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 DES ENFANTS ET JEUNES À RISQUE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, April 25, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Welcome to everyone. I hope the witnesses feel flattered that they have been able to outdraw Prince Charles. Some people have their priorities right. That's not intended to be a disloyal statement, and I'm going to move briskly along.

As members will know, as we set out in our work plan, we will be focusing on a number of issues. First, we need to understand the early childhood development initiative, signed on September 11 of last year, and to follow through on what various governments have to do to make this thing a collective success. How can we, as a committee, help in this process?

The briefing note prepared by Julie Mackenzie also has in it a couple of references to some things we don't know as much about as we should, such as how the aboriginal people of Canada fit into the deal, particularly on-reserve and off-reserve populations.

Initially we were going to cover all of that today. After talking about it, we decided it made more sense to have an understanding, in the first place, of the agreement today, and then next week to try to locate the aboriginal piece in the context of the larger agreement. We thought it made more sense, particularly since for most members of the committee and our visitors, this is the first chance to look at the agreement.

With that, I'll introduce our two witnesses, Marta Morgan, acting director for children's policy at the Department of Human Resources Development, and Nicole Lafrenière-Davis, acting director of the childhood and youth division at the Centre for Healthy Human Development Population and Public Health Branch.

Before we begin with Ms. Morgan, I remind you that in our federal system, two ministers are jointly tasked with worrying about the national children's agenda, the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Health. We can get into jurisdictional issues, but that's why both of these officials are here.

Welcome to you both.

Ms. Morgan, would you like to begin?

Ms. Marta Morgan (Acting Director General, Children's Policy, Department of Human Resources Development): Yes.

Thank you very much for inviting us to speak to you today about the work we've been doing on early childhood development with provinces and territories.

[Translation]

Following my brief presentation, my Health Canada colleague and I will be happy to answer your questions. First of all, though, I would like to describe for you briefly the circumstances in which first ministers concluded their agreement last September.

Since 1997, the federal government has been working with the provincial and territorial governments to improve supports for children and families. Governments have worked together and with Canadians to develop a broad vision for Canada's children - the National Children's Agenda. As you are aware, the National Children's Agenda articulated shared goals for Canada's children and set out six priorities for collaboration to support children and families.

In support of this agenda, the federal government has taken a number of steps to support its plan of action, including the National Child Benefit Initiative, the extension of EI parental benefits to one year, ongoing investments in targeted community- based programs for at-risk children and family law reform.

Early childhood development was one of the six priorities identified by governments under the National Children's Agenda. The federal-provincial-territorial early childhood development initiative - which we are here to talk about today - flows from these shared commitments by governments.

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[English]

Early childhood development has emerged as a shared policy priority because of a strong consensus among researchers, policy thinkers, and decision-makers across governments on the importance of the early years as a foundation for longer-term success in learning, behaviour, and health. The work of many people and organizations in Canada helped to shape this consensus, including Fraser Mustard and Margaret McCain through their early years report; Canadian Policy Research Networks; the National Children's Alliance; and the 1999 report of this subcommittee.

From the research evidence, it is becoming increasingly clear that childhood experiences have an important effect on individual health and well-being, and social, emotional, and cognitive development throughout life. There's also growing evidence about what children need to get a good start, and interventions in the early years can have a significant impact. That is why early childhood development really emerged as one of the first joint priorities of governments under the national children's agenda.

As the chair has indicated, I'm here to talk to you about two things today. First of all, I will briefly review for you the commitments made in the communiqué on early childhood development released last September.

The Chair: I would just intervene to say we have copies of that attached to the notes. If you want to follow along,

[Translation]

I do believe it's in both official languages.

[English]

Ms. Marta Morgan: Thank you.

Second, I will provide you with an overview of the activities that are ongoing right now within the federal government, provincial governments, and territorial governments to implement the commitments made in this communiqué. I will talk about new investments by provincial and territorial governments in early childhood development supports, and also about our joint work with provinces and territories on public reporting and accountability to the public.

So first of all, I'll begin with the first ministers' communiqué on ECD. Many of you will be familiar with this communiqué. It has four main features: shared objectives, four areas for action, funding commitments, and commitments with respect to public reporting.

[Translation]

In terms of overall goal and objective, First Ministers have agreed to work together so that young children can fulfil their potential to be healthy, safe and secure, ready to learn, and socially engaged and responsible.

They have agreed that there is a need to improve and expand supports and services in four areas: firstly, healthy pregnancy, birth and infancy, which includes services such as prenatal programs and information and infant screening programs; secondly, parenting and family supports, for example, family resource centres, parent information and home visiting; thirdly, early childhood development, care and learning, which includes preschool, child care, and targeted developmental programs for young children; and finally, community supports, such as supports for community- based planning and service integration.

[English]

To support this initiative, the Government of Canada will transfer $2.2 billion to provincial and territorial governments through the CHST over the next five years. For their part, provinces and territories have also agreed on the need to invest supplementary resources in this area.

Finally, the communiqué included important commitments on public reporting. As you are aware, under the social union framework agreement, public reporting is a key element of the new approach to accountability in social programs and social policy. Governments have agreed to report in three areas.

First, they will report on their baseline expenditures and activities in the area of early childhood development. These reports will be released this fall. Second, they will report on progress in improving and expanding ECD programs and services. Reports will be based on a shared framework, including jointly agreed-upon comparable indicators. The first reports using this shared framework will be released by September 2002. Finally, they will report on child well-being, using an agreed-upon set of outcome indicators. Reporting on child well-being will also begin in September 2002.

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In addition to these four commitments, the early childhood development communiqué included general commitments in two additional areas—to work with aboriginal peoples to address the developmental needs of aboriginal children and to work together, where appropriate, on knowledge, information, and effective practices related to early childhood development.

I would like to turn to the status of our efforts to implement the ECD commitments made by first ministers. There have been three sets of developments since September of last year.

