SPER Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITES

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, April 4, 2000

• 1540

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.)): First, we want to welcome back Wendy, who had a sick boy and was away; and Madeleine, whom we have missed terribly as well.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral (Laval Centre, BQ): I hope you missed me.

Mr. Mark Muise (West Nova, PC): And I hope you keep the trend going.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I am perfectly well.

The Chair: Excellent.

Mr. Mark Muise: Good.

The Chair: We have a couple of little housekeeping things, because it's the time of year for the Centennial Flame Research Award. We have a winner from last year, Mr. Darrell Swain, who has requested to come in to tell us all about himself, so we need approval to invite him to come in to do so. Is that okay?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: We approve by consensus.

There are also two applications listed here for the Centennial Flame Research Award for 2000, but traditionally what we've done is give all the applications to Bill, the researcher. He then tabulates them, because some of the people who apply don't actually meet the criteria. Bill does that for us, and then he'll tell us which of the ones that apply should be considered and ticked off by the committee. So is it okay for us to go ahead and do that?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Chair: That's great.

We need to have a little conversation about next steps in terms of the pieces of work that we'd like to do. Wendy was quite keen that we continue our accountability piece in terms of letting the ministers know that we will be back to them on what they're doing and not doing on these things. There was interest expressed to me about the fact that we got a lot of what we asked for in the budget in terms of tax, and whether we should be doing our post-budget/pre-budget follow-up on the tax issues with the finance department, just to see if there's more we could get out of them.

Because it has not been translated yet, I just showed Wendy a copy of something from HRDC. It's on some of the federal-provincial stuff in regard to portability in supports and services. It seems to be what a lot of people are talking about in terms of how we move the agenda on supports and services, separate from income.

Then there's the thing that Wendy and I were talking about just before you came in, and that's the children's agenda that's supposed to be signed by December 2000, in terms of children with disabilities. Is there something we could do to remind the groups negotiating that about children with disabilities? How do we make sure that in any national children's agenda or any of these things that the provinces are doing—best practices, transparency, and accountability—mainly what we want them to sign...? How do we make sure children with disabilities are there, and not invisible as they were in the national children's agenda? Do you remember that first thing that we saw, which didn't mention children with disabilities at all?

Other than that, Bill and I are open.

We should introduce our new friend. We'll let Bill do that, because you know all the background. How rude of me.

Mr. Bill Young (Committee Researcher): This is Julie Mackenzie, who has just joined the research branch from the Department of Health. She's going to be working on social issues with me. While she was at the Department of Health, she was looking after and was involved with working in the area of children and youth.

Ms. Julie Mackenzie (Committee Researcher): Hello. I'm pleased to meet you.

The Chair: Thank you.

We'll also get Bill to recirculate the list of ministers who haven't yet been called, and ministers who were at the small meeting we had at the East Block but who we think could be called again, just to see whether there's anything more from what they said last year.

I think the people from the HALS survey were interested in coming back when they had something to show us, in order to see what the triggering question would be and what the actual HALS survey might look like, and to let us know what kind of consultation they've been doing in the disability community. I think those were the things they promised us they would do.

• 1545

Then the other thing is that Bill is just open to any other issues that you think we should do.

We talked at the last meeting—it was really just Wendy and I, I think—about whether we want one big piece of work from now until June 2000, and one until the next election, or whether we should take on bite-sized chunks of things that we could hand in. I think we've done pretty well on some of the bite-sized chunks, whether it was the commitment to HALS, whether it was the pre-budget thing, or the letter to Mr. Martin. There are some small things that we can actually tick off as having done. But there's also the big overall picture, in terms of where you think we ought to go.

Mark.

Mr. Mark Muise: I have a couple of things.

First I want to apologize for not being able to attend as many meetings as I would like. It's certainly not my lack of concern and my lack of interest in this committee. By far, it is very important to me, but other committees keep me busy.

There are a couple of things I'd like to touch on. First, when we started, we said that government has piles and piles of reports, piles about four or five feet tall. We tended to agree that to work on something and just keep working at it without pushing an agenda was not the way to go. Instead, we decided we should take on four or five big issues and make sure they got pushed ahead. I sense that's what we did, and I would like us to continue somewhat on that track. Let's not become a committee like others that just try to grab on to too many and have things get lost. I would like us to concentrate on a few issues and really push those issues. So that's my five cents' worth for that.

