The Committee met at 4:15 p.m. in Room 5083.

CHAIR (Sweeney): Order, please!

My name is George Sweeney. I am the Chairman of the Committee. I will ask the Committee to introduce themselves starting, with Jim.

MR. WALSH: Jim Walsh, MHA for the District of Conception Bay East & Bell Island.

MR. REID: Gerry Reid, MHA for the District of Twillingate & Fogo.

MS S. OSBORNE: Sheila Osborne, MHA for the District of St. John's West.

MR. HEDDERSON: Tom Hedderson, MHA for the District of Harbour Main-Whitbourne.

CHAIR: Coming up shortly will be Gerald Smith and Randy Collins. Randy is on his way.

I guess the first item that we have to contend with is the minutes of yesterday's meeting.

On motion, minutes adopted as circulated.

MR. WALSH: I only have about twenty questions. Maybe I could do five and then go to the (inaudible). In actual fact, for the record, Randy Collins, MHA for the District of Labrador West, will be a few minutes late, but the Committee has agreed that he would lose no time or no opportunity to ask questions. So that when he arrives, whatever time he feels he should require, the Committee has agreed to give him that. I just wanted to put that in for the record, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Minister, would you like to introduce your people?

MS BETTNEY: Yes. I (inaudible).

MS S. OSBORNE: You have to push on the button there.

CHAIR: I should remind everyone when you push to talk, when you finish speaking, release so that we don't blow up the system. We are only allowed to have six mikes on at a time. In case we inadvertently let them sneak up too often we are going to be in trouble.

MS EARLE: Alison Earle, Assistant Deputy Minister with the Department of Human Resources and Employment.

MR. ROBERTS: David Roberts, Assistant Deputy Minister with the Department of Human Resources and Employment.

MR. GREEN: Wayne Green, Deputy Minister of the Department of Human Resources and Employment.

CHAIR: Minister, if you would like to start your preamble, please do.

MS BETTNEY: Thank you, it is nice to be here. Thank you as well to Jim for coming up with the quick suggestion around being able to move into the Estimates meeting at this time. It makes it very convenient for me, and as I say, I would be pleased if after this we could carry on with our original plans anyway.

To sort of start off this look at the Budget Estimates for the Department of Human Resources and Employment, I would simply like to reflect a little bit on where we have come from in the past two years, but particularly in the past year.

During the past two years, since the transfer of the programs to Health and Community Services, we have continued as a department now with our major redesign effort on income support. We have continued with putting the resources and the infrastructure in place to try and shift our focus from passive income support towards active employment measures. To give you a sense of just how far we have come, in the past year we have introduced a number of main components to our income support program, many of which were tied to the introduction of the National Child Benefit when we brought in the new provincial child benefit as well, changed some rates, and introduced a number of programs, such as the income tax exemption that allowed people to keep much more of their income tax. That also dealt with things like being able to keep intact their registered educational savings for their children when they came into the system. There was the extension to the drug card program, and I am going a little bit from memory. Those are just a few highlights, but we see those as very significant pieces of programming that have helped us break down some of the walls that keep people dependent on income support and change our focus much more dramatically towards helping them move into employment.

On the employment and services side, we have really started to shape up now what that whole part of our service will look like. Within employment services now we have all of the career planning, career counseling. We are moving now to the case management approach where we will deal with each individual client in a real tailored way to try and address what their needs are in being able to move out of income support and into employment services. We have our staff trained. We have now a new designation for our staff as a result of the reclassification. We now have CSOs - client service officers - which replace the original financial assistance officers. Their designation, with the blended classification, enables them now to really undertake and be part of the whole employment services to our clients. What it really means for our clients and for our staff on the front lines is that their job now in meeting people in that first intervention is really to walk through with them a full assessment of what their circumstances are, not only their financial circumstances.

The kinds of conversations that are taking place in Human Resources and Employment offices today are very different from the kinds of conversations that would have taken place two years ago when they sit with you and talk about: What skills do you have? What education do you have? What kind of jobs do you think you would be interested in? How can we lay out some plans to help you? It is being extremely well received by our clients.

I would encourage any of you, if you would be interested, in providing members of the Committee with a look at our central office. I was down there about a month ago and they are doing some wonderful work in this new way of business within our department. By all means, I am sure we could give you a tour and let you see what is happening down there. It is pretty exciting work.

We are starting to make that shift from dependency to active employment measures. We are still a department of approximately 500. I believe the specific number is 468 permanent employees. We still have 48 offices across the Province. It is still a rather large department, but it is a department that is engaged in change and there are a lot of people who are very committed to what is happening there.

Our two major lines of business are the income support side and the employment services side and the rest of it is the administration to support the two. We have seen improvements in the past year in the financial circumstances of families who receive income support. If you look at the measures that were taken last year, people did receive a 2 per cent increase in their social assistance. They did receive increases in the National Child Benefit. The combined effect, to give you an example, for a family of two adults and two children is that as of now, this year - starting last July - they would have $178 more than they would have had the year previous. After the increase in the National Child Benefit this July and the subsequent increase, which was just announced in the federal budget, to the Canada Child Tax Benefit as well, the average family will see an increase of $500 for the year in real income, real dollars.

I guess, when you stop and think about what it costs to support yourselves and support a family you say, $178 is not a lot and $500 is not a lot, but if you relate it to the kinds of income that they are entitled to by policy and rates it is significant and I think it is helping to make the situation a little bit better.

There are continuing pressures for increased funding for rates but we have to move forward carefully in order to ensure that as we develop a more simplified rate structure that is more equitable for people we are doing the right thing and that it is also affordable. That continues, within my department, to be the key issue, trying to make sure that everything we do serves the outcomes we want to achieve, but at the same time recognizing that whenever we make the slightest change in any kind of rate structure for social assistance clients, the price tag associated with it is always in the order of millions.

I will finish here so we can get into questions. At the current time we have a caseload. The average for last year was 30,800 actual cases. We are still in that vicinity right now. We are hovering around 30,900, cases so you can appreciate that whenever you increase the rates for any of those cases you are going to have a significant impact on your budget figures.

I will conclude my remarks there and let people go to the specific areas that they have an interest in.

