EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, June 4, 1996

.0905

[English]

The Chairman: Order, please.

We will go directly to our first set of witnesses. From Growing Up Healthy Downtown, Family Service Association of Metropolitan Toronto, Liz Rykert. Is that right?

Ms Liz Rykert (Growing Up Healthy Downtown, Family Service Association of Metropolitan Toronto): Yes, that's right.

The Chairman: Welcome. Where's Sam?

Ms Rykert: He's right here trying to get the computer going.

The Chairman: Good morning, Sam.

Liz, you know the procedure. We're glad to have you and we're looking forward to hearing from you, maybe with a brief opening statement if you have one, then we want to give you some questions. You have a half hour to do all that.

Ms Rykert: I'll start this morning by saying that with the best of intentions we were hoping to demonstrate the Internet and how we're using it for child health in Canada, but my hard drive just crashed. So, with all of the extensive rigmarole and getting the overhead and the LCD panels and the connections working and making sure the phone connects to the outside were working, we had it working about five minutes ago and for some reason it's not recognizing my operating system.

However, we'll move ahead. I have some back-up overheads to show you some of the things we're doing, some of the resources available to us on-line, and we'll just get started.

I prepared a brief and sent it in, so I'm going to highlight what's there. I know you have received copies of it.

I coordinate a program in Toronto called Growing Up Healthy Downtown. It's an eight-partner collaborative program working in downtown Toronto with seven community-based locations. We offer 50 different kinds of programs for families with young children. Parents are partnered at the community level to develop resources they see as relevant and important in supporting them in raising their children.

We wanted to come here today to speak to you about the need to link expert knowledge with community wisdom and the great hope that the Internet holds as a common place for us to be able to do that, overcoming the barriers of distance and time that it takes for us to work together in this country and the costs associated with that.

We recognize that cognitive skills, like expertise, are context-sensitive and require a grounding in community realities. Today, in coming to the committee, we use the resources of the Brighter Futures Network.

This is one of the pages from the Brighter Futures Network. It lists a directory of a number of people. We have over 100 people working with us. This was a pilot that was developed through the CAPC initiative where we linked 11 sites in Ontario and 11 sites in Alberta, and anybody else who was interested could get on-line to come together and work with us.

In drafting the deputation for today we put up a draft and had community groups right across the country working with us to do that and we refined it together. So although I'm not representing other groups, we certainly collaboratively put this together.

.0910

So in terms of the two points for this presentation, I think it's important for us all to recognize that community wisdom has a lot to contribute to the research agenda and furthering our understanding and knowledge about what's going to improve child health. Secondly, I'd like to invite the research and policy establishments to take seriously this invitation to join community groups in using electronic venues as a common electronic work space in working in new and innovative ways.

It's been fascinating for me to begin this work. I don't have a computer background. I'm a social worker by training. When we started this program we decided we would create a virtual workplace for the Growing Up Healthy Downtown program. We have all the sites connected on the Internet. We have a virtual workplace we call ``guhd.net'' for Growing Up Healthy Downtown.

We had one worker make a comment at a meeting last week. She was having a hard time getting connected. She said she felt like there's a meeting going on every day and she can't get the minutes. So it's really the potential for us to continue to work together without the restrictions of time and place.

From that experience we created the Brighter Futures Network pilot, which is now moving through its evaluation phases. We're going to have a cost-benefit analysis that we'll be able to share with the Brighter Futures Network people as well as with other members of the public.

There's been a lot of interest in this work. Recently we started a list serve to the broader health promotion community called CLICK4HP, which I also facilitate. In ten days we had 350 people subscribe to that list, including all of the health promotion research centres across the country, and we have global participants as well. That's with no funding and volunteer supervision of the actual list serve. It's been amazing how quickly that has come together.

We believe this committee in its study of preventative strategies for child health needs to explore this area further in terms of finding new venues to bring people together to work on the common issues.

In preparing for the committee presentation, we looked at the standing committee home pages and reviewed all of the previous deputations available in Hansard as evidence off those home pages. We want to endorse what's been previously said, specifically with respect to the broad determinants of health and working to enhance a local family's ability to cope as necessary in terms of promoting health.

We believe developing capacities and capabilities and skills at the local level will be of greater significance over time than segmented and expert knowledge. At this point, expertise developed separately from communities is hard to access and for many groups is expensive to do so. They need either training or other ways. In this way we can work together in developing these initiatives, and the kinds of resources will be developed in the context in which communities can use them.

The emerging use of electronic networks is an efficient and effective means of bringing together the hearts and heads of Canadians from many walks of life. It's important for us to recognize that we can work together there and get quick and effective resources.

One of the things we use very often in our program is something called the interactive pregnancy calendar. This is a kind of resource that's available now to communities at the local level. This calendar was developed by some parents from the United States. It is on a site that is full of resources of many different things. This particular one we had hoped to demonstrate for you specifically by putting in the cycle information of a woman who either is planning to become pregnant or is pregnant.

