to that property by the municipality. In other words, you could have, for example, a true case of a person who might be -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That is in an estate though, isn't it?

MR. H. HODDER: Pardon?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That is usually in the case of an estate though, isn't it?

MR. H. HODDER: Well, it could be either. It could be at the point of inheritance, it could be at the point of sale -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Right.

MR. H. HODDER: - and it does not necessarily have to be part of the estate. I mean, someone might decide to sell the property and the property taxes may not have been paid for, I have known cases of twenty-five years. At that point, then the municipality will not give the tax certificate which is required until the contingent liability has been met. If you go to any municipal office you will find that these houses have been what we call red circled, which means that any action on it will cause something to happen. There are examples out there and I am sure that the people involved would be very concerned about it, but I think in terms of protecting the interest of the state, you have to look at the range of options that one might have.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I don't know if anybody else would like to comment.

MR. H. HODDER: I am sorry for butting in there; I think Gerry was going to make a comment.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Gerry or Don, I believe.

MR. G. REID: No. I want to get back to what Harvey talked about earlier, a child buying a parent's house. In that case, after you paid off the mortgage, there is nothing preventing that person from selling the house to the child and then renting it back to him again.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: We have already heard that on the media, a few weeks ago. That is exactly the case.

MR. G. REID: That is a bit much.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes.

MR. WHELAN: Common sense should prevail in all this, you know. If, for example, the Department of Social Services pays off 10 per cent or 20 per cent or 30 per cent of a house, at the time of a sale, then it would seem to be the common-sense thing to do, to take back 10, 20 or 30 per cent, or whatever percentage of the house that you paid, back as repayment. You know, I found in some cases - and I suppose there are as many cases as there are people out there almost. I have seen people who have gotten a house through Newfoundland and Labrador Housing, worked at construction work and may have made $60,000 one year. Now, that determines the price of your house, or the monthly payment on your house. The next year they may make $10,000 and they find that they lose their house; and what happens? A social service recipient walks in there. There seems to be some sort of an injustice there.

I have talked to people about it before and they say that they try to work with the people, but I have seen some cases where justice does not seem to be done. That is the point I am making.

I guess I have made my comment on the question that you had.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you.

MS M. HODDER: I certainly feel that there should be a lien on the property to the extent of what social services contributed to it, to come into effect at the time of change of ownership.

CHAIR: Mr. Hodder, any further questions?

MR. H. HODDER: Yes. On the dental plan: There was a case there a while ago, and I know that there are some provisions to overcome this problem - a person, for example, who had been employed and then ended up being unemployed and on social services, develops certain major dental problems and the person is at an age where the employment prospects are not all that good, we are not going to say to them: Yes, if you get your teeth straightened out, then you will be able to get a job, that kind of thing. When the person, however, goes to talk to social services, they will pay for extractions and pay for the dental visit, but the huge cavities might mean that the person should have further services.

I had a case where the person involved was actually taking all kinds of medications for gum disease and all the rest of it. The total cost to the taxpayer was probably five times what it would have cost if we had been proactive up front in terms of dental care. It is a general case where we should have gone into the system and looked at the thing in a comprehensive way; that is one of the areas. Are we getting a little more sensitive to this particular problem, and are the strategies in place to overcome it?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Of course we are getting more sensitive to it.

MR. H. HODDER: Yes, well, things are getting worse too.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: We have had some discussions with Health about it, because it is six of one and half a dozen of the other. I agree with you, when you start accessing the health care system to access the pain medications, it becomes really quite ridiculous at some point in time.

MR. H. HODDER: Yes.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: As you know, from our perspective, what everybody has come to see - the old Department of Social Services is the catch-all for everything. We have seen that recently in the case in the media where an elderly gentleman was in trouble with his home. Who do they come to? Our department; when this person never had any affiliation at all. We are involved now in a coordinating role. All the various players are involved. It is like this issue here.

We are working with the Department of Health, and I think that as we move more towards an early intervention model it makes perfect sense we do that. There was never even a line item in our department for dental work until about three years ago when a previous minister put in a set amount of money for dentures, and it was all used up in one region within six weeks. It is a big issue, and it is an issue that we are concerned about. I think that if you are taking on a position and a philosophy of early intervention and prevention you have to deal with these kinds of issues. We have been working with Health to try to deal with it, but it isn't always as simple as that.

Does it mean: Are you going to give a billing number to dentists? Are you going to give a flat rate? Are you going to hire dentists to work for government? There are all those other sorts of issues that are involved. That is the sort of thing we are working with right now.