CHAIR: Thank you, minister.

I will ask John to call the first subhead and I guess we will start our discussion from there.

CLERK: Subhead 1.1.01, Minister's Office.

CHAIR: The floor is open from any of the Committee Members.

Are there no questions on that subhead? Mr. Hedderson, no questions? Mr. Collins, on the first subhead? Welcome.

MR. COLLINS: Thank you.

CHAIR: Thanks for coming on such short notice.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Chairman, might I suggest that we would probably chase the heads that way, but maybe if there were questions that people knew they wanted to answer we could just deal with them all in a lump. Some may reflect back on another one and then we would only have to go back and reopen again so maybe our best bet is just to let it freewheel for awhile -

CHAIR: Exactly.

MR. WALSH: - with ten minutes to one side and ten to the other. Should we decide we want to actively participate, we will. We tend to think, ourselves, it is an opportunity for the other Members of the Committee to explore what is within the Budget. We tend to feel that we probably know it fairly intimately, and for that reason we may not want to exercise our right on the ten minute free-for-all back and forth. If we just maybe move around we might we able to even clear it up a little quicker. I make that as a suggestion to the Committee.

CHAIR: That is a great idea. We will follow the same format as last night with the first subhead and we will just continue on.

Ms Osborne, I understand you have some questions. Do you want to lead off? Please feel free.

MS S. OSBORNE: My first question will be under subhead 2.1.01.03, Client Services, Transportation and Communications. Could I have a breakdown of what the $1,052,500 was spent on in 1999-2000? I guess that will also cross over into what is budgeted for $1,096,200 in the upcoming budget.

MS BETTNEY: Okay, so this is 2.1.01?

MS S. OSBORNE: 03. It is on page 211.

MS BETTNEY: 03, so it is Transportation and Communications.

MS S. OSBORNE: Yes.

MS BETTNEY: This caption reflects primarily our Transportation and Communications cost to support all of our district offices. We have broken it out regionally here, if members of the Committee are interested in it, but approximately $200,000 to $300,000 is estimated for each of the four main regions, Avalon, Central, Western and Labrador. There is no significant change from what we budgeted in 1999 to what we are budgeting this year. It is a fairly stable cost because the offices have been in operation for some time and we know what it takes to simply keep them working. Dave, is there -

MR. ROBERTS: (Inaudible).

MS BETTNEY: On 03?

MR. ROBERTS: Yes.

MS BETTNEY: Okay.

MR. ROBERTS: For travel.

MS BETTNEY: Right. You will note up further in .01, Salaries, that there is in fact an increase. That reflects that there were five new positions added for the support application workers. The slight increase that you are seeing in Transportation and Communications reflects the extra expenses for those five people.

MS S. OSBORNE: Yes, the increase is not all that much. I just wondered because that particular one, Transportation and Communications, seems to be a bit higher than the ones under other headings.

MS BETTNEY: Right. That is our forty-eight offices.

MS S. OSBORNE: I have another question. It is kind of a general question and it is in terms of furniture. The supervisors and the FAOs got notification that there was to be absolutely no furniture given out. I guess that was up to March 31. I was under the impression yesterday in speaking to one of the supervisors that no other directions had come down. Is the policy in place that there will be no more furniture for the folks on social assistance, or will there be new furniture added? Will that be reinstated at some time?

MS BETTNEY: This is an issue that we face every year because we literally have in our budget the resources to perhaps meet 10 per cent of the requests that we get. Every year - certainly every year since I have been there - come the fall, and sometimes closer to Christmas, we will run out of funds, at which point we put on a freeze, and then from that point on we only respond to emergencies. That will revert on April 1 to the next budget year.

We do recognize we have some problems with the furniture budget and it is not just one of adequate resourcing, it is more one of how it is administered. There are significant inequities in how the money is allocated across the Province. These are policy issues that we have recognized we have to do something with. At the present time we are in the final stages of confirming a consistent policy. We are going to be really zeroing in on this area with our staff and our managers in the coming year in order to try and make sure that - albeit, there is not a lot of money to go around in this area, but there will be a capacity to respond to more than emergencies, much similar to the lines that we did have in the past. Our intent will be to try and make sure that we apply that consistently across the Province, of course always within the context of how much money we have there. This is a particular one that we are focusing on in this budget year and I think will make some improvements.

Just from a policy perspective very briefly, what I would say to you is that the direction that we will be going in and really putting into our policy approach will be that when people come to us and ask for furniture, if they are on social assistance, the very first response of our staff will be to say: Okay now, what other means do you have? What other capacity does the community have? Have you tried this? Have you tried that? Do you have other family members who can help? The first line of response will be to determine whether there is any other way to provide this person with whatever they need in the way of furniture before resorting to us providing the actual furniture. We will also be moving more towards funding a portion of the costs rather than full price, new (inaudible).

MS S. OSBORNE: To enable them to pick up something good used?

MS BETTNEY: Yes, exactly, as a priority -

MS S. OSBORNE: I would subscribe to that as well.

MS BETTNEY: So if you think the -

MS S. OSBORNE: You know, I do not think it is necessary to have brand new anything.

MS BETTNEY: No.

MS S. OSBORNE: All of us, at some time or another, have gone out and bought a used whatever and I do not think that is unreasonable, but when folks go and look for furniture that is absolutely essential, along this line, something I have run into quite frequently - and it is more gender-oriented towards women although I have had a couple of men who were in this situation - they are single parents taking care of children and they cannot get a washer. It is almost prohibitive if you have a couple of small children and no car to put a child on each hip - and on which hip do you put your bag of laundry? - and get them to the laundromat and stuff. I found that has imposed some great hardships on a lot of people, the majority of whom are women.

MS BETTNEY: One of the key things we found when we analyzed this program was that we were spending 88 per cent of our funds - wait now. Only 12 per cent of our clients were accessing the furniture budget and they were not the 12 per cent who you could say are long-term clients and maybe do not have any other resources. They were not what you would expect, so consequently we realized we have to make some changes there. It is not being effectively used so the -

MS S. OSBORNE: Also, abused in many cases.

MS BETTNEY: Yes, in some cases abused.

MS S. OSBORNE: I recognize that as well.