The other point I'd like to put out is that I met with Mr. Angelo Nikias of the CNIB last week, and I also met with him last year. I really enjoyed those meetings, because he has very good points. He presented me with the CNIB's report because he wanted to share it with me in the hope that we could move their agenda forward. He also mentioned that he recognizes—and I think he sees it from the CNIB's point of view; of course, he should and he would—that a lot of things in there are things that would and could be applied to many other disabilities. I would suggest that maybe we could look at that and look at how we can move that type of agenda forward.

One of the things I noticed in the brief he presented to me was that—and we recognize this already—you can live in one province in which x number of things are covered, but if you go to another province, these two things aren't covered but three are. It's really confusing, and it restricts those individuals with certain disabilities from being mobile, whereas other Canadians tend to be more apt to just go where they want to.

The Chair: So in some ways that speaks to the supports and services mobility piece.

Mr. Mark Muise: That's right.

The Chair: What you're also saying is that whether it's the blind.... Eldridge is still sitting there without the provinces really understanding what to do about it, right? It's the Supreme Court decision on deaf interpretation. Nobody really knows what to do, yet some people are trying to design interesting ways of maybe doing it on-line, with a call person who could do it with a Toshiba laptop in a doctor's office or in a hospital that might not have the availability. I mean, there are interesting modern ways of looking at this sort of inclusive thing.

Basically I think what I'm hearing you say is what Jane Stewart talked to us about in terms of the role of the committee in measuring outcomes or setting outcomes that Canadians ought to be able to count on. Those are action items, as opposed to just more and more study. There could be two or three outcomes, or even ten or twelve, but are there a couple of things that we would like measured by Treasury Board, by any funding agency, by grants and contributions, by the Opportunities Fund? How do we help the minister set some outcomes that would be achievable?

• 1550

When we had that reception for the Canadian Council on Rehabilitation and Work, the member on the HRD committee from the Bloc, Paul Crête, was really interested in looking at whether or not there is almost an incentive model for provinces that have been the pioneers and have the best practices. Is there a way you could reward a province that has done something fantastic in terms of outcomes, as the pioneer, and reward it in some way because it is a model that would work? If Quebec is ahead of the game on so many things, it should have some sort of reward so that it could go pioneering again in the next area with some sort of reward. That was just something he had talked about.

Anyway, those were the three outcomes. Obviously there's a real problem with Eldridge. Even the things the Supreme Court has said still aren't implemented. And then there's the sports and services piece.

Madame, what do you think we should be doing?

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I tend to agree with Mark. At the risk of excluding some issues, we should limit ourselves to one or two objectives. It seems important to me that the whole dynamics of social integration in the labour market should be centered on younger people rather than people aged 50 and over.

Don't think that I don't like the 50 and over age group, but it's already difficult for someone with no limbs missing to find a job after 50. Wouldn't it be better to focus on people aged 20 to 30 and really concentrate on these people? I am sure that we will have to bypass some people, the needs are so great. If we, as I fear, try to review too many issues, we won't accomplish much. We might have to decide to work with one specific group.

I am sure that during the holiday season, all my colleagues here met people faced with a dramatic situation because the job integration measures they are entitled to are only valid for six months. Even for someone who's not disabled, a six month period is often not enough to get well adjusted to a job. Even more so, it's not sufficient when you face difficulties.

Personally, I think we should try to see what we can do to push this further. The government has already given important resources and maybe we could use the few powers that we have to demand that these resources be dedicated to a specific group and that, after a year, we assess the results of such an approach. If we try to do everything, we'll end up doing nothing at all.

Mr. Mark Muise: I agree.

[English]

The Chair: I'm interested in that. Over the break, I also had some people come in to see me with children who were 18 or 21. All of a sudden everything stops. The mother was a researcher or something, and she hasn't been able to work for twenty years. She is still not going to be able to work, and she has no real security in the future for this child. I think that's a very interesting thing in the sense that children with disabilities are of all ages, and the parents of children with disabilities are of ever-increasing ages, so it's a huge worry.

At one point, though, based on one previous conversation, Bill did outline a possible study of promoting positive outcomes for children with disabilities. It would interesting to see whether that has an age bracket or not, just to figure out whether we could study what outcomes we would want to promote in terms of setting goals on children with disabilities, or young adults or whatever. That would be interesting too.