First, federal transfers began to flow to provinces and territories through the CHST on April 1 with $300 million for the first year allocated across provinces and territories on the basis of population. Provinces and territories are actively planning their ECD development strategies. Most now have announced their priorities and planned investments in their budgets over the last few weeks and months.

Indications are that these investments will include initiatives such as child care, parenting supports, prenatal programs, initiatives for children at risk or children with disabilities, and initiatives targeted at preventing and reducing fetal alcohol syndrome.

For example, the Province of British Columbia announced that they will expand child care and improve early intervention services, including programs for aboriginal children in urban areas. Saskatchewan's Kids First strategy will include child care, home visiting, early learning programs, and fetal alcohol syndrome prevention.

Manitoba has announced a comprehensive approach, including a targeted prenatal benefit, parent-child centres, expanded child care, and programs targeting fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect. New Brunswick has also announced a comprehensive strategy including child care, a prenatal benefit, early intervention services, and services for children with disabilities.

The second thing that's happened since last September is that federal, provincial, and territorial officials are engaged in joint work to move forward on key commitments on public reporting, research, and knowledge and forging partnerships with aboriginal peoples. Work is being carried out collaboratively across the health and social services sectors.

To date, the main focus of this work has been on public reporting. Jurisdictions have indicated that they are on track for reporting their baseline activities and expenditures this fall. These reports are very important because for the first time they will pull together in one place everything that each government is doing across the country in support of early childhood development.

They will also provide a baseline against which new expenditures can be tracked so that we will be able to see over time how investments in early childhood development are growing across the country. The federal government, as part of this commitment, will be reporting on federal programs for young children and families.

The second area of reporting is child outcomes. As you probably know, the federal government is the source for much of the relevant data through national surveys such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth and health surveillance data. Our continued investments in creating and sustaining national data will be critical to the success of the reporting on child outcomes under the ECD initiative.

The biggest challenge in public reporting will be reporting on progress and improving and expanding ECD programs and services, including the development of comparable program indicators. Data systems in this sector are nascent for the most part and are much less advanced, for example, than in the health sector. So there is a lot of work to do here.

We anticipate that we will have a framework, including comparable indicators, by September 2002, which governments will then be able to begin to use in their public reports.

Finally, the government has announced its intention to address the particular challenges that confront aboriginal children. As you're aware, the Speech from the Throne made three commitments in this respect: one, to work with first nations to improve and expand early childhood development programs and services in their communities; two, to expand the Aboriginal Head Start program; and three, to work with aboriginal communities and provinces and territories to combat fetal alcohol syndrome.

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I understand, as was mentioned earlier, that this subcommittee will meet again next week to have a more full discussion of the issues around aboriginal children and early childhood development, so I'll stop there. We would welcome any questions.

[Translation]

The Chair: Do you also have a presentation, Ms. Lafrenière- Davis, or would you simply like to take some questions?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis (Acting Director, Childhood and Youth Division, Centre for Healthy Human Development Population and Public Health Branch): We agreed in advance that Marta Morgan would make the presentation.

The Chair: Then it's a joint presentation.

[English]

Let me pause to welcome here the Forum for Young Canadians. We're very flattered that you should come to our little old subcommittee. We're thrilled to pieces. We're delighted you're here.

So thank you very much. I think that was very helpful. It gave us a good overview.

We'll now open it up for questions and discussions. Let me start with Roy Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey (Souris—Moose Mountain, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for the presentation. The reason I looked at your name so carefully there, Ms. Morgan, is that I have a daughter who, when she was so high, was supposed to say hello to Aunt Martha, but all she could ever say was Aunt “Marta”. Finally somebody comes in with the name Marta. Now I feel very much at home.

I want to make a comment here on something that, to me, coming from an area that has a lot of native people, is very important. We already have, as the chairman has properly pointed out, two departments involved, and I want to suggest to you that we need to pursue involving another department as well—namely, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Because without the cooperation of these people it is very difficult.

I know this from firsthand experience. I have eight of these in my constituency. It's really a three-department venture, and we need to break down some of the old ideas that once existed under the, if I may, agent-type control of the reserves if we are going to properly get at the source of our problems.

I'm very pleased in recent days to hear of some of the news reports that more and more the local native governments are coming on board with this. I think you would know that a private member's bill, which maybe doesn't have much teeth to it, was passed the other day, dealing with the fetal alcohol syndrome as well.

So I'm interested in other questions and I won't occupy too much more time except to say that I have grown up my entire life in this area and have been very closely related to education. We didn't always call them early starts and all of that, but I did govern about four or five projects many years ago. Boy, money can't be better spent than right here.

So thank you very much, and I may have a question later.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Could I actually suggest a question that flows from what you say?

Mr. Roy Bailey: Yes, go ahead.

The Chair: When you have a horizontal file like children and you have vertical departments, including the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, which is coming next week, how do you actually work together? Could you give us some sense of that? Is it with difficulty?

Ms. Marta Morgan: Oh, with pleasure.

When we started working together with provinces and territories on the national children's agenda in 1997, it was realized at that time by both provinces and territories and within the federal government that we needed to break down some of those barriers and work across departments and across sectors.

So the development, within governments, of the national children's agenda actually involved and included representatives from social services, health, justice, and the education sector in terms of developing those proposals and that shared vision. So all those sectors plus two levels of government were working together.

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Within the federal government, parallel to that and to support it, we have had a very active interdepartmental collaboration involving the departments of justice, health, HRDC, and Indian and northern affairs. They have been quite active in the overall agenda in the early childhood development piece of it.

We shift around leads on various issues. So the Department of Indian Affairs has more of a lead role in terms of a strategy for aboriginal children on early childhood development. Health Canada and HRDC, and our ministers, have taken the lead in terms of the federal-provincial work in the agreement on early childhood development. But the departments do work quite closely together on all of the initiatives.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Guay.

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): First off, welcome to all of you.

As you are aware, I represent the citizens of Quebec and as you know, Quebec is not a party to the social agreement. It did not sign it because it was dissatisfied with the agreement's provisions. However, Quebec's social policies are highly advanced, as you doubtless know. They may even be the best in Canada, dare I say, when it comes to children, day cares and fetal alcohol syndrome prevention.

