SCYR Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH AT RISK OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR LES ENFANTS ET JEUNES À RISQUE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, March 9, 1999

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[Translation]

The Clerk of the Committee: I am prepared to receive motions for the election of a chair. Does anyone have a motion to that effect?

Mr. Jackson.

[English]

Mr. Ovid L. Jackson (Bruce—Grey, Lib.): Madam Chair, it is my pleasure to nominate John Godfrey as chair of this committee.

[Translation]

The Clerk: Mr. Jackson moves that Mr. Godfrey be elected chair of the Sub-committee on Children and Youth at Risk. Is everyone in favour of this motion?

(Motion agreed to)

The Clerk: Congratulations, Mr. Godfrey. Please take the chair.

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Welcome.

[Translation]

Welcome everyone. The setting of our very first meeting is quite impressive. Given the importance of the subject-matter that we will be examining, I think this is a most fitting setting.

[English]

Our purpose today is to catch up on lost time, really. Because of the winter break and the mechanics of getting nominations from the various parties for members of this committee, it has not been possible, despite our best efforts, to have our first meeting until this morning. We have to do a number of things in order to regularize our affairs, and one of them we will have to do in order to be able to present a report to the full committee of HRD for their approval this afternoon is to pass a work plan, which is simply a sketch that can be altered with the agreement of members.

The first order of business, however, is that we need to have a motion for a reduced quorum. That allows us to meet and hear evidence and receive witnesses providing that there are three members of the committee present,

[Translation]

provided that one member of the Opposition be present. This motion would allow us to hold meetings with a reduced quorum. Would someone like to move this motion?

[English]

Dr. Pagtakhan moves—

Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North—St. Paul, Lib.): I would like to have some clarification first, Mr. Chair. Is that to indicate that it is one plus three, or that it is three, one of whom will be a member of the opposition?

The Chairman: It's three, one of whom.... In other words, it's a total of three, one of whom must be a member of the opposition.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: The other clarification is does the opposition refer to the official opposition, or to the opposition parties?

[Translation]

The Chairman: The motion states that one member of the Opposition must be present. However, if you wish, we could have the word "opposition" appear in lower case, which would mean that the meeting could still be held provided a member of one of the opposition parties was in attendance. Are we agreed then on having the word "opposition" in lower case?

[English]

We understand that the motion we're voting on would allow us to proceed with any member of the opposition parties, plus two others, for a total of three.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Okay. So moved, Mr. Chair.

(Motion agreed to)

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The Chairman: We now are discussing the consideration of a work plan. Let me give a bit of background on it.

One of the frustrations of the committee not meeting is not being able to have a formal discussion about what might go into such a work plan. I have met with the researchers and talked informally to some of the members of the committee who are now present. It seemed to us that in light of the way in which events are likely to unfold in the next few months—that is to say, with the possibility of a prorogation of this session of Parliament in the month of June—if we are to have an effective role in, for example, determining things that might appear in a future Speech from the Throne or next year's budget, we have to have a broad outline of some recommendations by the month of June. The likelihood of our being able to meet again reconstituted as a new subcommittee in a new Parliament or new session is so complicated that by the time we finally got around to it it would be October and we would have missed any opportunity for input to any future Speech from the Throne or budget.

So it's important that whatever we do be a fairly focused piece of work, and that we be able to have some kind of a report by June in the eventuality of some prorogation of this Parliament. Perhaps I might ask the researchers to talk a little bit about what they put before you, which is under tab one.

[Translation]

Please refer to tab 1 for the draft work plan. Perhaps my colleagues could explain briefly how they arrived at this plan.

[English]

Who would like to start? Sandra, do you want to?

Ms. Sandra Harder (Committee Researcher): Sure.

The Chairman: Everyone knows Sandra Harder and Bill Young, the researchers of the committee.

Ms. Sandra Harder: Basically the draft work plan is quite general. It was put together to provide committee members with an opportunity to get a sense of what we know about children in Canada today. Many of you I'm sure are already familiar with that. It was to get people to start thinking about what a national children's agenda might or should look like.