MR. H. HODDER: Certainly we don't want dentists to feel that a new program might become a new cash cow, you know, they could just move in there. It bothers me that people who are - I don't know if this is the right forum to say this or not - in prison get absolutely fabulous dental care. Across the country, I'm talking about, the federal system in particular. There is something wrong with that, when we can't extend the same kind of care to - not that we shouldn't do it for people in prison, but we don't extend it in the same kind of way to ordinary people who are law abiding. Sometimes it is just to make their lives bearable. I've had discussions with the dental association on this as well, and, of course, they would fully support a new program.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Of course they do.

MR. H. HODDER: Why wouldn't they?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Exactly. But the issue is, if you put that in place, unless we have new money we have to take it from somewhere else. The issue is that we have as many requests for dentures as we have for fillings and that kind of thing. Frankly, I would sooner go with the prevention and go with the fillings. We have even had meetings with denturists who say: I can give a full set of teeth for half the price that such-and-such is giving a top plate for. So they are the kinds of discussions we are trying to have too. There is a very realistic component to it, and that is the financial end.

MR. H. HODDER: One other question - I can go on for a long time yet. Talking about children of poorer families and their access to post-secondary education, you know, given the fact that more children in poor families don't complete high school, they drop out for various reasons, given the cost of tuition and travel and affordable housing, all of the reductions in grants and bursaries and scholarships, difficulty in obtaining loans and everything else, from your employment ministry, are we going to be able to do anything to really make the concept of universal access to post-secondary education more equitable for poor children?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I think that is a question you could very easily ask of the Minister of Education as well, if you happen to be on that Estimates Committee.

From our perspective, we believe with the new labour market development agreement and with the SWASP we have just implemented, anybody who has had access to the job market within the last two years, and maternity leave within the last five years, can have access to the programs and services that are offered under the labour market development agreement. There are a lot of skills and training options there. We have come out publicly and said to employers that if you have skills and services that you want us to offer, we will do that in an effort to meet your needs. That is one issue.

With the SWASP program that we are offering, I think that is a very solid foundation and a good initiative that has been evaluated. It is one of those initiatives that are very rare, where you actually have an analysis and an evaluation guide so that it is an effective program. That is why we have offered such a large program this year. One is a tuition voucher component and the other is a for pay component, and we have about $4.5 million that we will be offering. In addition, we are doing a special pilot project with Memorial University to help them, for them to help us work with the students to offset some of their special needs that they would have while going through post-secondary education. That should be finalized within the next few days, but we are hoping that it will be ready to go for September.

Then we also have - not from my department but I think it would be an initiative you could ask Minister Grimes about - the skills, loans and grants components of the labour market development agreement that they are offering under their part of that department; so there are a number of initiatives under way.

MR. H. HODDER: One of the fears I have, of course, is that as young people in the school system look out across the horizons of their future they realize the prospects for employment for those people who have gone through post-secondary education. Then, of course, their inability to be able to access it, shall we say, to have the money to go through post-secondary, becomes a further disincentive for them to want to get ahead with their lives. Yet we know that if they don't then we may simply be perpetuating the cycle of poverty that we all want to break. We want to give people some kind of an equal opportunity.

I have a couple of other things here. Your computer program: You have been working with this now for a couple of years and I expect, with the information technology and all of that, you spent a fortune of the taxpayers' dollars in the last few years bringing that in. What is the status of it, how integrated is it, and can we now have the assurance that everything in the Department of Social Services, from Nain to Trepassey, is now on a fully integrated delivery system?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, as you know, we did not bring in a system. That is why that money was withdrawn. I think you are asking a question based on the Auditor General's comments, perhaps, and that was raised last year.

MR. H. HODDER: No, no.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That whole initiative was withdrawn and what we have moved forward with is a new integrated approach to how we are delivering services, integrated on a number of levels. We are in the process of an integrated system with the Department of Health, as we announced a few months ago, and that is where our emphasis is because again it works very closely with the realignments of our two departments and it also has the ability to track the use of services throughout the system.

In addition to that, we are working with the federal government in a number of interfaces, as you know. We are also now working with HRD; they have a lot of technology that we will be using to assist people with jobs training and the skills component of it, because they already have systems set up. Of course, in addition to that, the money that we have spent we have used for putting equipment and training throughout all the system.