It will produce a ten-month calendar that is customized to the date of birth. It will give one-month pre-conception information - it produces this in about two seconds. You can print it off and hand it to a woman, who then can follow day by day the development of her fetus, be aware of the kinds of vitamins and nutritional intake she requires to develop a healthy baby, be aware of where stress points are important, when she should visit her doctor, and those kinds of things.

.0915

This is the kind of information that often takes more than two hours for a public health nurse to sit down and go through with a parent, and it's often not retained because they don't have something handy to take with them as they leave the program.

When you see the actual calendar itself, it has links all the way through it. Where it says the fetus is now developing, you can click on that and actually see a picture. So it brings it all to life in terms of what's relevant for the parent.

We've located the Brighter Futures Network on the Web Network. This is the community resource page for Web Networks, the Canadian non-profit Internet provider and content provider. As you can see, it has relevant information in many areas for us. There's one piece there, ``Stop the Harris Cuts''. Certainly feeling the pinch of resources being cut back at the community level, having the opportunity to be able to access these kinds of resources without using long-distance telephone and fax, being able to work together with communities from Newfoundland to British Columbia, has been quite amazing. Being able to tap in with what's working there and then customize it locally in our own communities...it has been very exciting for us to be able to work in this way.

I want to sum up at this point. We know it's working. These community action programs for children are reaching isolated children and families. The services are more accessible and responsive. Parents are involved in generating program ideas and sustaining these ideas over time. Creative and innovative solutions are working in communities from Labrador to Vancouver. Programs are working across sectors and building on local strength. Programs are building in the capacity for local control of resources and using federal dollars to leverage additional resources for the collective benefit of children.

We know it needs more work. Information is not as available as it could be. For example, all the information on the community-based prevention programs could be added to the on-line database the Brighter Futures Network has created so that anyone at any time could access a directory of programs.

We've set up a demonstration database where I, as a community program, can go on the Internet, update all of my information and re-enter it into the database. Anybody else can go and search the content of that database and extract relevant information for these kinds of programs.

A continued effort to coordinate polices and government programs for children between and within all levels of government is critical for addressing child health at the community level. The electronic venue provides us with the capacity to do that in a way that lets us move very quickly across sectors, between experts and between communities, and provides the means to find find out quickly what's working and why through coordinated tracking efforts of children and programs aimed at improving prospects for children.

I think collectively the venue is ideal for being able to collect transition information, being able to roll that back out, being able to roll it back up. We're finding the scalability of the models of this kind of thing is quite amazing. If you get the connection right in terms of how it's set up and the participation piece at the beginning, it doesn't really matter whether you're working at the local level in Toronto or whether you're moving right across the country, as long as the interdependent components of it are set up properly.

I want to say at this point that we know in the past research agendas have really driven the use of the Internet. Communities are coming into the Internet quickly and settling it in a way that is their own.

I'd like to end by inviting you and the people you work with and count on as experts in informing your understanding of child health to begin to join us there on the Internet. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Liz.

Antoine.

.0920

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé (Lévis): The language barrier is one of the restrictions of the Internet. Often we receive information in French later, even on the Internet. In addition, the French network is not adequately developed and it is more or less linked to France, which does not have the same scientific culture. However, this comment is addressed to the other participants.

Your idea of using the Internet is a good one.

I was saying that for us, francophones, one of the problems posed by your program is the fact that we always are a few months behind on the Internet. All the information that you disseminate comes to us a few months later. However, having the information on the Internet is still progress.

I would like to relate a short personal anecdote to you. The wife of one of my assistants was afflicted with a rare disease and the doctors who were treating her at the hospital weren't able to give her the proper medication because she needed a special dose of certain drugs. Finally, the solution was found on the Internet, when American doctors, who had already dealt with the same type of problem and found a solution, were able to forward the information. This is how she was cured. This is a practical example of what progress can do for us.

As I am a member of the Opposition, I'm going to question you about ways to make improvements. You are funded through the CAPC program and you have said that the information is not as accessible as it could be and that more effort must be made to coordinate government policies and programs for children.

Could you elaborate on the second comment you made with respect to improving information? It appears that we must continuously strive to better coordinate government programs and policies for children. Could you explain what you mean by that?

[English]

Ms Rykert: Sure. I want to respond first to the French and English issue.

We had prepared, when we were going to come on the Internet, to also show you the French examples. We had that all set up for you. I understand, of course, that this is also an issue. One of the things we're finding is that when there's an issue in the literal space it tends to be amplified on the Internet, so it becomes very obvious when resources are not available in specific languages. I think it's something that anyone who's working across the country must commit to do.

For instance, the site we were going to show you for the Ontario Prevention Clearing House has it also in French and in English. The National Crime Prevention Council is also in French and English, and the Health Canada web pages are also in French and English.

.0925

There's a quick point at the beginning of the page. You don't have to search and search and search. It's right up front. You begin at the home page where it's only basically icons, and then you click French or English in. You begin your work that way. I think, though, the issue is that we must commit to do this.