Wendy, did you have a—

• 1555

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Well, I feel we haven't had the same kind of momentum this year. It's unfortunate, and it's for all sorts of reasons, so we just have to look at where we are now, how many meetings we have left, and what is an achievable goal, a credible goal. We want credibility. We don't want to be seen as just another old committee that is just grinding along. We would like to appear to be—I don't mean just appear to be—we would like to in fact be task oriented and have a sense of momentum.

In terms of your ideas, I like the idea of looking at that age group that sort of works its way out of the public eye. As soon as you become 20 or 21, you're no longer in the school system and you're not followed as closely by the health care system. It's hard to track that very important group. I like that idea.

I also like the idea of trying to chase down what's happened to the Supreme Court decision around Eldridge. That is a very important issue, and people have been waiting. We were elected in June 1997, and that came down in October. I thought that was going to change the face of this country in terms of people with disabilities, and not just in terms of hospital translators. I thought it was going to mean we were actually going to see services available to children with disabilities who needed support. There were large implications to that. Everybody's talked about the big implications, but where are they? It hasn't happened.

So I like the idea of a watchdog group, a group that chases down the human rights issues. And any time you run into it, if you run into it in your office when you find 20- to 30-year-olds who have become non-persons, then chase that down.

I'm just brainstorming here.

The Chair: There is a professor who came to meet—

Ms. Wendy Lill: Well, there was a guy from McGill.

The Chair: I think he worked for Health Canada.

Ms. Wendy Lill: Jamie MacDougall.

The Chair: He went all across the country tracking what each province was doing about Eldridge, and I think he was going to present it to Health Canada. We could have just one meeting to shine the light on the fact that it's not happening and see if we can get some action.

A voice: If you'd like to pursue that after Easter, I could try to identify...[Technical Difficulty—Editor]...what happened with Eldridge...[Technical Difficulty—Editor]... I don't know exactly who, but I could try to identify several people who might be of interest to you. That could be the meeting after Easter, if you'd like that.

The Chair: In some ways, as you say, in Eldridge, they won the Supreme Court case. It was supposed to change the face of persons with disabilities in terms of what you're entitled to in terms of supports and services and all kinds of things.

The other part is that we haven't really done that at the Human Rights Commission. When she came to the justice committee, she was quite keen to come and talk to us too about the percentage of cases she sees at the Human Rights Commission that are about disabilities and what we could be doing. She might even come on the same panel, right? I think something like 40% of the cases at the Human Rights Commission are about disabilities.

Mark.

Mr. Mark Muise: I think we still should stay with two, three, or four important issues and do them well.

Another thing I'd like to see is to have the HRDC minister, Madam Stewart, back, not like at the last meeting, where she was grilled on issues regarding funds, but to talk with her about the seriousness of the CPP disability and all. That is a thorn in my side. That program creates a lot of trouble for a lot of people.

• 1600

If there's one thing in my constituency office, it's CPP disability. There's a problem there, and I'd like us to address that. It's not to get the minister in and ask her about all these funds, but to focus on that. I think it's something serious that has to be addressed. I could go on and on, but I don't want to right now.

The Chair: It's interesting also because it's really only for people who have paid in.

Mr. Mark Muise: That's another problem, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Yes, right. It's not—

Mr. Mark Muise: As I've said before, I'm glad we might be focusing on individuals who become adults with disabilities who haven't had a chance to pay in. One of my biggest concerns for my daughter is not while I'm here, but when I'm gone or too old to take care of her. I think there has to be something there.

I'm putting my personal feelings in here, but I can't do it without having it that way.

The Chair: Yes, in that holistic approach on what we do about persons with disabilities, CPP is a very select group, as we found just from the numbers of people who qualify. And that's of the people who apply. Look at all the people who know they don't qualify, who never paid in. They don't even apply.

Nancy.

Mrs. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.): I have to echo what Mark was saying, because I represent an area that has fairly high unemployment, and the majority of the people don't qualify for CPP and disability benefits.

Because we are a new territory, we're trying very hard to include the people with disabilities. But from talking to them, I find they really don't even know what they're entitled to. Most of them, as I say, have never had a chance to work and contribute to CPP, so that's not an option for them. We can talk all about the benefits of being covered for disability under the Canada Pension Plan, but most people I represent have never had an opportunity to contribute to it.