Then, based on some deliberations on that, the next step would be to come up with some kind of discussion and decision about what an action agenda might look like in order to accomplish the goals of a children's agenda. Then we would decide what kinds of indicators and outcomes would the committee want to look at or want to think about in order to achieve the bones we lay out of a children's agenda.

So the meetings have been put together to first of all provide you with some background information, and secondly to look at some of the overarching frameworks that are now being used, specifically the social union framework and a discussion paper that's been put out by the Caledon Institute of Social Policy on social policy in the year 2000, which has quite an important focus on children and a children's agenda. Then we need to get a sense of where we are now in terms of what is going on in the Department of Human Resources Development on the children's agenda and in the Department of Health, which are the two lead departments around where the children's agenda is right now.

Then there would be some input from the provinces and other interested groups. After that, there would be a session of listening to people who are working in the area of children's policy and policy around child poverty, etc. We'd get them to come in and talk a bit about where the committee might want to go, and then have that separated into two sessions. In the first we would talk more about general service issues. In the second we would talk a bit more about income support issues. Then it will be up to the committee to get a sense or begin to think about where they want to go with this information. It's simply a thinking tool at this point for committee members to reflect on.

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[Translation]

The Chairman: Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): Mr. Chairman, I think we need to be aware of the initiatives taken by the provinces. It's all well and good to think about setting up new programs or implementing more concrete measures to help children—you know how near and dear to me this issue is—, but first, we need to respect provincial jurisdictions and get a better idea of what the provinces are doing in this area. When we hear about what Quebec is doing specifically, we often get the impression that nothing is being done in some areas, whereas in fact, it's often the lack of money that is stopping us from doing a little more to help children.

I'm not about to let this rest. By all means we should consider the overall picture, but we mustn't lose sight of the efforts that are already being made in this area. We mustn't try to reinvent the wheel.

The Chairman: It's primarily in the context of reviving a National Children's Agenda that we are contemplating forging a partnership between the provinces and the federal government. This would truly be a society project and the cooperation of all stakeholders at the provincial, federal and municipal levels is critical. Our study ties in with the National Children's Agenda that federal and provincial governments are already discussing. We will be looking at how these governments can coordinate their efforts, as they already do in the case of the National Child Benefit. That's been the first positive outcome of this process. No doubt Ms. Harder can provide you with further details.

[English]

Ms. Sandra Harder: Provincial input is absolutely essential, because we have some fairly significant differences in how these things are being handled in Quebec. We have the reinvestment strategy section of the child benefit, and obviously we'll want to get a handle on what's going on with that.

The Chairman: Libby Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Thank you.

Having just looked quickly at the proposed work plan, I thought it was good. I think it covers a lot of territory and is pretty ambitious. So if we can manage to get through that and come up with some sort of directions document.... I actually like the idea that we would not necessarily come to a conclusion, but we'd have an idea of some of the key directions in which we need to go. I think that would be very good.

What the provinces are doing is certainly important, but it's also very important that we hear from people within the non-profit and NGO communities. I like the fact that at least some of them are included here and we'll have consultations. I know a lot of groups are very interested in this sort of national children's agenda, but it's been very hard to really get a handle on where it's at or what's going on.

If this committee can bring some of these people in, have a discussion, open it up a bit, get their ideas and include them, it would be a really good initiative for this subcommittee to undertake and could help form the basis for the kinds of directions we think we should be going in.

I generally think it is a good work plan, although we will really have to be committed to staying on top of it. It will have to move along very rapidly, meeting to meeting, to get us to June 4.

The Chairman: Bill Young.

Mr. Bill Young (Researcher): By focusing on outcomes in a work plan like this you end up dealing with a horizontal issue, and in order to deal with it effectively you end up bringing together all the various players, including the provinces, the NGOs, and various federal departments and agencies. I think this approach will automatically lead you to bringing all those groups before the subcommittee.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Ms. St-Jacques.

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Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, PC): Could you confirm that our committee is scheduled to meet for one hour per week? Given our agenda, I'm concerned that we won't have enough time to hear from all stakeholders, to get a good grasp of the subject and to accomplish everything we have set out to do.

My second question concerns the draft work plan. You indicate here that we could devise target indicators to measure the progress made in meeting our objectives. Shouldn't we perhaps do an impact assessment before implementing any kind of program? Is that one option we could consider? Could we hear from some witnesses about this? Often, programs are implemented and the hoped-for results never materialize.