MS BETTNEY: So that is the intent of what we are doing with the policy changes. As I say, you will see that the initial response to all clients should be somewhat different from what it has been in the past. The main thrust will be to get them to draw down on anything that anybody else would in the community or with their normal range of family support. With that, I think we will have a fairer system and, again, one that does not encourage people to stay on the system in order to - because there are a lot of low income families who do not have as much in the way of financial resources as social assistance clients and they have to try and do this as well. So I would see some improvements in this area this year.

MS S. OSBORNE: I will pass for now.

CHAIR: Next. Tom?

MR. HEDDERSON: 1.2.02, Administrative Support, under .05 and .06, Professional Services and Purchased Services. Professional Services, what would that (inaudible)?

MS BETTNEY: Let me find the line here and I will probably be able to tell you. 1.2.02. This is the caption in the budget where we fund the social services appeals board. Because of changes that we made in the process last year or the end of the year before, we have had a significant decrease in first, the cost of supporting that board, and two, in the number - and I hope some of the credit goes to some of the program changes - we have also had a significant decrease in the number of appeals.

Right now 95 per cent of our clients are choosing a telephone based appeal. That is cutting down significantly on meeting time, the length of time that they get an answer, travel for the board itself. We have pretty well cut that in half. The major decrease that you are seeing here is related to the appeals board, the amount of work they are doing and the cost of the work.

MR. HEDDERSON: So, minister, you are saying the number of appeals have dropped.

MS BETTNEY: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: The Purchased Services, the section right following that, what services would be purchased? There is a slight increase.

MS BETTNEY: Purchased Services are mostly basic equipment. I asked the same question of the staff this morning. The Professional Services are the people and the Purchased Services are the things.

MR. HEDDERSON: That is the teleconference - no.

MS BETTNEY: It is the rental, it is the printing, it is advertising and promotion, it is copier rentals and things of that nature that we buy from the private sector.

The biggest piece of that is office rentals. In a number of our sites - and I don't know the exact number - we rent from the private sector the actual accommodations for our offices. You would see those rental costs in there. Perhaps one of the biggest increases in that area has been as a result of our having to pay the federal government now for the offices where we have co-located, HRE and HRDC. In previous years they, quite graciously, gave us free accommodations. With their budget restraints and constraints over the last year they have had to move into charging us rent, so we have had to increase that particular caption by about $200,000 to accommodate co-located offices. We now have co-location in Stephenville, Gander and Marystown, those three sites.

MR. HEDDERSON: .12, under section 1.2.02, Information Technology, there is a bubble there in the budget from what was budgeted and what we have this year. Is that training, is that service, is that equipment or a combination of -

MS BETTNEY: That was Y2K.

MR. HEDDERSON: All right.

MS BETTNEY: We had to undertake a major -

MR. HEDDERSON: We won't expect that for another 1000 years. I will make note of that.

MS S. OSBORNE: We will we watching for it.

WITNESS: From above, that is all.

MS BETTNEY: You will be asking the questions to somebody else.

MR. HEDDERSON: In the next section, 1.2.03, Program Development and Planning, the Salaries, .01, have increased so obviously there are more positions. What positions would these be? Or is that pay periods? I am just assuming.

MS BETTNEY: No, there is a little bit of both here. We have changed the way we are organizing, where we put the numbers, and we have brought enquiries in. We have a couple of staff who do nothing but answer enquiries from clients on where their whatever is. That had not previously been picked up in this salary component. That is new. It is not a new cost to the department. It is simply taking it -

MR. HEDDERSON: This is not new positions then, minister?

MS BETTNEY: No, it is taking it from one area and moving it over into the other. We do have one new policy analyst in this area of Program Development and Planning so that would be a new cost. I think the third and major one would be the support that we have for the Labour Market Development Agreement.

MR. GREEN: (Inaudible).

MS BETTNEY: The Deputy indicated as well that the increase also reflects the general public sector increase in salaries. Perhaps I would ask my Deputy to comment. With respect to LMDA, the Labour Market Development secretariat, that is three positions. It is housed with us; it is paid for by the federal government. Full or 50-50, Wayne?

MR GREEN: One hundred per cent.

MS BETTNEY: It is paid 100 per cent but it shows up as a salary cost here and you will pick it up under Revenue-Federal down a little bit below.

The reason we have that is because now I chair - is that associated with the federal labour market ministers?

MR. GREEN: It is, but it is not because you chair it.

MS BETTNEY: All right.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay, there are some increases down through. Grants and Subsidies, 1.2.03.10, what would that include? Again, there is a little cutback there and I am just curious.

MS BETTNEY: This fiscal year we went from having the cost to support the women centres moved from being an annual grant into Women's Policy Office where it will be paid for from there. In previous years, for the two years previous since we instituted this funding, my department, Health and Community Services, Education, Development and Rural Renewal and Municipal and Provincial Affairs all provided funds. How much, $40,000 each -

MR. GREEN: Yes.

MS BETTNEY: - if my memory serves me correctly towards funding the seven women centres across the Province. We were doing it on a trial basis and evaluating it. This year in the budget we said: This is working, we want to continue it. So rather than continue to codge it together from four or five different departments, we simply put an allocation in Women's Policy Office. They will pay the bills, and we reduced it from here. So it all happened within Treasury Board somewhere.

MR. HEDDERSON: So the money is the same, it is just that it is coming from a different pot.

MS BETTNEY: The money is virtually the same, that is right.

MR. HEDDERSON: Under regional operations there are forty-eight offices, you say, scattered around the Province and they are going to be maintained.

MS BETTNEY: Yes, for this current year. What I would say to you is that we made a commitment over a year ago as we go through all of the changes on redesign of income support that we would not make any change to our delivery system or to lay off staff for three years. So we are still in that period that ends in 2002. At that point, we will have a new delivery system, we will have the new programs in place, and we will need to make changes. What they are at this stage are undetermined. We are still in the process of analyzing how best to deliver those career and employment services and what changes that will mean to the structure of the way we look today. There is no change for this year.

MR. HEDDERSON: In section 3.1.01, Social Assistance, minister, you talked about the furniture. This includes appliances, I would assume?