So I'm very interested in knowing what services and benefits we can offer people, if we're going talk about how we can pass on more information to people with disabilities, how we can help them, how we can integrate them more into the workforce.

I know most of it will probably end up being territorial responsibility. As I've said at previous committee meetings, most of them just want to know when they can get a new wheelchair to replace the one they've been using for 10 years, that type of thing. I know that's combined with health and social services in the territorial government.

Any way I can use this committee and the information I get from this committee and pass it on to people at home is what I hope to get from this.

The Chair: I think what we continue to hear is that—and maybe it goes to what Mark's saying about getting the minister back—maybe we shouldn't be confining ourselves to an analysis of CPP. We want an analysis of income security for people with disabilities. We want their incomes to be secure. If they don't qualify for CPP, well then, what else do we do?

That was my upset when we did the Treasury Board binder on performance indicators for income security programs. It was about busy signals and the number of minutes on hold. It wasn't on whether these Canadians have a secure income.

Even if we could get that piece done in terms of what an appropriate performance indicator and outcome is on income security for people who probably won't get to work, or who no longer work.... We talk about income security, and these people are the least secure in this country. It's interesting how it all sort of comes....

The other piece is that they need to be secure about their supports and services. How do you determine outcomes and performance indicators for these two things that these people really do need, and that their parents or the people they depend on need, regardless of how old they are.

• 1605

So in some ways, Nancy, you're saying it's not really the aboriginals with disabilities; it's much more the unemployed, and the employment record is more the issue in your area. That was the other little thing we talked about at one point as being a real vacuum in what we know.

Mrs. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: I think it's how we can integrate them more into the workforce and how we can help them with training, whether they apply for the same funds as everybody else applies for under training initiatives. Do we want to treat them the same way as everybody else in applying for all these training dollars that are available to the territory? I'm not sure. I haven't researched that much to know.

The Chair: I don't think we ever got the questions answered in the sense that when we look at the numbers of people who have been taken off CPP disability, we have no idea what happened to those people, whether they got the fabulous piece of equipment that now means they're able to work as a blind person or as a deaf person, or whether they're actually just sitting on municipal welfare now. Right?

As parliamentarians, when Treasury Board asks if we have the information we need in order to make good policy.... Without those kinds of information as to what actually happened to the person who got cut off CPP disability, I don't think we can actually make a very good policy decision.

Bill just handed me a note.

I think you should just say what you've heard.

Mr. Bill Young: While I was listening, I was trying to think of how I could put together a work plan, and I think I've come up with something you could do in about six meetings.

The first meeting would be, what are the rights and how have these been interpreted in terms of supports and services? That would be focused on the Eldridge decision and how it has been dealt with and treated, what the implications of it are.

The second would be on supports and services versus income. I think what you're going to find is that you have to separate the two out, so you might as well understand the distinction between the two and how they're funded and what the implications of dealing with one or the other might be.

The third would be looking at gaps in supports and services, and that would be three sessions. One would be on kids with disabilities, one would be on youth 18 to 20 years of age, and one would be on something like income supports, or whatever.

For the last session, you could try to bring in the Minister and run whatever ideas you've—

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Which minister?

Mr. Bill Young: HRD. You could run by the minister the ideas that have come out of the previous meetings.

That's what I heard, and I was trying to think of how I could put it together.

The Chair: So at that last meeting, we would be able to talk to her about outcomes and those kinds of things on the areas we....

Will we have a report for her to look at, or how would we do that?

Mr. Bill Young: After you had got into it and had done two or three of these meetings, I think you'd have to figure out whether you want a report in June or whether you want to use in another way the information you've received.

It's a bit premature. This isn't even a study plan; it's just me making notes as you've been talking.

The Chair: I think we could take it one at a time. But I think the human rights implication of Eldridge is interesting as a test case for what everybody ought to be able to expect, and to do that with the human rights commissioner in that context, that this isn't about fighting for supports and services; this is about basic human rights.

Do you think you can do that in one meeting? What was the second one?

Mr. Bill Young: On Eldridge. As I said before, I would put together a panel.

On the supports and services versus income, in many ways what I think you need to do at that point would be to hear from the community more broadly about how they see those issues. Again, it would be a group.

• 1610

Then, on the children with disabilities, I think you could bring in two or three people who would perhaps give you their view of what the issue is, how it fits into the other children's issues, and what you might consider as options for the subcommittee.