We certainly have a need to improve our system, particularly as it relates to the issuing of social assistance cheques; and now as we move to a more regional approach I am sure that will require some more changes in the system. We are focusing more on software and developing the software that will meet our needs over and above sort of getting into a massive project. Our intentions are to partner, as I have said, with HRD, with the Department of Health in particular, and also with the federal government in any other way we can.

MR. H. HODDER: When you are speaking with your federal counterpart maybe you could, at some point, ask him or her, the federal person anyway: Why does it take so long from the time, for example, that the group in Corner Brook dealing with income support - it can take up to six months for the computer program that they are using to be fairly integrated with, let us say, the employee. Let me draw an example: Let us say that you have a court order issued in St. John's, let us say the person in this case works with - I will use a federal department - the Coast Guard which is a federal agency, and there are some adjustments. Of course, the spouse in most cases is the female. The income support people in Corner Brook are trying to get the money to be brought in on a regular basis. There are some glitches that occur to it and I am told that it can take up to six months for this system to adjust. There is something wrong. I checked this, in this case with the federal agency here, touching with Corner Brook, and they say before they can put this re-adjustment into the federal system it can take up to six months. That does not seem sensible.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, a lot of that was because we had no agreements with them to share information, and now we have just gone through a number of processes where we have gotten agreements and contracts where we are able to share information. A lot of it was based on confidentiality and no federal-provincial agreements, and we have gotten a number of those. We have not gotten all of them, we certainly have not gotten some of the more intricate, income tax for example, but we do have federal-provincial agreements on CPP, on EI, TAGS and our own social assistance. So, you know, there are agreements and things are happening quicker.

With respect to answering on their behalf, it is not for me to do that, right?

MR. H. HODDER: I guess, my asking you is to ask you, when you are dealing with your federal counterparts to try to address the issue.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: But logistically there is an agreement.

MR. H. HODDER: Because this is not the provincial bureaucracy which is causing the trouble here, this is the federal bureaucracy, and it is not acceptable to take six months to do a simple adjustment.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I think, if you have read, that the federal government has come across with some initiatives on child enforcement and federal protection and that kind of thing, and many of the provinces will be trying to work closely to shadow their same legislation, to minimize the levels and the glitches in the system. I think there is more of a sense that we work closer together. It is like us: Why would we want to redevelop new systems of inputting, if we are working with HRD and they have it all? I mean, it makes sense. Why re-invent the wheel in the name of turfism?

MR. H. HODDER: Sixteen to eighteen-year olds - obviously, we are expected to ask that question again - and the new Child Welfare Act: When are we going to see initiatives on these particular issues?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, I think they are both related. The sixteen to eighteen-year olds, and other initiatives related to the Select Committee that have not been addressed by now, will be addressed when we put forward the new child welfare legislation. Our plans have not changed. We are hoping that we will have that ready for the fall and bring it forward. There is major revision because it is over twenty-five years old. We have done a lot of consultations. We have gone across the country, we have consulted across the Province, we have consulted with our groups and we are still consulting, but that is the plan, that we will be putting forward the legislation in the fall.

MR. H. HODDER: I see people looking at me. It is two minutes to twelve.

The number of social workers who interact with children: Last year you were giving commitments that you were going to address that and try to minimise it in a couple of cases. One of the difficulties is the occasion where bumping occurs. In child protection we tend to have a fairly high turnover, and very often, not always, it is the entry system into the social work department.

How are we doing now in terms of minimizing the number of social workers, trying to work with the groups, agencies, unions and whatever to try and reduce the impact that of bumping, when that occurs, so we don't have multiple changes? In once case we know of, a child was exposed to four social workers in a six-month period; that kind of thing.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I think there are a number of issues around that question. One is that the government has not engaged in any active negotiations with any group, with the exception of the NLTA as it relates to its pension plan, which was done separately from its collective agreement; and we all know about that. There are no other negotiations that are ongoing right now. I think notice has been sent out and I'm sure they will be starting soon.

This is a collective bargaining issue. It is one that we are very concerned about as well because of the continuity in delivering services, particularly to children. It is a collective agreement issue. I think that having the right to bump, for many employees is paramount. I would ask you, as well, to call on the unions to ask them to exclude front-line social workers, if that is what you believe they want based on your conversation with the social workers. My understanding as to what the social workers want is to have the same rights and benefits as every other employee.

As an employer we are very concerned because it is an issue with respect to children, in this particular case. We don't say: You leave and go over there. It is part of the bumping system. There is a turnover, and it is a very stressful job. I think with any type of front-line work, particularly in this case with respect to your question, child protection work, there is a turnover. There always has been a turnover because it is a very stressful job. You ask any lawyer who is practising family law and they will tell you that it is a very stressful job. There aren't too many lawyers who will stay in the whole area of family law because it is so stressful.