Last Monday, an NDP member tabled a motion in the House. I wasn't in the House at the time, but I believe his motion called for all alcohol containers to have a label warning of the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome. I fully support this proposal. We can never do enough in terms of prevention. It's a little like cigarettes. The more we react to these problems, the more we heighten youth and public awareness of the risks associated with smoking.

I have two questions. Firstly, if Quebec demonstrates good faith through a willingness to act and its policies prove satisfactory to the federal government, will it be penalized because it hasn't signed the agreement. I'm talking about the funding to be allocated.

Secondly, will those provinces and territories that fail to show good faith and to act according to the will of the federal government also be penalized in the future? What position will the federal government adopt? What steps does it intend to take to ensure that the parties to the agreement act with the welfare of children in mind?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: To answer your first question, Quebec will not be penalized. The funds will be transferred according to the same formula used for the other provinces.

Ms. Monique Guay: That's a very important point.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: As for your second question, namely if certain provinces and territories that fail to act accordingly will be penalized...

Ms. Monique Guay: I'm not really interested in finding out whether they will be penalized. According to the terms of the agreement, the provinces are required to do certain things. We know that some provinces have already made considerable progress and that certain territories have taken action as well. If, in certain more right-leaning provinces, no initiatives are taken to move forward on childhood issues, such as day cares, prevention and child welfare programs, will these provinces be penalized? Will the federal government do any kind of follow up?

I'm not asking you if their funding will be cut off. I'm asking you if the federal government will follow up on this situation?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: In the course of the discussions leading up to the agreement, First Ministers agreed on an accountability framework which would enable them to report back to taxpayers in each jurisdiction on the scope and nature of their investments, and provide specific indicators on the growth and development of services. I believe that was the nature of their undertaking; taxpayers will ensure a certain measure of accountability.

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Ms. Monique Guay: My next question concerns First Nations, because their situation is rather unique. Often, they have far fewer resources available than other communities to develop child or prevention policies. They may not have all the resources needed to achieve results quickly or as quickly as other communities. Given your position within Health Canada, can you tell us what the government intends to do to address First Nations' health concerns to ensure that they progress at the same pace as other communities?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: The federal departments involved, namely Indian and Northern Affairs, Health Canada and Human Resources Development, have discussed the situation extensively and recognize that aboriginal communities need to develop their capabilities and assume responsibility for their children and for their children's future. Next week, you will likely hear more about how the government plans to assist aboriginal communities in this regard.

Ms. Monique Guay: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: I think I saw Mr. Tonks first, and then Ms. Neville.

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): In the briefing document we received with respect to the early childhood program, it was mentioned that the amount of dollars expended for health is massive. It's $18 billion as compared with a relatively modest program under the early childhood program.

There also was the notation that provinces coming under health pressures might attempt to distribute some of the funds—as minimal as they are—through their health programs. Has this proven to be a problem? In your measuring of indicators, is that something also? It's really an adjunct to the question my colleague asked with respect to the measurement and the accountability.

Ms. Marta Morgan: At the time the initiative was announced by first ministers, the first ministers did agree to put these funds toward early childhood development programs and services. Now, these programs and services do cut across the health and social services sectors in many cases, so they would include programs within the health sector, such as programs to encourage prenatal health and well-being or to prevent FAE/FAS, and programs delivered through community health services—and an example in that sector is mothers who are just coming home from the hospital. So it was recognized within the ECD initiative that this was a joint initiative that would take in some health and some social services, and have some more social elements to it.

What we have seen thus far is that the majority of provinces have now made their announcements in their budgets in terms of where they're planning to devote these funds. They have allocated these funds to programs and services within the framework that was agreed to by first ministers, and those span a range of activities from child care to parent-child centres, from fetal alcohol syndrome to early intervention programs. So they're well within the framework, and they've all announced. All of those who have had budgets and have made their announcements are committing the funds that had been set aside for this.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Are the indicators being developed specific to the early childhood program, or are they pursuant to the social union framework?

Ms. Marta Morgan: The indicators that are being developed will be specific to the early childhood development initiative.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Are they reported as part of the evaluation of those measures that have come from the social union framework, or are they stand-alone reporting measurements?

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Ms. Marta Morgan: They will be stand-alone. The social union framework agreement really set out some general principles for governments in terms of guiding the kind of reporting that they would do in the social area but it didn't make any specific commitments in terms of the kinds of things it would be reported under. So I would see this initiative of first ministers as guided by the principles laid out in SUFA, but it has its own set of accountability agreements that have been made and the measures will be specific to the early childhood development area.

Mr. Alan Tonks: As a final question along that line, when you have the quantitative indicators with respect to the effectiveness of the programs, are you factoring in the environmental and the social, and the different factors that are important to where children are being raised in a particular community? The reason I ask that is we just had a report through the Fraser Institute that evaluated our schools. Lo and behold, we found that those schools in socially and economically disadvantaged communities were not faring quite as well. Surprise.

I'm interested in terms of our thought processes on evaluation.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: The approach that we're proposing for indicators is that we would be looking at both the indicators that relate specifically to the child himself or herself and the results around how the child is developing in terms of language and all this. We would be developing a set of indicators about the influences that modify or colour these outcomes. This involves what's happening in his school, in his home, and his community. There will be indicators both for the influences and for the individual outcome.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I have one last question. You did mention that the federal government will be reporting on our own programs for young children and families. Could you briefly tell me what those programs are and how they differ from the programs that are community based?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Some of the federal Health Canada programs are community-based programs—for example, CAPC and CPNP.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Right.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: In terms of the services we offer to first nations communities for early childhood development, all of these we have committed to report, following the same commitment that Marta has just referred to.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.

Ms. Marta Morgan: Can I come back to one of your questions?

Mr. Alan Tonks: Sure.