On youth 18 to 20 years of age, I think you folks have probably outlined what you'd like to do, better than anyone else could.

The Chair: Or even 18 to 30 years of age.

Mr. Bill Young: Then, at that point, I think you could stop and decide exactly how you want to proceed.

The Chair: The other thing Bill pointed out was.... Remember when we had Dr. Sayeed from the Canadian Association for Community Living? They explained their conference, the international congress serving children with disabilities in the community, in Edmonton, from October 25 to 27. I don't know whether that's something to which, as part of all this, we would ask if the subcommittee could go, or—

Mr. Bill Young: Actually, you could either try to attend or use that as an opportunity to hold some hearings—

The Chair: Out there?

Mr. Bill Young: —out there, and focus more intensively on children at that point in time.

For example, go a day before the congress starts and try to bring in some of the international experts who might be there and spend a half day or most of a day taking advantage of the people who would be there, to see what they have to say.

Mr. Mark Muise: They might be preoccupied at that point with something else.

The Chair: I hope not.

Ms. Wendy Lill: I would like to ask a question. I keep coming back to the idea we talked about at the very beginning of this committee—that is, keeping people on the hot seat, keeping the discomfort level high, on the services we care about and being that torch carrier. I like all the suggestions you're putting forward, but I wonder, out of each one, what is the outcome that is going to cause some action?

We even talked about press releases after our meetings. Remember? We talked about the idea of information sheets that come out of our sessions, because they're important sessions and they're ones that people are going to want to know about, just trying to keep those ideas front and centre.

Certainly the meeting about the status of Eldridge is a very important one. I think we should send out information after that about whether we, as a committee, are either happy or unhappy, or that this is an outrage. Do you know what I mean? This is an important issue, a big human rights issue.

The Chair: That's the other thing we should look at as a committee. When our report was tabled last year, it was the same day as some other report, and I think it got absolutely no notice at all, really. We did send out a press release after the budget saying we had got pretty well what we had asked for from the committee.

I don't know if you have the letter yet from Paul Martin to all of us—I think it's in translation and being circulated—thanking the committee for its work and how helpful it was to the budget and those sorts of things.

But I agree. I think if we did a meeting on Eldridge and people understand.... To be called before this committee is a serious thing, and people should be doing their homework, right? We do get action, but you're asking if we should bring a few more ministers. We can look at that list of ministers we had on this big chart, the ones we have yet to see.

I was at Millhaven and Kingston and Bath penitentiary last week or the week before. It's quite horrible, actually, in terms of people with disabilities. We haven't even begun to say, in terms of youth justice, that the reason 70% of those kids are there is because of learning disabilities and fetal alcohol effects. I'm not sure that's something the justice committee is ever really going to seize hold of, but it really is a serious disability. The reason these kids are costing $100,000 a year is that they are in youth detention instead of our actually identifying the disability or health problem, however you want to characterize it.

• 1615

Were there ministers you wanted back?

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Don't ask me for the answer.

Mr. Mark Muise: You've heard my comments.

The Chair: We'll recirculate the list Bill drew up before that last planning meeting, and it will jog your memory about the things we might want. I know that the human rights commissioner was one we talked about. I think we were a bit frustrated with some of the answers from certain ministers. Maybe we should all reread our report, because I think it also showed us the ones that were a little bit disappointing. If we all reread the report, then by the next meeting we could see the ones that would be appropriate to call back between now and June.

You want Jane for sure.

Mr. Mark Muise: I remember when we had Pierre Pettigrew, and he was almost shocked that CPP disability was such a problem. I felt that he had a better grasp of it and that he was going to start working in a positive direction. I'd like to see whether with Madam Stewart that's going in that direction.

I also spoke positively about the Opportunities Fund, and I'm glad that was kept. I think that's very valuable for the points we touched on earlier. It's a cost-effective way, I think, of putting people back into the workforce and, with a bit of help, enabling them to move on. But I'd like to see that. Every time you invite the Minister of HRDC now, it seems that all the press comes. I'd like for us to be able to concentrate on that aspect.

The Chair: Wendy.

Ms. Wendy Lill: I'm not that happy about the Opportunities Fund as a long-term mechanism for income redistribution for the disabled community. I'm glad that has been extended, but it's not the model I think we should be carrying forward, and it's not what we're hearing from people.