You talk to social workers and they say they love child protection, but often times they will leave it for a while and then come back. Then there are the normal situations around any type of collective agreement. You have maternity leave, people leaving, people going back to education, taking educational leave. The question is: Do you say that you are excluded from bumping in this system? Do you say that you must stay here for two years, or you must maintain a caseload? It is a very difficult one to call.

MR. H. HODDER: Mr. Vice-Chair, I have all kinds of yellow marks here, page after page after page, to ask questions.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: We are able and ready if you want to ask them. Go for it.

MR. H. HODDER: I have notes galore. The choice, however, is that it being noon I can either review these later on with the minister or we can reconvene. I'm sure the minister would say: Do that again. I will answer any questions later on.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: No. I would be happy to reconvene, or I would be even more happy right now, if you want to go through and ask them. I would be happy to do it. Whatever is your choice?

MR. H. HODDER: I just have a few questions relevant to the actual document itself.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Sure, go for it.

MR. H. HODDER: I mean, these are the Estimates.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes, by all means.

MR. H. HODDER: If I could just quickly run through page after page. We can start on page -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: I was wondering when you were going to get to the questions on the budget.

MR. H. HODDER: Page 213. I came prepared. Under Executive Support you have an increase from $392,400 in your revised budget to $458,800. I was wondering: Is this purely the reflection in Executive Support because of the change in the Ministry, or have you added additional persons to your staff over there?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Last year, when we re-organized our department, we re-organized from three ADMs to two ADMs. Now, with the labour market re-organization, we have an ADM position there. So that accounts for the change.

MR. H. HODDER: Okay, if you want to go to the next page, Administrative Support, we see that the salaries there again have gone from $2,064,000 to $2,342,000, for about $275,000 or $280,000 in variance there. What has caused that to happen?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: We have had a computer support specialist transferred from client services; we have had a computer analyst programmer from the Department of Municipal and Provincial Affairs; and we have had some new initiative funding. We have been able to hire two accounts receivable collections staff, as was outlined as one of our needs from the Auditor General; we are very weak in collecting accounts receivable.

We have also, because of the impact of bumping and the redundancy, had to do upscale hiring; you know, the red circling associated with redundancy. So that accounts for those changes.

MR. H. HODDER: In that same listing there, Property, Furnishings and Equipment went from $8,000 up to $55,000; $47,000 dollars in a time of restraint. What rationale do you have for that?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, you have to remember that covers the whole - we have fifty offices.

MR. H. HODDER: Okay.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: And we have the need for fax machines; we have the need for all kinds of, you know -

MR. H. HODDER: Why would it be only $8,000 last year and then make a six times - seven times really - jump this year.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: One of the main reasons is because we have had to purchase a software program for labour market development at a cost of $22,000. So that accounts for a significant portion of that right there.

MR. H. HODDER: Okay.

In Information Technology there, I notice that one has gone down by about $130,000. Is that because you bought the equipment last year and don't have to buy it this year?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: No, because of the shared co-ordination with health.

MR. H. HODDER: The shared co-ordination with health.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: The initiatives that we are doing with health with respect to their information system.

MR. H. HODDER: In Professional Services, in the same category, number 05, you went up by about $30,000. What kind of professional services are we talking about here? Why would there be an increase?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: That is the Social Services Appeal Board, the increased demand and the increase in -

MR. H. HODDER: Increased demand and the caseload.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes.

MR. H. HODDER: And so on and so forth.

In the next category, Program Development and Planning, again Professional Services have gone from $49,200 to $179,200. What is the rationale for that one?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, we have had a couple of initiatives on the go with respect to program review. We also will be engaging in the evaluation of the co-location project in Gander, the federal/provincial co-location of EO and income support; so, that accounts for that.

MR. H. HODDER: So really you are looking here at about an extra $130,000 for -

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes, for the evaluation and also social and strategic planning that we had used for the program review initiatives.

MR. H. HODDER: In that same category, in Salaries, last year, if you look at the budget and the revised budget, there is a difference there of about $225,000, from $2.7 million to $2.9 million. That was last year, and this year you are back again to $2.6 million. Why did we bump it up - what is that, about $225,000? Then we dropped it down again. Why the up-and-down movement there in salaries?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Is that a transfer to the federal government?