MS BETTNEY: Yes. The main things we spend furniture money on are beds, washers, the odd stoves and cribs.

MR. HEDDERSON: The one that I am having difficulty with is the fridges. I know of late I have had to even go to an appeal to try to get that, which was turned down. Is that the lowest priority? What do you do in that case? Or what is the expectation? If a fridge goes, obviously - I find it very difficult to get a fridge replaced. I am not saying (inaudible) in assisting the client. The client seemed to have little difficult probably with a washer or a bed, but when it gets down to a fridge it is almost like you need a medical certificate indicating that it is required. Is that the way it is?

MS BETTNEY: It is probably the most costly item on the sheet to start with. It is one that has a fair lifetime, in that fridges usually do people for twenty years or so. So I think it reflects that in most cases people can make do, find something, get second-hand, or get somebody to rally around them. It is only in extreme cases do we usually provide funding for purchase of fridges. I think it would be fair to say it is exceptional.

MR. HEDDERSON: Now I know my difficulties. I will stop there. If Mr. Collins wanted to go back over that one?

MR. COLLINS: I just have a couple of things. First I would like to start off and say -

CHAIR: Mr. Collins, just to fill you in, press the button when you -

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!

CHAIR: When you are finished, turn yourself off.

MR. COLLINS: I thought you were going to come over and do that.

Thank you. I would to start off just by saying that I have only been in this job for about a year now, a year last month actually. I would just like to say that the people who work in the social services, in particular the Wabush and Goose Bay offices, are tremendous people, and nothing but good cooperation from them. I want to make that clear from the start that we have received excellent cooperation with them through my office on any problems that we called in about. Operating under difficult conditions too, I might add, at most times.

I might go from one to the other here, but there are a couple of concerns that I have. One is with the ability of a person who is on social assistance and is waiting for medical treatments; the lineup is lengthy in the Province, but it is available in other provinces where they indeed have family support. Whereas coming to St. John's may seem logical in some cases where it is in the Province, in other cases, if they came to St. John's, they would probably have to be put up at a hotel and all the other expenditures that go along with being in a place where you do not have relatives, compared to some other areas where you may get your treatments much faster and have family support while you are doing so.

I have run into a couple problems with that in recent months but, again, I do not think it was so much the department as the doctors who were involved because they do not enjoy referring people out of the Province, either.

MS BETTNEY: Yes, that is right.

MR. COLLINS: So, it is there but they are some of the things that I have encountered.

MS BETTNEY: From a policy perspective, we will provide transportation and expenses for people when it is medically required. If somebody is referred into St. John's from somewhere else we do provide expenses associated with that. We do have a residential capacity here in St. John's at Booth House as well where social assistance clients can stay when they come in - or if they are in accompanying a family member - and it is at a very reasonable rate and so on.

I presume that if in fact it were medically required to go outside the Province in the same basis that it applies to anyone else in the Province, then we would meet those expenses but only if that was the only place where it could be obtained and it was being directed by a physician. Then, in that case we would pay their expenses in the same way.

MR. COLLINS: I guess, going back to this social assistance again, the weekly amounts that a person is entitled to, certainly I do not think anyone around this table would be able to survive on. They are certainly inadequate in terms of providing even the most basic needs.

MS BETTNEY: Yes, certainly our staff, my senior officials and myself recognize that the rates that are provided are certainly difficult for people to be able to get by on. One of the things that we take into consideration, however, which does not make it any easier but it helps to rationalize it, is the fact that if you look comparably at a low income family who do not have access to prescription drug cards, to rental assistance and to some of the other benefits that go along with income support, I do not believe that the majority of our social assistance clients are financially much worse off than the average low income family. Now, that is a very sweeping generalization because you would have to look at what you call low income families, but knowing the distribution of families who fall into that, say, low income meaning, ones who would be entitled to the provincial child benefit, their family income is $21,000 and less.

When you look at our family rates and particularly our single parent family rate for social assistance clients, and then factor in the rental assistance or the mortgage payment, factor in the prescription drug card, and factor in the other benefits they get by virtue of being eligible, I think it probably works out as fairly even. In some cases, we know there is a definite imbalance that people who would consider taking a low income job find it financially prohibitive because they would be worse off financially and have less financial security for their families if they were to take work versus if they were to stay on social assistance.

Right now our rates for single parents are the highest in the country. Our rates for families were in the mid-range. Where we fall short and are at the lowest end of the scale nationally is with our rates for singles. That is the last area that we are tackling. We reorganized the family rates and the single parent rates last year and I am hoping to be able to make some movements on the single rates for people over twenty-nine this year, and next year we will tackle the under twenty-nines, but that is where the biggest deficiency is in my estimation.

MR. COLLINS: Now on to the Employment Development Programs, under 4.1.01. I was a member of the Labrador West Employment Corporation for a number of years, on the board there. I am familiar with some of the difficulties in placing persons, particularly with disabilities, into the workplace. I guess we had some good news this week where the Iron Ore Company of Canada for the first time this summer will be taking six students with disabilities that they would not ever do in the past.

MS BETTNEY: That is great news.

MR. COLLINS: That will be happening this summer, and generally it goes on a line of seniority (inaudible), the different year of university that a student is at. Obviously, they won't be subjected to these rules and regulations. They will be just straight hired as students.

MS BETTNEY: Obviously, they are not going in under a supported employment program.

MR. COLLINS: No.

MS BETTNEY: They are going in as direct (inaudible).

MR. COLLINS: As employees.

MS BETTNEY: That is superb.

MR. COLLINS: Which is a first time ever for them.

MS BETTNEY: That is really good.

MR. COLLINS: When it comes to training development programs is there training that is provided? Is there much more demand than what is actually being provided?

MS BETTNEY: Are we talking generally for all of our clients or for people with disabilities?

MR. COLLINS: No, for people with disabilities.

MS BETTNEY: Yes, the training support. If you refer to 4.1.04, Vocational Training and Support Services for Persons with Disabilities, that is where you would see that particular expense. That is an area where demand certainly exceeds our ability to pay. What I have been doing on an annual basis is as we get efficiencies and savings in some other areas I try and move it into either the training and services vote, because I know it is always under stress, or into the employment programs generally.