Ms. Marta Morgan: Actually, it just made me think about the issue of environments. The other piece of our work on early childhood development that feeds into that is research on not only how children are doing but also what affects how they are doing and the environments that affect them.

So to some extent, the reporting, which will focus on the broad trends—what's happening to kids in Canada, how are kids in Canada doing—does need to be supplemented by good program evaluations that will be done by each jurisdiction on its own initiative and also by good social research on what makes a difference and what really matters in terms of childhood development.

Those pieces fit together to give the complete picture of how we're doing it, and why.

Mr. Alan Tonks: If there's time, I have another question, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Sure, why not.

Mr. Alan Tonks: In terms of across the country, communities that are more at risk according to sociological census data and so on, how do you relate that to your targeting of programs and the funding of programs? Where we have a community that is at risk or is impoverished, or whatever your criteria is, how do we, as MPs, know that allocations being made in our early childhood strategies are getting to our communities?

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Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Are you asking about the investments the provinces will be making or about any programs the federal government might choose to put in place?

Mr. Alan Tonks: Both.

The Chair: We're asking how they're going to be using our money.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Yes. If we're talking about indicators, we want to know where those communities are, and we want to be satisfied that our programs are penetrating there.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Right now, the only aperçu we have is based on the announcements the provinces are making. Right now they're giving the broad lines of what these investments are going to be for, in the four areas we've mentioned. The next step, just as when we put some programs in place, will be actually deciding how they will roll out on the ground.

We know that some of them—for example, in B.C.—have had a call for proposals. So they've already, in their criteria, decided who those programs will go to. They've set out in their criteria what are the risks, or they've chosen the communities already.

For the programs we would put in place, in the past what we've done, because we have chosen to target our programs to communities at risk, is look at socio-demographic data, and when we made the call for proposals, those were the criteria we used to make our selection.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I see. Thank you.

The Chair: Before we turn to Ms. Neville, I'd like to point out a couple of things.

First, on the issue of indicators, although this is not one of our regular committee meetings, on Monday, April 30, from 9 a.m. to 12.30 p.m. in the West Block, room 200, there will be a meeting organized by the Library of Parliament on social indicators. Some of the theoretical thinking about outcomes and indicators will be discussed.

[Translation]

Yes, Madam.

Ms. Monique Guay: I have a technical question. If it's impossible for us to attend, can we send an assistant to...

The Chair: I believe so. I think it's open to everyone.

Ms. Monique Guay: Yes it is.

The Chair: It's not limited to parliamentarians, as far as I know.

[English]

Mr. Roy Bailey: That's a good question.

Ms. Monique Guay: I'm not here on Monday.

[Translation]

The Chair: I see. However, I believe the meeting is open to anyone who cares to attend. Isn't that right?

Ms. Monique Guay: It is? Fine then.

[English]

The Chair: The second thing to note—and this is from a work plan that you should have somewhere in your file—is that on May 16, it is our intention to invite some witnesses from HRD, specifically Allen Zeesman, who is the head of applied research, and Margo Craig Garrison, to talk to us a bit more about indicators and social mapping.

There's a wonderful program, called Understanding the Early Years, that is hugely important and ought to be expanded, in my view. It would help us understand some of the subtleties of the data, the kind of thing that Roy knows so intuitively from long experience.

Anita Neville.

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Thank you.

In fact, both Mr. Tonks and you have addressed some of my issues, but I'm going to pick up a little bit on it.

In terms of the indicators, there's much currently being done across the country already. Will you be tapping into what is being done, and will there be some coordination?

I'm always concerned about a patchwork of materials that doesn't have coherence or congruency. Will you be looking at some of the best practices that are now in place in terms of measuring outcomes for children?

Ms. Marta Morgan: Yes. We are quite aware of the good work that's being done out there by organizations like CCSD, with the progress of Canada's children, and the Canadian Institute of Child Health. We want to make sure that what we do as governments supports us achieving the objectives of the ECD agreement, and at the same time draws on and is coordinated with and supportive of what some of the non-government organizations have already been building in terms of child outcomes work.

Ms. Anita Neville: There's also some work being done at a community level by school divisions, which I'm certainly familiar with, and other jurisdictions, some of it groundbreaking work. So I'm really interested that, as I say, there be coherence and some congruency to it.

I have a couple of other questions.

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The Minister of Health has very recently established a number of centres of excellence for children's well-being across the country. One has been established very recently in my community of Winnipeg. Will there be any linkages with those organizations? Each has a particular mandate. Are you involved in any way with these organizations?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Yes, we are. We followed very closely the development of the centres of excellence. Through the secretariat at Health Canada, our role is to ensure, first of all, that the centres talk to each other so that they don't reproduce silos but touch on many elements of child development, and second, that they do indeed fulfil their mandate, which is to establish networks and partnerships across the country in all areas that touch on child development, and to ensure that the policy, research, and practice continuum is reflected in their work.

Ms. Anita Neville: Okay. So there won't be duplication, or if there is, there will be some coordination, and their findings will be fed back to you, as well, for your use in the development of programming and policy.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Absolutely, and we're also using our federal-provincial context, our federal-provincial working group, in the area of early child development—for example, to ensure that we facilitate the link between the centres of excellence for early child development and the work of the provinces and territories—so that everyone is aware of the potential that's there to build and work in partnership.

Ms. Anita Neville: I have more questions, Mr. Chairman.

Are you confident in your own minds that the programming being undertaken...? You cited a number of provinces, but you neglected to cite one particular province, that being Ontario. Is the programming incremental because of the additional dollars? Are you confident of that?

Ms. Marta Morgan: The stage we're at is that provinces and territories have all made commitments in their speeches from the throne, and most of them have announced, in their budgets, new and incremental dollars for early childhood development. I would expect that, in those provinces, we would see over the coming months new programs that are up and running and that support children and families in those provinces.

At this stage, I would have to say, yes, provinces and territories are taking the necessary steps, have made public commitments, and have announced incremental dollars. The next thing we would expect to see over the coming months would be that those programs are up and running in communities, and that they would begin to become visible within provinces and territories—there is an increase in spaces, new initiatives, or that sort of thing. We should see those soon.

Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you.

I have one final question. You were talking about the commitment as it relates to first nations children. I'm not sure which of you indicated that there would be further announcements coming. In your announcements, are you looking at the first nations child in an urban setting as well as on-reserve?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Yes, we are.

Ms. Anita Neville: And will these announcements be coming soon?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: I'm hoping they will be coming soon. We'll be pleased to talk to you a little bit more next week about the type of discussion we're having.

Ms. Anita Neville: I won't be here next week, but I will follow up with you.

Thank you.

The Chair: Roy Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Thanks very much.

I want to pick up on a couple of things you have said. One is the transfer of money. The other, Nicole, is what you said about developing their own capacity, but I'll come back to that one.

First, on the transfer of money, as you know, these programs have the three levels. You start with the federal, and then the provincial gets involved, and sometimes another level of government gets involved. That's one of the difficulties we have, even as opposition members. Each one wants to take credit and so on. I wish they would get that out of this type of development. Sometimes we use the same money twice, and it's all the same money, so the actual amount is from the top.

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I was really concerned, though, when you mentioned, Nicole, developing their own capacity. Herein lies the problem. We have to work very hard at this in order to break down a tradition or culture that determines how the money gets to the needy party.

I'll give you an example. Working with a social welfare worker, we arrived at a home where they needed some fundamental physical improvements. I don't remember the full story, but the idea was to provide slopes and some changes for this child, such as in the bathroom facilities, so he could walk properly. That was a provincial group. Through HRDC we were able to get a grant of about $20,000, I think, for that. But this money never got to that person. It stopped—bingo—at the local government level.

There are hundreds of cases like this. I really appreciate what you had to say, that they have to develop their own capacities. But what we're really saying, when we take this all in, is the development of accountability. And we're way behind there. Until that accountability helps, your programs that you have to offer are slowed down to some extent. Let's hope that everybody can see what is holding these things up.

I have one other thing to add. I don't know if you fully realize the number of programs sponsored locally. My colleague opposite mentioned this. In an old hospital in the city nearest me, we have one part that is called the Family Place. That's in Weyburn. You should visit it and see what's going on there. It all started with volunteers. They now have a little bit of money, and I think they pay the grand sum of $35,000. It deals with children, parenting, and a whole range of things.

Of course I would make a pitch for that. I think that this program—if anyone wishes to visit there—should get some of this money directly, without it coming through the laundry process. I hope you would see fit to do that, although I know you'd have to have some verification.

That's just one example, and I have about four in my constituency. I just love to go there because of the work they're doing. They're doing it mainly out of local money, but money should be contributed from both the federal and provincial governments.

I would encourage you—not just in response to my report but to any MP's report on such facilities—to say, “Yes, we're getting the biggest bang for our buck right there, and it's wonderful work”. I'm sure you will be receptive to that.

Thank you.

Ms. Marta Morgan: One of the things the ECD initiative does recognize is the primary responsibility of provincial and territorial governments in this area of service delivery, policy, programming, and design. It sort of goes toward developing what right now are programs that aren't necessarily well integrated into a more systematic approach, such as the one you're talking about.

The other thing it contains that's pertinent to this family centre type of approach is a real emphasis on the importance of integration at the community level of programs, and services that are based in the community, that are integrated.

One of the four areas for action is centred on community planning and development. Support for that type of initiative is recognized in many places as the kind of direction in which we want to be going.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Thank you.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Guay.

Ms. Monique Guay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have to disagree with my Alliance colleague, although I have great respect for him. If we start handing out money to a group that already operates under the direction of a province or other agency, then we're only complicating matters.

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For example, in Quebec many NGOs work with women and children and target prevention issues in regions like mine and in other regional municipal counties. Social agencies and CLSCs are also hard at work. All of these various parties meet annually, or at least they do in my riding. Officials from MRC Pays-d'en-Haut in the Laurentian region get together every year to collaborate on community issues.

I'm talking about a total of maybe 25 or 30 agencies that get together - not just NGOS, but CLSC workers, school boards and community members - to devise community intervention action plans.

Since everyone turns to us for funding, this approach is a way of preventing duplication and overlap. Another initiative is the breakfast club for school children.

In my riding, a second breakfast club was organized and at some point, a disagreement erupted, eventually leading to the cancellation of the service. This highlights the need for cooperation among community stakeholders. Yet the scope for intervention is fairly limited. It's impossible to launch such programs efficiently on a national scale in a country the size of Canada. Therefore, action at the community level is critical. Funding for such initiatives comes not only from the grass roots level, but from the government and from the provincial Ministry of Health. Even if things are not always perfect, this approach still works.

If this balance is upset in some way by direct funding from another level of government, this approach will no longer work. The work already accomplished at the community level will be undermined.

I think it's important to respect jurisdictions, while ensuring all the while that these funds are not spent recklessly. Provincial and territorial governments have demonstrated that they are capable of administering public funds for the good of communities.

While it may not be perfect, this approach works well in Quebec. Of course, there is always room for improvement, but this is one way of letting the public know which services are available to them.

The process of overhauling the services provided by CLSCs was a painful one because people no longer knew which services were available to them. A period of adjustment lasting anywhere from one and a half to two years was needed. Therefore, now is not the time to destroy all of the good work that has been done. Existing jurisdictions must be respected.

I also hope that the government will look to other existing initiatives to avoid duplication and unnecessary research. It's critical that it use existing initiatives and expand on them elsewhere. All of these issues are of some concern to me. I hope that the government will take this into account as it focuses on childhood development and prevention issues.

The Chair: Any comments?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: On the subject of child development, the various jurisdictions have stated clearly that they expect us to respect existing programs and to build on them in our delivery of early childhood services. Increasingly, we've observed that the government favours service delivery models that promote integration.

Whether provincial programs are run in partnership with federal or municipal programs, they operate according to models which combine everything in one, for example, family resource centres which provide family services. Successes are shared.