With regard to the whole issue of refundability around taxes, if you don't have any income to begin with, you don't get any refund. I'm not as happy as perhaps some others are with what came out of the budget in terms of persons with disabilities.

The point is we just keep pushing. Our goal is to just keep pushing. Wherever we're at, we keep on pushing. I don't want us to leave this meeting without momentum. We should really have a sense of what we're going to push at.

I don't even know whether we should push at four things, Mark. I don't know how many meetings we have left. Maybe we should push at two issues, or maybe we could look at the issue of the duty to accommodate and find out where the Eldridge case is now and make it very clear where we think it should be. That's certainly a chunk. That's an important task to do.

We might want to look at one of the issues the two of you keep coming to, which seems to be income security for the 20- to 30-year-old group. We might want to look at young adults and income security and things like that.

I'm not really saying anything that is much different from what you're saying, Bill. I'm just thinking that we might want to keep it small but mighty in terms of our tasks.

The Chair: In Quebec, once a child becomes 18, is there a way that a child with a disability gets their own income and moves into some group home?

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I think they receive some kind of allocation. Some of them are living in apartments with other disabled persons or with someone who can supervise them. But some are not able to do that, and the parents still have the responsibility to take care of their kids as long as they can.

• 1620

The Chair: That's something we can explore. If we were going to look at that age group, then we would explore what models work in terms of income, supports and services, group homes, and what would be the ideal model.

Is there anything else before we send Bill off?

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Carolyn, would it be possible to set up after last February budget, a table including the specific measures dealing with the disabled? I don't know if someone has the time to do this, but it seems to me this would be useful. Needs are so huge that this exercise may seem to be useless. It may be the case, or if the situation is not as serious as we think.

[English]

The Chair: What Bill whispered to me was that we should keep the heat up. Tonight Minister Martin has a post-budget meeting and a pre-budget meeting with the Liberal caucus, meaning that he will have a meeting with our caucus to sort of say, what did you think, and what should be next?

I think that's not a bad process for all the parliamentary committees to follow. We need an assessment of what we got in the last budget and what we need to be pushing for between now and the next budget. I think that's what Wendy is saying too. Perhaps we could have an analysis of what we asked to be included in the budget in our letter to Mr. Martin, what we got, what we still have to get, what in reflection we should have asked for, and what we could keep pushing on. Is that possible, Bill?

Ms. Wendy Lill: When are our meetings? We seem to have trouble scheduling them. So let's talk about that and how many we have left.

The Chair: Wednesday afternoon has been traditionally when we have our time. It has been a problem because the two subcommittees of HRD, children and youth at risk and the the status of persons with disabilities, end up with some of the same support staff, and it's a bit of a fight. I don't think I've made it to one children and youth at risk committee meeting yet, because I've always ended up with a conflict.

I think we had felt that for you, Wendy, Thursday afternoon really wasn't very good. Is that right?

Ms. Wendy Lill: It's not the best.

The Chair: It's not good for Mark, either.

Should we have a meeting next week, or do you want to give us a week to get Eldridge ready?

Mr. Bill Young: You can't meet when the main committee is meeting. I understand that they may be meeting next Wednesday afternoon, so I don't think you could plan for a meeting next week.

The Chair: Okay. So why don't we have a really great meeting on the Eldridge thing on the Wednesday afternoon after we get back? Sometimes we're allowed Tuesday afternoon. Is that right?

Mr. Bill Young: The clerk can tell you.

The Clerk of the Committee: Wednesday afternoon is your normal block. We'd probably have to phone around and find out if a room is available, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Okay. Would that be all right? The week we get back, we'll do the Eldridge thing. We would normally book it on the Wednesday afternoon. Do you want me to ask about Tuesday afternoon, or is Wednesday afternoon okay?

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I have to attend another committee meeting on Wednesday but I could ask one of my colleagues to sit in for me.

[English]

The Chair: Let's aim for that. Is that okay with you?

The Clerk: That's Wednesday, May 3.

The Chair: Holy cow!

Ms. Wendy Lill: That's a month from now.

The Chair: Yes. It's because of the two weeks. Let's make sure we have all the rest of them booked. We sit until when?

• 1625

The Clerk: Friday, June 23, is in theory the last day.

Mr. Mark Muise: Theoretically.

[Translation]

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: I'd like to let you know that I won't be here on June 23.

Mr. Mark Muise: No?