That covers everything from interpretive services, training aids, tuition, extra subsidy for the person to their social assistance while they are training. It covers a broad spectrum and we just don't have enough money to be able to say yes to everything in that category.

MR. COLLINS: The need far outweighs the -

MS BETTNEY: Yes. We all know the relationship that exists between job training in particular, perhaps more so than other areas, and making that move to employment, so it is one that we try and keep channeling some extra funds to as they become available. We don't have enough, there is no question.

MR. WALSH: Just a quick question, and staying with that same subject. My area is fairly rural. There are some small enterprises that are trying to reach out, are probably struggling themselves to stay afloat and trying to get developed and so on. How do they tap into finding potential employees for their operations? I will just give one example of one that came to me, a referral from some people here actually. A small taxi company in the community slowly growing, starting to expand, and needing a couple of pretty good people and looking for people who have fallen through the cracks. Not necessarily that younger person but a person who I guess all of us as MHAs have had to deal with: mid-fifties, the company they are working for closed, they can't find anywhere to go, all other avenues have worn out, and they end up calling us and don't know even how to walk into a social services office. We all have some of those.

How do we connect somebody like that so they don't, again, lose all their benefits, or people who need some medical care but still can work two or three days a week? How do we connect those with companies like a taxi operation or it could be a convenience store, I don't know. How do we make that connection and where would we go as, I suppose, sometimes the individual's last resort? Is there money there to help people like that move out into any kind of an operation or is it limited?

MS BETTNEY: There is money in a variety of different programs that I think have potential to be able to respond to what you suggest. First of all, we have the established employment programs, like your employment generation program, your graduate program, the seasonal program and others. Those are program focused in the sense that the money is there. It is intended to provide work experience to someone on a cost-shared basis between government and the private sector so that in many cases a young person can get valuable work experience and the private sector can get the benefit of some excellent employees for a period of time. That varies from fourteen weeks, in the case of seasonal, to fifty to sixty weeks in the case of a graduate. That is one area.

The NewFound Jobs I would think as well is an area where there would be an opportunity to make a more direct connection between the person and the opportunities that are around them. Because by going to a case management approach we will be dealing with individuals and looking at their skills and what they want to be doing, and then helping them search in the area for the kind of employment opportunities that present themselves. If they need to have some training, for example, in order to be able to take a job with x company or y taxi company, then under NewFound Jobs we could help provide the training. If they need work boots, as an example, in order to be able to take a job doing something else, we can provide that kind of support. It is very individualized, but it engages people in starting to take charge of their lives in terms of employment, and looking at what opportunities are around.

I will ask my staff if there is anything that I have missed, but a third response I would think that you could give to the company would be to say at any time to contact the district manager in the office closest to them, or the regional manager, in order to be able to sit down and say: Here is what I do. Now, what kinds of things do you do that could be of benefit to me?

The department has developed a brochure which is available through all our offices on our career and employment services and that lists not only information on things like the career information hotline, but it also lists all the employment programs. So for an employer, they could look at this and say: Yes, maybe a graduate would be just the thing to get my IT up and running and I would only have to pay 50 per cent of their cost. It would be a big bonus. We are trying to get the information out and the best source of contact, I would think, would be the district manager in the office closest to you.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

MS BETTNEY: Right, and they are all listed on the back of this. Did I miss anything in terms of what you would suggest? Okay.

CHAIR: That is it? I will ask John to call the subheads -

MS S. OSBORNE: No, no.

MS BETTNEY: More questions.

CHAIR: Okay. Sheila.

MS S. OSBORNE: On page 211, 2.1.01.02, Client Service, Employee Benefits, the figure is down from $13,200 to $5,300 even though the salaries have increased.

MS BETTNEY: Yes, I will ask my ADM to answer that one as we are (inaudible) detail now.

MR. ROBERTS: It is just a miscellaneous figure. That sometimes includes registration fees for conferences or seminars and it is just reduced a small amount (inaudible). It is nothing significant.

MS S. OSBORNE: Thank you. On page 214, under Vocational Training and Support Services for persons with Disabilities, 4.1.04, I notice that for 2000-2001 under .01 through .06 there is nothing budgeted.

MS BETTNEY: That reflects the closure of the pre-vocational centre and the shifting of resources from there to the employment support services for people with disabilities on the subsequent page. What we have done is even though we know that there will be some continuing expenditures over the next month, or month-and-a-half, while we complete the closure, we basically moved the entire vote, the $842,000, into Employment Support Services for Persons with Disabilities, 4.1.05. We recognize that some of that money will then have to come back out and maybe even go to Health and Community Services to support the individuals with their individualized plan.

In essence, the whole thrust of doing this is also to provide more resources to help support people in employment where that is appropriate for them, but we recognize that this year it is sort of in transition and we will be drawing down funds from both sources.

MS S. OSBORNE: Okay. I do not know if here is where to get into all the details around the transition team and what is happening there. I do not know how much information has come up to you. Because I have mentioned it to Minister Grimes and he was not aware that the biggest percentage of the families, parents, foster parents and caregivers who are speaking in the best interests of the folks - the thirty-six or thirty-seven individuals who are out there who are non-verbal, for the most part - have not bought into, I guess, or are not going to sign on to what is being offered. I know some of them have, under duress, and I think that is an ongoing thing now. I have been at a fair number of meetings working around their individual plans. Minister Grimes was very surprised to learn that the parents and caregivers in fact were not happy with the plans that were being offered. They did not have very much to choose from.

Certainly I think there will be a very low percentage of the individuals going into any employment support programs because they are not able to work. They have brought doctors' certificates with them certifying that they are not able to work, I suppose giving them the same advantage that a person who is applying for a Canada Pension disability who isn't able to work - affording them the same rights. It has been determined that many of them are not able to go into these employment support programs at all.

I think the fifteen people who went out of the pre-vote previously, many of them went into employment support services, and I do not know what the success rate is. I think there are some of them now who have probably fallen through the cracks. The thirty-six or thirty-seven individuals who remained at the institution were very low functioning mentally and physically. I think that, for the most part, when we met, it was determined that they would not be able to go into those programs.