If I could just make a brief comment at this time. In attempting to determine why certain children are at risk and have problems, shouldn't we also be discussing violence? I realize that we would be adding another component to an already crowded agenda, but isn't it true that violence often has a major impact on children at risk?

The Chairman: Violence is a target indicator, or one way of gaging how we interact, or don't interact, with our children. Personally, I'd like us not only to look back at programs already in place, such as the National Child Benefit, but equally to look ahead and establish some goals before launching a new program that may or may not be successful.

As for the amount of time we have allotted to this study, I'd like to know if my colleagues think an hour or an hour and a half per week is sufficient.

[English]

Ms. Sandra Harder: I suspect we will get some information related to that when we look at the national longitudinal survey of children and youth. It will be a component, I'm sure, of the discussions that come from many of the NGO groups who are dealing with children on a day-to-day basis. I think you'll find this issue will be part of the discussions as we move through some of these things.

The Chairman: Will we be able to do this in an hour every time, or will we need an hour and a half? I suspect in order to have a full discussion we might need that. We were looking at Tuesday at 3.30 p.m. If we can imagine 3.30 to 5.00, I think we can do that if we're disciplined and focused.

Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Obviously, we're going to examine national programs. However, since I've already made the rounds of community agencies that provide support to families experiencing financial and other problems, I think we need to understand that wall to wall programs are rarely the solution. Decentralization is a better approach. This should be left in the hands of people who are better qualified to attend to the special needs of these families. Families do not respond well to being pigeonholed in certain types of programs.

To do our job properly, we will need to be vigilant and receptive to special cases, regardless of the province. I've reviewed the situation and I've observed that agencies involved in helping youth at risk, as you call them, use different approaches, depending on the clients or the symptoms a young person may be exhibiting. As you mentioned, violence, drugs and dropping out of schools are some of the problems youths must contend with, not to mention poverty and the lack of support for parents. It is important that we really listen to the witnesses who will come before this committee.

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The Chairman: It's clear that this process will be an open one. If anyone knows of experts or of community agencies that could be of assistance to us, then by all means they should pass this information along to our colleagues. We will do what we can to have them put on the witness list. This is only a rough outline. Nothing is carved in stone.

[English]

Are there any other comments? Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and congratulations.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: There is one area that may be sort of embedded in the discussion, but I don't see it jumping out at me, and it's the issue of environment and child health. It's a social equity issue when you talk about environmental contaminants and what happens to kids who are in poorer homes and probably more vulnerable and more at risk than other children in Canada.

It's a factor and a condition of where they live, the kind of work their parents do, and the conditions in which they live. It impacts on their susceptibility to disease and other problems. It affects children before conception because it affects the quality of their father's sperm and the development of the child in the womb, which then affects their potential. It affects their learning ability. So if we really want to discuss kids and youth at risk, it's an area we need to talk about.

I also wonder what the federal government is doing on environment and child health issues. Are we looking at anything in that particular area? I know the Americans have six centres of excellence where they're looking at child health in the environment. They have some very good information out there. There is a network called the Children's Environmental Health Network in the United States. I know they are endeavouring to launch one here in Canada.

Also related to these issues are issues of aboriginal children and children in the Arctic, because for a variety of reasons they can be more at risk than kids living in the south or non-aboriginal kids, on both the environmental side and some of the social conditions side.

Those are some of my comments. Otherwise, they're very good....

The Chairman: Thank you. Very useful.

Ms. Harder.

Ms. Sandra Harder: It might be perfectly logical to bring someone from the Institute of Child Health into our opening session, who would be able to talk about some of the issues you've raised. I'm also quite sure that when we have an update from departments, we'll get something on the new expert advisory committee on children that's been formed, and the Institute of Child Health.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: It's my understanding that the Institute of Child Health is looking at a way to be more inclusive of some of the environmental conditions and determinants of health in their next report, in terms of what they're preparing. I could bring in a very simple four-page summary that addresses some of the things I talked about. I have tons of contacts in this area and would be more than happy to advise you.

Ms. Sandra Harder: That would be very helpful.

The Chairman: We're delighted. That's exactly the way we want to function.