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Ms. Monique Guay: As I was saying, that's why a meeting is held once every year at the community level in a regional municipality. All NGOs, new ones included, are invited to attend. Sometimes, it becomes apparent that the same services are provided by different agencies. Instead of requesting funding, perhaps an effort should be made to consolidate operations so that a single organization can provides much more effective services. Otherwise, it seems that groups are always scrambling for their piece of the pie and never seem able to provide a truly adequate level of service.

The Chair: Briefly, I'm tempted to make a quick editorial comment. The simple fact of the matter is that there are three systems. The community based system which is very grass roots, as you have just described; the provincial system, with all of its provincial components and tools; and finally, the national system which combines both a service component and a funding component. Nationally, I think we can look to Quebec as having some of the best practices in this field.

The ironic thing about this whole discussion is that the Quebec model is a very good one, this in spite of the fact that Quebec is not a signatory to the agreement. However, I'm convinced that Quebec could draw some inspiration from various program components in place across the country.

[English]

Mr. Roy Bailey: Que sera, sera.

The Chair: If you'll indulge me, I want to ask a few questions, because I'm fascinated by what you have to say. And I guess I'm heartened.

Let me begin by looking at the first deadline, which the agreement says is a year from now, so we're looking at next September. You say it's encouraging, that there are indications that people are doing the work, and that there's something coming forward. It's interesting that, if you look at the 2002 deadline in the document, it's supposed to be within a regular framework, a common set of comparable indicators.

The way we're gathering data on baseline activities, is that also within a common framework? It would seem to me to be quite difficult to establish a way of saying what we mean by day care spaces, etc. That's my first question.

Ms. Marta Morgan: Under the agreement, the commitment on baseline reporting was for each jurisdiction to report on its programs and expenditures within the framework, so that work is being done within each jurisdiction. There is some information sharing going on as jurisdictions confront similar challenges in determining what the size and scope of the baseline is, what should be included, and how to count it.

I see this as a sort of evolutionary process. First of all, we put together our expenditures for the first time, and then we can take a look at them and say we now have a better understanding of what we're doing, or at least where the programs are. It's not terribly meaningful to us yet, though, because it's really just dollars.

How do we then measure how that's actually improving programs and services? That will be done on a province-by-province and federal basis, but I would expect to see a lot of commonality there. I don't think there are big issues in terms of what one would include as early childhood development.

The next phase is having a common framework. We will have taken the time to develop that and will have put in place indicators on some of the key programs and services.

So there's information sharing in phase one, and phase two is really a common, joint, agreed-to framework.

The Chair: As my next question, then, if we're aggregating the data on what is really a provincial basis—I would understand that under at least three headings, and maybe four—we might have an aggregate of all the day care spaces in Saskatchewan or all the prenatal programs. And I hope that would include the federal ones, like the Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program. I hope that would be put into the hopper.

What it wouldn't tell you is what the truth is on the ground, in the community—the way Madame Guay describes it. That is to say, it doesn't tell me anything to know there are x number of day care spaces in Ontario if I don't know what the mix is in Toronto or in North Bay or in some other place.

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The agreement itself is posited on community capacity building, community by community, and presumably only the community, once you've done the baseline activity, can then say, “Well, in our town, here is the number of day care spaces, prenatal programs, and so on”. Therefore, it would follow, our priority—the biggest gap in Sault Ste. Marie or in la-Chaudière, or wherever it is you're going—is this: How do we get from this aggregate down to the community, and then is there an understanding that the community itself might be in a position to describe, within the framework, what it needs first?

Ms. Marta Morgan: It's a very good question. I think that what first ministers agreed to in the communiqué in September really focused on not only national-level but also provincial-level reporting.

I'll say a couple of things on how that translates to the community level. I think, as Nicole mentioned, many and probably most provinces and territories are taking an approach in this policy area that favours integration and community-based delivery and planning. To the extent that provinces and territories are establishing community planning models for delivering these programs and services, they will also need to put in place the information systems to support them.

The other thing I would like to say relates to what has been found in other countries, in other jurisdictions, where there has been an emphasis on public reporting. What generally happens is that when people start reporting, whether at the national or the provincial level, this can set a bit of a standard and create a demand for the same information to be available at the community level. There's a sort of natural process that often takes place where you start with information that may be at a fairly broad level, but then people want to see what that looks like in their community.

Many of the program areas within early childhood development are fairly new. Some are quite well established and some are newer, so even the data development is at quite an early stage in terms of our being able to collect it as it is produced by community agencies and organizations. I think we would see it as something that would sort of evolve over time.

The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Would it not be true that demographics...? It's very difficult. The chairman had a good question there about the identification. It would be very hard to identify and label each individual, and the usefulness of demographics depends a whole lot on the means of labelling. You could have three or four different enterprises or bodies working together, and an individual could get counted three different times. That's the difficulty in this reporting.

I can tell you, as a director of education, that I used to try to pull that stunt to get a little more in my grants even though I only had one resource-room teacher. I can see this happening as well, that the demographics would mean that you had more combinations of facilities under one roof or in one room.

In my own particular province, we have lots of empty classrooms in the rural areas, so they're being used up. We might as well be doing something with them.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not so much interested in being able to classify each one as I am in being satisfied that everyone is being served. That's my point. Just do it, and as for what you call it, I really don't care.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Another comment I'd like to make vis-à-vis the chairman's question is that initially we're working to try to get some commonality of broad indicators. At the same time, through the project that you'll be hearing from, applied research, and Allen Zeesman, you'll be hearing how in many communities we're trying to grow this kind of possibility for a community to not only be interested in, but also take in hand, how they would like to develop a sense of how their children are doing and the institutions they have in place to support them.

• 1630

So if we have this movement of communities that are interested, and that look at data in their planning, we hope that in the future we will have across the country communities that do indeed have good information about their children and make use of it in their planning processes.

The Chair: Again, in our work plan, we are anticipating this very advice. Oh, we're so good.