MS BETTNEY: I think the first thing I would recognize here is that this is a very sensitive area we are dealing with, a very vulnerable population. We have been extremely sensitive to the families, the caregivers and the individuals themselves, recognizing that in these circumstances any change is something that produces anxiety, and there is fear that things just will not be better.

I have made a commitment consistently from the beginning of this process that, at the end of the day, every person who is making this move from the pre-vocational centre will have at least as good - and our aim is to have a better - range of programs and services around them than they had at the pre-vocational centre.

Now we are having to deal with this on a very individual basis, and we think that is the best approach to it. Because we do believe that if you tailor the supports and the services around the individual, and what their interests are, what they capabilities are, then they will have a better quality of life. Now in some cases, one of the services and one of the things that they will be able to access is employment, but because of the high degree of resistance that these families and caregivers have exhibited from the very beginning, in saying that they just cannot work, we started from the position that says: We are not going to force you to work, that is not what we are about. Now let's talk about: What are your abilities? What are you interests? What are your needs? What kinds of services and supports would give you an enhanced quality of life? Is it what is available in the community already? How can you tap into it?

I think we have had very good success in working through this process, to date. The transition team is made up of staff from my department, from Health and Community Services, from the pre-vocational centre itself. There are also representatives of the parents and caregivers -

MS S. OSBORNE: Yes, I am meeting with them.

MS BETTNEY: - who sit on the committee. Given that it is a very anxious kind of undertaking, I am pleased with the progress they have made. To date, they have been successful in developing individualized plans for two of the people there whom everybody seemed to be quite pleased with.

I do not agree with your statement that they are done under duress. It is a consensus building process in the truest form. Everybody kind of approaches it with all that they bring to it. At the end of the day, in the first two instances, they have achieved a true consensus where people are satisfied. I knew we had four more that were very close to completion, and Alison just informed me that two of the four were signed off. That is literally the process we are doing we are doing. We are taking individual by individual, bringing the plan back to this group, having met with the families, met with the care givers, had the social workers involved, and said: Do we all agree now that this is a good alternative for this person? Get it signed off and we are moving them in.

I do agree with you that some people are more resistant than others to going through this process. I think, responsibly, what we have to do is support and encourage people to look at this because, like you, when I started down this road one of the first things I asked my staff was: What has happened to the people we have moved out of here already? I am saying their lives are going to be better. Can you show me that they are? I was very pleased with the results to that question.

In fact, what we find is that while people today are maybe not even willing to consider employment for their family member, or even the person themselves, and would even consider themselves unemployable, after they get into the community with support, maybe in a social setting, maybe in some other kind of community setting, over time work becomes, perhaps, something that is valuable to them, that is something they value and they want to do. It won't happen in all the cases and we are not saying that it has to happen, but for a lot of people being able to work is a basic right and it is something they want. I believe that if we can structure our supports and services in such a way that we can meet that need if people want it, then we will have performed a valuable service.

I am keeping in very close contact with this whole process because I know it is so sensitive. The reason that we have extended the deadline on it is simply because it took longer to get people actually to sit down and do these plans. There are some people who are still resisting. We are simply going to have to continue to work with them but gradually, I think, as they begin to see that for this other person this looks like a pretty good alternative, then those people get out into the community and they are looking back at them and saying: That is working, they may have a greater degree of ease then in going forward with their own planning.

I encourage people, all the parents that I come in contact with or the caregivers, and certainly encourage you, to try and support people in at least looking, in keeping an open mind, because it does work. I believe fully in integration in the community with the appropriate supports. That is what this is all about, finding the appropriate supports for you as an individual. We have made a commitment that the money that is required to provide those supports will be used for these individuals. That is what we are doing here in the budget.

MS S. OSBORNE: It is unfortunate that, I guess, it wouldn't be convenient for you or it wouldn't be appropriate for you to come to some of the meetings where we are working on the individual plans. There are at least fifteen or twenty people out there who are in contact with me on a regular basis. When we are talking supported employment I think we have to recognize -

MS BETTNEY: If I can just interrupt for one minute. With this situation today, supported employment is not even being presented as a piece of the alternative. Everybody knows it is there if they want it, but when the social workers go in to sit with the individual and say: What would you like to choose from here?, unless they specifically ask to have it put in the mix employment is not one of the things that is the mix.

MS S. OSBORNE: That was in there and we will take that out. What is in the mix now is in the cause of integration. I think that I could go on and on about integration. We have nearly $2 million in our budget for the School for the Deaf. We house them on site out there and this government gives almost $2 million to the School for the Deaf. We send $500,000 to Nova Scotia to the school there so that people who are sight impaired - we take five-year-olds every morning and put them on a bus and they go to school with five-year-olds. I meet with caucus. People who are of like meet with of like. They aren't really segregated because they get up in the morning and they go to a facility and in the afternoon, like everybody else in the world, in the day they are with their peers and they are out in the community. Unfortunately, they had a wonderful program out there but three years ago the funding was cut. I was out there today. Most of the folks who are left there now are not, for want of a better word, toilet trained, and what we are offering them out in the community - and I have worked very long and very hard with the folks. We have gone to the Hub, we have gone to other community centres. The facilities are not out there.

We can sit down and we have gotten calendars and we have attempted to do programs. I have attempted to work with them, but how many times a week can you take a person who is severely physically challenged, and they are nonverbal, how many places are there to take them during the run of a week, and how many times can they be taken there?

The folks who I am speaking with are not looking for total segregation. They are looking more for pods or modules where three or four individuals who are handicapped equally can go, as a base, someplace where when they mess their pants or their diaper they can be changed in dignity. Out in the community there are not a lot of facilities. We have really explored it and this is pretty gut wrenching to sit with them. There are not a lot of facilities where you can take a person who weighs 150 pounds whose diaper or pants are soiled with feces, and by this time they have gotten into it, it is in their fingernails, et cetera. There are not many places out in the community where they can be taken and changed and cleaned up properly.

We have explored Rabbittown and places like that. They just do not have the facilities. What they are looking for is a base and they want something, they want enhanced things, they want their individual children and/or the people who they take care of out in the community. What they see is a bus taking three or four of them, or cars taking three, four or five of them to outings, to Salmonier Nature Park in the summer, to Pippy Park for picnics, to Bowring Park and to all the other things that, quote, normal people go to, but they are really having a lot of difficulty and it has been pretty gut wrenching to sit on the individual programs.