[English]

The Clerk: We'll probably adjourn Wednesday, June 21, or something like that.

The Chair: Wednesday, the 23rd—

The Clerk: We always adjourn a day or two earlier. The pressure gets like that.

The Chair: Okay. We're obviously sitting later this year, so maybe we can get some work done between now and the end of June.

The Clerk: There is a break, of course, after May 24, so you're down a week.

The Chair: Yes.

Ms. Wendy Lill: So we're going to do a whole section on Eldridge. Where to now, and what other block have we agreed on? Certainly HALS... Are they going to be ready for a revisit for HALS before we go down? That might be interesting.

Mr. Bill Young: At one point, actually, what they were talking about—and I think that came out at the end of the meeting the last time—was an informal discussion with you people rather than an on-the-record appearance, an informal discussion about what the tracking question might be, where they're at, and what they're proposing to do, rather than a formal meeting necessarily. I suspect they'd come back, but that was the nature of the discussion just at the end of the meeting.

The Chair: There are five Wednesdays in May, right? Then we would have at least—

A voice: One of which you wouldn't have.

The Chair: Oh, one we wouldn't have. So there are four Wednesdays, and then in June we would have two probably, maximum. I don't think we would meet on the 20th, right?

Bill, do you want to plan five meetings, meaning the 3rd, the 10th, the 17th, the 24th, the 31st of May, and the 6th of June? Then we'll see where we're at.

A voice: The first one on Eldridge.

The Chair: The first one would be on Eldridge, right?

Mr. Bill Young: Yes.

The Chair: And the rest seem to have asterisks on my calendar.

Mr. Mark Muise: Yes.

The Chair: And I've been calling out the wrong dates; it's the 3rd, the 10th, the 17th, the 31st, that's right. Then it's June 7, because the 14th and the 21st seem to have little asterisks on them.

Ms. Wendy Lill: What does that mean?

The Chair: It means maybe.

Mrs. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: We went until the 17th or something last year, if I recall.

The Chair: Yes.

Mrs. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: I couldn't get home for a good while. I remember that.

The Chair: Is that right?

Mrs. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: I'm pretty sure it was late last year.

The Chair: Bill can circulate a draft work plan. Do you think there's time for a short meeting to approve it, or can we just do that as part of the Eldridge meeting? Let's just do it as part of that.

Mr. Bill Young: I'll circulate something. If you have any comments or suggestions, you could just give me a call.

The Chair: Yes, fix it before the meeting. That's better.

What about our friend, Mr. Darrell Swain? We'll find out about his availability.

A voice: He called to testify.

The Chair: Is that what it usually is, calling him to testify or...?

The Clerk: Yes.

The Chair: Yes, because it needs to be on the record and all of that. We can't just have a little reception for him and a supper or something...?

The Clerk: Is that what you'd like to do?

The Chair: I don't know.

The Clerk: That's no problem.

The Chair: What do you want to do?

Is the point of it to get him testifying and on the record, or would it be nicer to...? Or should we do both? I guess that's the thing. Having a little reception for the winner of the Centennial Flame Award and having him testify and then a little wine and cheese—is that what you're saying is better? Okay.

Ms. Wendy Lill: Can I just ask a question? I'm sorry to be so dumb. Has he won?

The Chair: Yes, last year.

Ms. Wendy Lill: So he's just coming in to talk about his year and—

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: And the result of his research.

Ms. Wendy Lill: All right. I understand.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: He won, but he had to work.

• 1630

Ms. Wendy Lill: Yes, all right, then. I'm sorry. I didn't think our committee was going to sit here and listen to people say why they should win. Obviously that would be totally inappropriate.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: No, no—

The Chair: He won last year, so now he's going to tell us what he did with time.

A voice: That the committee hold a meeting—

The Chair: So that's probably appropriate, then, that it be a proper testimony. Then maybe can have a little something for him after.

Yes?

[Translation]

LetÂs go.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: Has this document been translated? If not, will it be translated?

Mr. Bill Young: I don't know, but I could ask the Department's officials.

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: This document is dated November 1999. It's four months old now.

[English]

Mr. Bill Young: I don't know if it was made to be distributed.

The Chair: No, it was—

Ms. Madeleine Dalphond-Guiral: It's a private text for you, is it?

The Chair: Shall we adjourn? Then we'll explain it.

We'll adjourn the meeting.