We also might ask the researchers, just as they go, to attempt to do a bit of a survey on a horizontal basis, as Bill Young talked about, on what various federal government departments are doing about kids, as it relates to our concerns and what you understand to be part of the work.

Ms. Sandra Harder: Yes.

The Chairman: Dr. Pagtakhan and then Dr. Bennett. We're going to have a sort of second opinion.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: I would suggest that when we have finalized this work plan, in issuing the invitation to any of the potential speakers, a copy of the whole work plan be submitted to them, so they will have an understanding of the overall agenda being covered and the imagination they could use in putting into perspective what their presentation would provide at once to the potential cohesive whole.

Having said that, when it comes to children you indicated the Institute for Child Health. I have to be kept up to date, but one society that immediately stands out in Canada of course is the Canadian Paediatric Society. Just by the name alone, it would appear to be an excellent society to invite to give us the perspective. I understand that Dr. Mustard, who is a super-expert on many issues, could speak about child development, but I do not know on what perspective. Certainly the Canadian Paediatric Society would be able to give us that very total perspective.

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The Chairman: Of course all these names don't know their good luck that they're going to be invited to appear before us.

There are two things we have to keep in mind. One issue is that if we're going to proceed with the schedule, we do have to agree in general to this work plan at this meeting in order that we can put it through the full committee meeting today at 3.30. This does not constrain us from adding names, changing them, or anything else.

Another issue we have to think about is whether there are budget implications for this. If there are people who are going to come from far away who need funding, we're going to have to get a sense of that fairly quickly, because we have to take that to the committee as well. It's a very useful idea that when we invite our witnesses, once we have a general work plan set up, we can send them a contextual document that will say what we want from them and where they fit into the bigger picture. I think this is what you're getting at.

We'll have Dr. Bennett, then Madame Gagnon and Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): In keeping with the last two interventions, the U.K. has a new white paper on tobacco in terms of explaining how to help poor people quit.

If we're going to talk about environment, where children live, particularly children in the Arctic, we actually need somebody to give us a little support for the interventions on tobacco. I would hope that we as a committee would look at the new WHO convention on tobacco, which would of course be good for kids, and at Canada taking the lead on that.

The Chairman: Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I have a suggestion to make concerning the list of resource persons who have been involved in drafting policies on children. I would be amenable to adopting this plan, but I would like to ensure that the process is open. I will check to see if we could possibly hear from a Quebec individual who has been involved in policy formulation. I could suggest several names and we could pick one. For example, I could contact a representative of the Conseil de la famille et de l'enfance and let him or her know that we are interested in discussing specific issues. I think this would be a good idea because as I see it, there are more people on the potential witness list who represent English Canada. I'd like to hear about the programs in place in the various provinces. I could start by checking to see if the people I have in mind are interested in appearing and if what they have to say would be relevant to our study.

The Chairman: That's an excellent suggestion. Richard Tremblay from the University of Montreal, Marc Renaud, who is now in Ottawa and Alain Noël are just a few of the names already mentioned. If you know of other experts, please feel free to submit their names.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Agreed. I will look into this. Thank you.

[English]

The Chairman: Karen.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I have a quick intervention.

Mary Simon, who is Canada's ambassador for the environment, is in the process of completing a consultation around youth and children at risk in the Arctic. One of Canada's contributions to the Arctic Council is a children and youth agenda, so I think it would be really helpful. So I'm sure that Mary would make a very valuable contribution in that respect.

The Chairman: We're going to be busy.

Any other comments?

Eric, welcome. Do you have any initial thoughts or reactions to all of this?

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Ref.): More learning, Mr. Chairman, than anything else—just listening to the comments around the table.

I was just looking at the work plan, and I think it's fairly comprehensive. My only reaction on the face of it, and perhaps you can address it to some degree, is that the word “family” is mentioned here only once, and that's with reference to the Vanier Institute, yet we have children all the way through this.

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If we're concerned about children, we should have a greater number of spokespeople who are dealing with children within a familial context, as opposed to seeing ourselves as the sole champions of the interests of children outside the context of their families. I would be interested to see more of those kinds of groups.

I don't have any suggestions at the moment, but as time goes on I may want to bring some forward.