I was at one this morning and we started to brainstorm: what is there for a person who is sitting in a wheelchair who cannot talk, what exactly is there that we have to offer outside of a centre with enhanced programs where they could go in? If there was a washer and dryer there, for instance, they could fold clothes. When they go home they see their mom or their foster parent folding clothes so they know, even though they cannot verbalize, they have done what they see happening in the home. So it feels quite normal to them. I have seen them out there. There is one of the individuals out there who, every couple of days, needs a suppository. You have to be there for that.

It is wonderful for us to put on paper, and theoretically it is fabulous, you know, that we can get them out integrated in the community, but we have gone out, we have beat the streets, we have gone to the centres. Two individuals were at the Hub. That did not work out because the respite workers who were with them at the Hub were expected to collate the paper. I was there and saw this. While they are collating things at the Hub for the Hub printing shop, the individuals are sat in the wheelchair doing nothing. We have really and truly gone into the community and we are at wit's end now as to what can happen to the individuals. When I sit now to work up the individual plan there isn't anything for some of the people out in the community. There really isn't.

Unless somebody can offer something in a big picture, like show me a week in their lives. Hitting reality here, if they are with a respite worker working out of a home base, most of the day will be spent in the home with the respite worker, and I think that is being very real.

CHAIR: I think we are wandering off from the Estimates a little tiny bit -

MS BETTNEY: We are into (inaudible).

CHAIR: - and we are into the philosophical end of the subject.

MS S. OSBORNE: This is a response to what the minister was talking about.

MS BETTNEY: If I can just make a couple of comments, and I will not take a long time, because this debate -

MS S. OSBORNE: It is probably for another day.

MS BETTNEY: - certainly is the substance of perhaps a full day.

CHAIR: I think there is another medium that we can probably pursue this in.

MS BETTNEY: Yes.

MS S. OSBORNE: Yes, for this.

MS BETTNEY: If I could just make a couple of comments. Fundamentally, this government, my department and I personally, believe absolutely in the abilities of every person regardless of their disability. I believe if we look at individuals in that light, and if we work together with communities with all of the resources that can be brought to bear, we can find means to accommodate every single person in this Province regardless of their level of disability. We have, within our communities today, many more people with as challenged circumstances and, in many cases, with more disabilities and more difficult disabilities who are being accommodated very productively with a high quality of life in their communities.

It challenges all of us to be creative. It challenges all of us to engage the community itself to look at different people's needs and to work to try and accommodate them. Ultimately, to me, and I guess where we disagree philosophically, is that the peer of a thirty-eight-year-old adult who is disabled in any way - whether he or she can't speak, can't verbalize, can't walk - is the thirty-eight-year-old member of the community who sits around this table or in community service groups, in the malls, or wherever. I don't restrict the abilities of anyone and cluster them in people who may have similar handicaps or disabilities. I think perhaps that is the fundamental source of our different approach to what is needed here.

As the Chair has said, this is really a fundamental policy discussion and certainly I am sure we will have it on another day.

MS S. OSBORNE: Absolutely. I just want to ask one other question about the pre-vocational. I mean, we did wander. The staff have been laid off as of the 31^st but because of the extension until the middle of May have there been provisions made to keep them there till -

MS BETTNEY: There are flexible provisions. In some cases it depends on the staff person. In some cases people are retiring and they will retire, I presume, if that is their choice.

MS S. OSBORNE: There is some concern among the parents out there that they will be down to a skeleton crew on April 1.

MS BETTNEY: No, the assurance that I have given all the parents is that we will retain adequate resources, adequate staff, to be able to provide the level of care that people need while they are still at the centre. We are estimating now by May 15, the middle of May, we should be in a position to have all of the individual plans completed and then the centre will close, but again, it is an estimate, it is flexible. In the interim, if it requires that we bring in extra staff or different staff, or if some people agree that perhaps they won't move to their next assignment as early as they had planned, we will accommodate all of those things.

MS S. OSBORNE: I think that is not the feeling that is out there and some of the parents and caregivers are worried that they will be asked to keep their child in an individual home on a rotating basis.

MS BETTNEY: That happens today. If we have staff call in sick and we don't have the ability to be able to provide quality care for the person, then on occasion the person involved will not come to the centre that day, that week or whatever the case may be. There may still be that incidental requirement but it will not be a function of us having simply said: We don't have that number of staff now so we are going to rotate people. That is not the plan.

MS S. OSBORNE: Okay. In terms of the respite workers that will be hired for the individuals who go out into the community, who is the employer? If one of the respite workers should become injured - because many of the individuals are in wheelchairs and the likelihood of injury, as the likelihood of injury when you are a nurse lifting people and stuff, exists - who is responsible because there is no workers' compensation attached to respite workers?

MS BETTNEY: The same provision would apply to respite workers in this case as applies across the board in terms of home support generally. As Randy indicated earlier, this is an area that we recognize we need to do something in but the solution has eluded us to date. There is the major review, which has taken place, of home support services and there is the external private review which is being done by the employers in the home care industry. I certainly hope that sooner rather than later, between those two studies that are happening under the umbrella of health, that we will find a solution to deal with this. Monitoring and control has been probably the biggest single issue with respect to workers' compensation and it is an issue right across the country. Simply having it administered by a private agency does not appear to be the easy fix here.

MS S. OSBORNE: A lot of the parents are quite worried that -

MS BETTNEY: They will be in the same situation as the other people.

MS S. OSBORNE: Yes. They are really worried because if you have a respite worker for somebody who is not physically challenged it is a bit easier and not as risky. If you have a respite worker for somebody who is in a wheelchair and needs to be lifted out to be cleaned, then the possibility of injury exists. They are wondering who will be sued in the event of -

MS BETTNEY: We spend over $40 million on home support through Health and Community Services and the largest proportion of that is spent on home support for people with disabilities. That is the experience across the Province today. We recognize that it is not desirable. We would like to have the protection in place. As I said in the House, until we find the right solution we just cannot move forward with it.