We are actually having on Wednesday, May 9, some selected attendees from the early years conference being held here in Ottawa from May 10 to 12. We're going to try and scoop some of those people to come and tell us about the very things you suggest. We want to encourage this activity.

Yes, Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Alan Tonks: There was one element, Mr. Chairman, you left out in terms of the triumvirate of support coming from the federal and the provincial governments for early childhood, and that is the voluntary sector through the United Way.

The Chair: Sure.

Mr. Alan Tonks: It's the flow of corporate and other community funds that come in. I wondered whether, when we're developing through our intake, establishing the indicators, we also go across the country to those kinds of community-based entities that are attempting to supplement where there are gaps in service delivery. They are attempting to supplement the finances to a large extent—recognizing that the $2 billion we are setting aside is, by our own admission, a paltry amount.

I'm using your words, not mine.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Those are my words.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Oh, are those yours?

The Chair: Ms. Morgan.

Ms. Marta Morgan: Yes, the agreement of first ministers did include a commitment to consult third parties in developing indicators and assessing progress.

We are pursuing this on two fronts. The first is at the FPT level, where we are looking at how best to involve third parties, such as the United Way and others who are involved in this area, in looking at indicators with us so we can benefit from their expertise. The second is at the federal level, at how we can best solicit this kind of input.

So we do recognize, and the agreement does recognize, the importance of the third sector in this area.

The Chair: Roy Bailey.

Mr. Roy Bailey: I want to come back to that question. My colleague, Alan, has mentioned the fact that a lot of these programs are funded locally, with some corporate funding, United Way, and so on.

Now, let's say an agreement has been reached for a large project of $100,000 coming down this way. What happens when the project gets an extra $5,000 through volunteerism, and another extra $5,000? Do you then cut back this program the next year and only give it $90,000 because it got so much locally?

And this is not a facetious question. This is real. This is real to me.

Ms. Marta Morgan: Well, certainly the amount of funding provided to provinces and territories, who are the ones who will be making the decision about which kinds of projects to fund, will be the same amount, right?

Mr. Roy Bailey: Yes, you're right.

Mr. Chairman, I asked that question because I've seen this happen. It breaks your heart. The program gets started, the community is affluent, and then the community, as in my case, is not so affluent.

I'm not pointing fingers at the federal government. It's the provincial government that says, “Hey, they've got lots of money, that corner”, and then they shove it around.

It's not a very good idea to even take into account the money that comes. If that community wants to supplement a program, it should be supplemented. I'm saying this for provincial people, not federal people, but I have seen that happen, and it sometimes ruins a program.

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The Chair: I have a question or two about the money, because I think this follows on.

You said, Ms. Morgan, that provinces have given an indication, in many cases, of how they might be spending the money. Will we be able to be quite precise about how these expenditures of federal dollars will be providing incremental services, so they're not just replacement dollars? How colour-coded are the dollars? That's the first issue.

Then I'm going to give you an example of where I get confused about reporting mechanisms. You say that Manitoba's announced a comprehensive approach, including targeted prenatal benefit. Well, I saw the press release, and it's for $4.2 million or something—it's going to be a certain amount of money. I read that press release very attentively and I couldn't tell whether that is our money. How do I know that's our money? Wouldn't it have been nice of them to say that it was our money? Or did they tell you someplace privately that it was our money and they're just not telling the public? How does that work?

Ms. Marta Morgan: On the question of replacement dollars, the first purpose of the reporting beginning in fall on baseline expenditures is to bring together in one place, for the first time, early childhood development expenditures, which really cut across different sectors and currently aren't reported on comprehensively in most jurisdictions. The second purpose is that the public may see over time how those expenditures are increasing. One would expect those expenditures to increase by, at a minimum, the amount the federal government has transferred for these purposes, for early childhood development.

That's the idea, that through the baseline and subsequent annual reportings there would be accountability to the public for where those funds are going and whether those funds are actually resulting in incremental spending in this area.

The Chair: I have a couple more questions.

If you look downstream to the things that have to start being reported on by 2002, indicators and so on, it says the provinces may initially develop indicators around those investments they choose as priority investments, but over time they have to report on all the program areas. They have to work towards the development of indicators on all the program areas, even the ones that may not have initially been their investments.

Now let's talk about a specific province. Let's pick a province like, oh, I don't know, Ontario. Its own early childhood development strategy has specifically said for its own Early Years Challenge Fund that it excludes money. Dollars are not available to establish new child care programs or to increase the wages of child care workers. So one might expect that their first dollars in Ontario will not be going into child care.

The way the agreement is written, am I to understand the words to mean that eventually Ontario or any other province will be held accountable for how it's doing by child care and that's going to be part of the public reporting regime, whether they like child care or not? Because the wording is quite tricky. I'm looking at “Public Reporting”, developing a shared framework, and then it says:

Governments will report on this work by September 2002 and annually thereafter, beginning with the development of indicators in areas identified as priorities by jurisdictions, and expanding with the overall development of early childhood development programs and services...

and then make regular reports on that.

So have I understood that to be a squeeze tactic? I hope so.

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Ms. Marta Morgan: The thinking there is that because this is an area where, in many cases, the data don't yet exist or need to be collected, or indicators need to be developed, the reporting also needs to develop over time. Child care is actually one area where there are fairly good data nationally, quite comparable to some of the other areas in early childhood development. But the idea was that as investments increase and as data become better developed and more available, the scope of the reporting would expand, and the scope of the reporting should ultimately expand to cover the ECD system as it evolves over the longer term.

The Chair: But all parts of it.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: I don't think that the agreement can be read as any kind of prescription that they must have an incremental investment in every single facet of the four. The four areas for action are actually quite broad, with a myriad of programs in each one of them. So there is no level of prescription. However, what we're hoping is that through the public reporting, the stakeholders, in the case you've mentioned, the child care stakeholders, will look very carefully at the profile and the description of indicators. But the prescription is not there that they will have to.

The Chair: But they do have to report.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Oh, yes.

The Chair: That's fine.