The Chairman: Of course we'll accept all those suggestions.

Sandra Harder wants to say something.

Ms. Sandra Harder: I would just say that most of the witnesses—in fact I would venture to say almost all of them who are on there—will have a discussion of children as part of families and all different configurations of families. I think that's an essential part of most of the work that's done on children in Canada today, recognizing that they don't exist on their own.

The Chairman: I hope not.

Are there any other comments, questions, or suggestions for the time being?

Ms. Libby Davies: [Editor's Note: Inaudible]

The Chairman: Would you like to put a motion to approve the work plan?

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes, I so move.

The Chairman: We have a motion. Is there any discussion on this?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chair, will we be including some of the additional comments that have come up around the table?

The Chairman: In adopting the work plan, because we wish to do so this afternoon, they will not have factored in the additional comments, but we are not limited by this document to that. It just allows us to get going.

Are there any other questions? Ms. Bennett.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Karen just mentioned to me the CIHR sort of conception. I wonder if at some point we could make sure this committee had some input into what the makeup of those institutes would be.

Obviously there are some of us who feel strongly that a primary prevention institute would be important, and we would also like to make sure that anything that had to do with kids was its broadest in terms of the social determinants of health. And in regard to an institute that was dedicated to kids, we would want to make sure that the social science people feel that they are properly at the table.

I don't know if you would ask Fraser to come, or how we make sure that this committee feels they have some input before those institutes are carved in tablets of stone.

The Chairman: What we might do, either through your connections or through the researchers, is simply to find out the timeline of those decisions. In other words, if that decision is not to be made until the fall or whatever else, then we can come in then, but let's make sure we know when the decisions are.

Oh, we seem to have some information.

Ms. Sandra Harder: Certainly if the committee decides that it wants to respond to something like that, you always have the option as a committee of sending a letter from the committee to the appropriate body or bureau, encouraging them to take certain kinds of actions, to consider certain inputs, and so on. You're familiar with that, Dr. Bennett.

The Chairman: Do you have a question?

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Mr. Chair, in light of what I have read in the newspaper, that a committee of the House is now looking at income taxes in a way that focuses on children, I would like to be assured that when we hint at these issues we are not potentially duplicating what I hope will be an intensive work by the finance committee.

The Chairman: Do you have a reaction?

Ms. Sandra Harder: On our witness list we do have a person who is very well versed in the tax system who will be addressing issues of income security and taxation for children and families. I expect he would also be called as a witness before the finance committee; I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. But certainly we can endeavour to make sure we're up to date with what's going on in the finance committee on these issues and keep you informed.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

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The Chairman: The other point of course is that children are a horizontal issue, so the more committees that actually look at these things.... I would certainly agree with perhaps an implicit suggestion that we wouldn't want finance to be the exclusive lookers at this question. Maybe you weren't hinting that.

We have a motion on the floor.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: We have a work plan that will be rich with additions. What we're going to have to do as well is try to figure out at what point we may have to invite people from further afield, such as Quebec, or the west, or wherever else, and what the budget implications are, because we'll have to pass a budget and go back to the main committee.

We've done the work of the morning. Are there any other questions, thoughts, last comments?

Mr. Eric Lowther: When is the next meeting, Mr. Chair?

The Chairman: The next meeting would be next Tuesday—

Ms. Sandra Harder: Hopefully, the only caveat at this point will be that we're already really tight in terms of availability, so it would mean getting in touch with potential witnesses immediately and determining who would be available in a week.

The Chairman: But the meeting time would be 3.30 to 5 on Tuesday, subject to our ability to get hold of these folks, and subject also to the main committee, because we can't conflict with it.

Madame Gagnon.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: The plan is to examine different themes every week. Will we be inviting certain witnesses to coincide with themes under consideration at a particular point in time?

[English]

The Chairman: The thought was we would try to cluster witnesses on subjects, yes. When you're thinking about this list, think of where

[Translation]

I would make more sense for us to call a particular witness.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: You would be trying to focus on a particular problem.

The Chairman: That's right.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: With the help of expert witnesses.

The Chairman: Correct.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I see.

[English]

The Chairman: If there are no other comments, questions, or orders of business, the meeting is now adjourned.