MS S. OSBORNE: Let the government be the employer of the home support people.

MS BETTNEY: That does not work either.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Chairman, I would like to move 1.1.01 through 4.1.05. We have a reservation for fifteen minutes ago.

WITNESS: I have one final question (inaudible).

MS S. OSBORNE: I have a (inaudible) final.

CHAIR: Please keep it on topic. We are wandering a little bit off the Estimate path. I have allowed a little bit of leeway.

MR. WALSH: Especially if we are all planning on joining each other for another hour. We might have a chance, over a little different atmosphere, to carry on some of these points.

WITNESSES: (Inaudible).

MS BETTNEY: Yes, I told them, I changed the appointment from 5:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.

WITNESS: (Inaudible).

CHAIR: (Inaudible) one more question (inaudible) subheads.

MS S. OSBORNE: We have another twenty-five minutes of questions, sir.

MS BETTNEY: I don't think I have twenty-five minutes of answers, Sheila.

CHAIR: Maybe we should have a little break.

MS S. OSBORNE: Don't threaten us with that (inaudible).

CHAIR: There are two quick questions.

Tom.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to the vocational training and employment support services, from the education point of view which is the secondary, is there anything available for bridging from the secondary into the post-secondary or vocational? I ask that because there is a lot of paperwork done especially on children with (inaudible). The bridging is what I am looking at, minister. Because the ISSP that is done throughout the school years, does that automatically lead into your department? Is it taken care of? Is there interagency support?

MS BETTNEY: Right now we recognize that as a key area in the major review that we did, the Goss Gilroy report. This was one of the areas that we highlighted If we are going to actively support people with disabilities to employment we have to start earlier than the day they leave high school. There is a whole preparatory piece that should bridge them, as you suggest.

Right now we are not as far along in developing that strategy because of the concentration of our efforts on the pre-vocational centre primarily. However I can tell you that under the Strategic Social Plan we have funded two pilot projects. I cannot tell you the districts or regions that they are in, but one is in Eastern region - that are looking and doing just that.

It is providing a focus to work within the school system and with our supported employment corporations so that while these young people are going through their last years of school they are almost getting cooperative work in the community, as well, the same as many of the cooperative programs that exist in the school system. I think this is the way to go, clearly, but right now we are only doing it on a pilot basis. We do have to do a lot more planning to implement this and to be able to have a capacity to do it Province-wide, but it is on our agenda for this year to work on.

MR. HEDDERSON: Because there is an interagency - ISSP - that Health is involved in and Justice and so on. Is your department involved in that?

MS BETTNEY: Yes.

MR. HEDDERSON: Your department is involved because the database that has been developed around these special needs children would be accessible by your department.

MS BETTNEY: Yes. The biggest resource we have in this area is not within our department, it is in the supported employment corporations which are out in the communities. We need to find a way to get them linked because right now they only provide supported employment for adults, and the young people are eighteen or nineteen when they leave school before they can kind of go to that door. The challenge to us is to find a way to link them into that educational piece, but that is what we are working on.

MR. HEDDERSON: With regard to physical disablement, learning disabilities are included under your umbrella as well, is it?

MS BETTNEY: Not in this area. Am I correct in saying that?

WITNESS: I think the ISSP process that you are referring to would involve the other departments. The learning disabilities are part of that process.

MR. HEDDERSON: Okay. (Inaudible). Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

CHAIR: Mr. Collins.

MR. COLLINS: Yes, just this very quickly. With the monies that your department provides for employers to take persons with disabilities, or the developmentally delayed, into the workplace for specific periods of time, have any studies ever been done to show how many actually maintained them in employment after?

MS BETTNEY: Yes. Actually, we do not provide subsidy to the employer to take people with disabilities. We subsidize the supported employment corporations. They, in turn, will seek out job placements where the employer pays a person the going rate. What we do, as a department then, is fund a job trainer -

MR. COLLINS: Can work with them.

MS BETTNEY: - so that if you are required to have a support worker with you then we provide the support person. Actually, I said we fund the support employment corporations. We don't directly. We struck a deal with HRDC where they are providing the operational funding for the supported employment corporations.

The evaluation shows that we are having very positive results with the supported employment corporations. The reason I believe it is so successful is because of the very individualized attention and follow-up that these employment corporations do with the individuals, because once you go there they are there then as a contact, both with the employer and with the person with disability themselves. If one job placement doesn't particularly work out then they immediately go to work to try and find an alternate. In some cases people just get into something they don't like, they are not suited to, and you try and get them into an area where they will be happier and more successful.

Yes, the supported employment is a major success story. We have seventeen across the Province now, literally providing over 8,000 hours of work for people with disabilities throughout this Province. I am really pleased with it.

MR. COLLINS: This is not a question, just a statement, and I will conclude on that.

I have been involved in a lot of organizations and a lot of different things over the years, but there is not too much that makes you feel as good, I guess, or brings as much satisfaction as watching something happen and see a young person, when they see you, get excited and run up and tell you they have a job.

MS BETTNEY: Exactly, it means a lot.

MR. COLLINS: That means so much to them. There is so much excitement there.

MS BETTNEY: I could give you an example if the Chair will bear with me one minute. Saturday I attended an appreciation night with the Humber Valley Supported Employment Corporation. They have, under the people that they provide services to, forty-five people with developmental disabilities who are employed in the community. They had thirty-five employers there that night. They have fourteen individuals who they have supported in starting their own businesses so they, themselves, are self-employed, the person with the disability. They are doing tremendous work. It is all volunteer boards. As I say, the only support we provide them is with support workers if they need them, and HRDC provides them with core funding. It is a really good partnership with the community. Like you, I like to get out there and see the individual faces because it is so gratifying.

MR. COLLINS: When you were in Labrador you went through and met a few of them.

MS BETTNEY: Yes, a number of them.

MR. WALSH: Mr. Chairman, I have a motion on the floor.

CHAIR: I will ask John to call the subheads.

On motion, subheads 1.1.01 through 4.1.05 carried.

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

CHAIR: Thank you very much.

A motion to adjourn is in order.

I would like to thank the minister and her officials for her time today, on behalf of the Committee.

The Committee adjourned.