I want to come back to the SUFA question, which I know is of particular interest to Mr. Tonks. This is something the committee may or may not be getting into, and in fact we're making a report, as you may recall, colleagues, tomorrow, and this is going to be a sort of third volée, because I just ask the question.

Under the social union framework agreement, it is to be renewed and amended, or cancelled, or whatever, by next February. When people come to assess whether this a good thing or bad, they will presumably look at what's been achieved during its time. I listened very carefully and I heard that we have an ironic situation, where we're not declaring this ECDI to be a completely SUFA-compliant initiative, because it's not just about outcomes and so on, it's also about process—there's a whole bunch of things about it. But we're using language suggesting it's inspired by SUFA, or we can find reflections of the language of SUFA in the reporting regime.

At the end of the day, are we going to be saying, during the SUFA review, this is the only thing we can put in the shop window, or are we saying, this isn't exactly the full SUFA, but it's sort of SUFA? How are we going to describe that?

Ms. Marta Morgan: SUFA is really governments agreeing to principles about how they will work together, and many of those principles, the ones that are pertinent to this agreement, are reflected in it. So I would say this agreement is very much compliant and compatible with SUFA, and in fact draws on the general guidelines that governments agreed to under SUFA in respect of some of its key provisions. Governments agree together on common objectives, they agree on reporting, they focus on outcomes, they respect each other's responsibilities. So all of what's in this agreement really is consistent with SUFA.

Not everything that's in SUFA is reflected in this agreement, because SUFA is a fairly broad-ranging document and covers the whole area of social policy. But what's in here is very consistent with SUFA and in many cases is drawn from it. I think it's more than inspired by it. I think it's actually consistent with and supportive of SUFA.

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The Chair: And will, therefore, perhaps be used as evidence? I mean, one can only anticipate. It's the only case we have of a process that has actually occurred during the SUFA timeframe. Is there any other?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: The national children's agenda, perhaps.

The Chair: Yes, but this simply a subset, isn't it?

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: Yes.

Ms. Marta Morgan: And there's the health accord, which was at the same time in September.

The Chair: Roy.

Mr. Roy Bailey: I find your position to be almost impossible to be more definitive, because the work of social services in each province varies. The work of the Department of Education varies. You can identify the objective within the broad scope, but within the objective, the delivery is going to vary a great deal among the provinces.

Provinces get a little uneasy, as you know, when you touch on their territory, such as section 93 of the BNA Act, which deals with education. I should know that one off by heart.

Mr. Chairman, I can see the problem they have in being definitive, even in reporting. You can have a broad-based report, but to be definitive about it is simply impossible because of the different applications at the provincial level.

The Chair: Do you wish to comment?

Ms. Marta Morgan: I think it is true that there is quite a diversity across the country in terms of policies and programs, reporting, and capacity in this area, and that this influences much of what we do.

Mr. Roy Bailey: Sometimes within the province, too.

Ms. Marta Morgan: That's right.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Just on Roy's comment, the social union framework contains the broader principles. I don't think it's necessary to say that one preceded the other or the evaluation procedures are.... I think it would be a very good thing to acknowledge that, with the exception of Quebec, all the territories and provinces signed on to the issue of principles. To some extent those principles are entrenched in the early childhood agreement.

I think it's really important to reaffirm from time to time our respect for flexible federalism, as SUFA has been referred to. Flexible federalism provides for the Province of Quebec not to be part of it but to receive support, nonetheless, to apply the objectives. Whether or not you sign on, there are some universal principles, and they are very entrenched in SUFA. I find the spirit of the program more embracing than the legalistic details, if I may say so. That's for both SUFA and the principles with regard to the early childhood program. I think we should embrace those from time to time, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: I agree, and I'm going to raise this with the HRD committee tomorrow. They might want to look at being part of that review process.

Our time is winding down. My last question is the “can we be allowed to dream” question. This is a small committee with mighty ambitions and great people.

It's interesting that in the Speech from the Throne, if I read the speech correctly, there was reference to the fact that should we be able to make a success of this, there might be more money where that came from, that down the road this can become a more ambitious program.

This is a truly rhetorical question. Is there anything in the agreement, if we get it right, that would prevent us from imagining a day when every province has an integrated system of universally available and accessible programs for young children from prenatal to six, whether or not we officially define them at risk? Do we have the beginnings of a foundation that we could actually roll out—painfully, using all of our existing government programs and more—if we get this one right?

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Ms. Marta Morgan: If that's a rhetorical question, Mr. Chairman, do I get to make a rhetorical answer?

I think that the accord the first ministers reached was an attempt to set out a framework that would be durable and that would provide a framework for investments, over time, by all governments working toward that type of vision.

Clearly there are investments that have been made that are a first step. The next step is really to get some of the public reporting up and running on it, and then to see what the next step would be.

The accord contains the building blocks, in terms of setting out what the key elements of a system might look like, what kind of principles might guide it, and what kinds of research and knowledge infrastructure should be developed over time.

Ms. Nicole Lafrenière-Davis: I think some of the language that permits us to hope in the agreement is the language over partnership, over the recognition that many sectors of society can contribute to building this system. There is the voluntary sector, as we've mentioned, the third sector, and the corporate sector, which is getting engaged in many areas in the area of early child development. There are also the provinces, the territories, and the municipalities.

So it's this recognition by government that governments are not going to do it alone, but if they can really help to lay some of the foundation, then it does create a momentum across the country.

The Chair: I think that was a very helpful introduction. I hope the members found it so. I think it was encouraging.

I would remind those who are not regular attendees of the HRD main committee that I'm going to be there on your behalf, simply reporting, tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock, on our three issues, the ECD stuff we've been talking about, our future direction with aboriginal children, and some reference, I think, to SUFA.

The subcommittee on disabilities will also be reporting, and it will be taking a different form. I think Carolyn Bennett's bringing in ten witnesses.

So until we meet again, thank you very much. We'll be meeting a week hence on ECD and aboriginal children.

Thank you very much for coming. We're most grateful.