MR. STRONG: There were some staff hired with labour market services, and under the new agreement they have been transferred to the federal government.

MR. H. HODDER: They had a short stay in your department?

MR. STRONG: Yes.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Moving on up.

CHAIR: Mr. Hodder, before you continue, I am going to make a suggestion. I know there are a number of people who have different commitments. I could propose one of two things: We could perhaps reconvene if you feel that is necessary or, if you feel we could clue this up in the next few minutes; whatever your preference is.

MR. H. HODDER: Let's set a time limit. I have seven-and-a-half minutes after twelve, we will close at 12:15 p.m.?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Whatever, it is your call.

MR. H. HODDER: Is that agreeable?

CHAIR: As I said, I know there are a number of people here who have other commitments and this was scheduled to go from nine to twelve. We can go to 12:15 p.m. - I will leave it to the committee - or we can reconvene at some other date with Elizabeth's help.

MR. H. HODDER: Finish it now.

CHAIR: Finish it now?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Yes.

CHAIR: Okay. Go ahead, Mr. Hodder.

MR. H. HODDER: Thank you very much.

I have all kinds of notes here. Over to page 217, I guess, in the Support To Family-Related Organizations, appropriations for the payment of grants to various community-based organizations and various counselling diversion services to designated groups, I noticed that you were at $148,400, you went up to $161,300 and now you are back to $132,400. What grants did you pay last year that we are not paying this year, and who are the people who will be crossed from the list you might say?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, what we did, in an effort to again try to re-align our department and sort of make obvious connections between some community groups and other departments, we re-aligned and transferred to Education, a number of initiatives for which we were paying grants and subsidies from our department. For example: Big Brothers and Big Sisters has gone to Education; the Boys and Girls Club; the school lunch programs in St. John's; and Newfoundland and Labrador School Lunch Foundation. So that would account for about $275,000 transferred over.

In addition to that, we had one agency that no longer receives any funding from us and that was, you know, something that was worked out with that particular organization over a number of years.

MR. H. HODDER: Okay. Page 219, The Right Future: We notice that Transportation and Communications have been reduced by nearly $8,000. Have there been significant changes in the formula that you are using or are you simply not providing as much as you were?

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Well, as you know, we are at the point of closing the whole initiative. The pilot project will end this year, so many of the needs for transportation of staff and communication is no longer required because, as of June this year, we are hoping to have the project completed as it currently exists. So that is part of the wind-up process that we have put in place and negotiated with the federal government, and that is why you are seeing those types of decreases in that allocation.

MR. H. HODDER: Then we will go down to Pre-Vocational Training Centre, under Allowances and Assistance: Last year you budgeted $34,000 and revised it to $9,000, and now you have it up to $34,000 again. What is happening? The commitment was there last year and was not spent, but you put it back in there again. This is on page 219, Allowances and Assistance.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Just let me find that note there for a second. Don is going to answer that one for us.

MR. GALLANT: Just to give you a bit of a backdrop to the pre-vocational centre: As our minister indicated earlier, the Gosse Gilroy Report has been recently tabled, if that is the right word, and we are going to spend the next six to eight months redesigning and re-discussing the whole provision of daytime activities, vocational, pre-vocational services to persons, adults with disabilities. The pre-vocational training centre will be a significant part of that whole debate and discussion.

So what we have done here, really, is re-profile for 1997-'98 our original budget for 1996-'97 to give us some ability to make changes, introduce changes, as the discussions occur.

Specific to Allowances and Assistance, the $34,000 originally profiled was for allowances for young adults who would be engaged in work-term activities. What happened in 1996-'97 is that many of those individuals actually left the pre-vocational centre so we did not spend as much money in that category as we would have originally, and we are anticipating in 1997-'98 that we will re-establish that, more people will go to work and we will be able to provide wage subsidies, training allowances, those kinds of things.

MS J.M. AYLWARD: Thank you, Don.

MR. H. HODDER: I think, Mr. Chair, I can be content now, and I will ask that you call the heads. I could stay here for another hour, but (inaudible).

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 6.1.07 inclusive carried.

On motion, Department of Human Resources and Employment, total heads, carried.

CHAIR: I would like, on behalf of our Committee, to thank Madam Minister and her officials for participating in a lengthy Estimates Committee hearing this morning, and to each of you for making yourselves available in answering the questions and inquiries that have been made of you. On behalf of the Committee, thanks to each and every one of you. Our Committee meeting is adjourned.

The Committee now stands adjourned.