In regard to the second part of your question with respect to how do we continue to work together, this is a small pilot. It was modestly funded. We received $68,000. For that we've put over 100 people on-line. We bought them modems and on-line connections. We trained them at the community level twice. We've developed this on-line database as an example. We've paid for an evaluation. We've developed a handbook to help community groups get connected. And I think that is very modest, given that we were working in two specific provinces across the country and coordinating it all using the Internet.

Where we struggle is where people have not understood the use of the Internet and its capacity. They continue to want to develop compendiums, or handbooks, or print material that quickly becomes out of date, that is not capable of being updated by the people from whom it is being generated. I think this committee could provide a lot of leadership across the country for us to now begin working together in this way to get resources into communities to have them updating their own information in their own language.

In Toronto, in the program I work, it's not just French; we need to be able to make resources available in eight different languages. So you can imagine the translation and interpretation costs we have in making our programs accessible in that way.

Mr. Hill (Macleod): I'd like to know, as a non-technical individual in terms of the Internet, could we have had this meeting today on-line? Could we have done this, saved some money and had the interchange? Could you just go over how that would happen?

Ms Rykert: Sure. I'd like to preface my statement by saying that another colleague was planning to attend with me in order to bring in an across-the-country perspective, and chose not to when he found that the air fare to come here was $1,800 from Vancouver to Ottawa. That pays for the Internet connection for all his staff at his agency for a whole year. He just felt that at the taxpayers' expense he couldn't justify doing that.

Perhaps I'll hand it back to Sam, who's working with IDRC in developing similar initiatives right now and working with us as an evaluator for this program. This is Sam Lanfranco from York University.

Mr. Sam Lanfranco (Growing Up Healthy Downtown, Family Service Association of Metropolitan Toronto): Yes, York University, health studies, and the IDRC Bellanet project.

Think of the technology as a complement and sometimes a substitute in evaluating the Brighter Futures Network. I sent out 85 questionnaires to 85 sites across the country. Once we had prepared and proofed the questionnaire, sending out the questionnaire took 30 seconds and incurred no cost whatsoever. It went out on the Internet. It came back on the Internet to the various sites.

The strength of this technology is to reduce the constraints of time and space, not to remove them and not to remove a high value-added event of people coming together.

Had there been a wider discussion of the contents that are in Hansard among the community groups, this would have been a high value-added event in the kind of analysis we do. It doesn't make sense to have 50 people at different time zones trying to be on-line at the same time. It's to have an asynchronous dialogue and to allow community groups to share information with each other, and professional groups to share information with each other, to have that distilled and reified before it gets to the committee, and to leave a trail that goes in both directions.

It's not about distribution; it's about access. It's not about substituting real-time meetings this way for real-time meetings in the virtual space.

One of the mistakes we're seeing is people who think that video conferencing is somehow better than electronic conferencing. It's different. It's not better. It's more expensive. It requires people to be at certain places at certain times, whereas this technology is increasingly being used in agencies as an as-needed, just-in-time learning environment. You grab these documents off, you query the authors. If they're put together in Yellowknife, they can be shared across the country at no cost whatsoever for those who are already on-line.

.0930

The issue is to make sure the communities that need to be on-line are on-line and to make sure that policy and research understand that those communities are out there increasingly on-line. This is the effective way for northern Ontario to deal with Toronto, or for remote regions in Canada to deal with urban areas.

One of the concerns of the community groups, and I work as a researcher with the community the groups, is that the policy makers and those of us who are experts will discover the Internet and capture large sums of money to come out with our research projects to these communities. The communities are already engaged in a form of research, in a form of sharing of information. So this kind of event gets a higher value-added by having the Internet, but it's not a substitute.

The Chairman: We're nearly out of time. Two short interventions, please, from Paul and Andy, in that order.

Mr. Szabo (Mississauga South): Since our study has to do with preventative strategies for the good health of children, I wonder if either one of you would care to give us one concrete suggestion of input as to how you feel we might advance our discussions here.

Mr. Lanfranco: I can give you a very brief one from the standpoint of a researcher: when the Canadian government funds projects and asks for accountability in reporting, that the government supply the forms and the documents electronically on-line as opposed to mailing out version after version after version.

Mr. Szabo: If I may restate the question, we're talking about preventative strategies for the health of children; we're talking about what we can do to make sure that during those formative years our kids get the advantages we think they need so that the likelihood of positive outcomes are improved.

Mr. Lanfranco: Right.

Mr. Szabo: I think you're maybe a little further ahead of me. Is there something back here, perhaps? Do you have any knowledge about how this might assist, for instance, with regard to something like FAS? Or do you have any input with regard to nutrition, or parenting, or something to do with real people rather than hardware?

Ms Rykert: I'm not a computer person. I coordinate a program that's all about that and I think the key strategy or the recommendation I would make is to ask that communities be front and centre in helping them focus on what strengths they already have and what are the things that are going to assist them in developing healthy children in their own communities.

Mr. Szabo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Andy.

Mr. Scott (Fredericton - York - Sunbury): I understand how the technology could be very helpful in linking the organizations, the community-based operations that have a common interest, whatever the common interest might be. I'm struggling with how you use the technology to get to the individual single mother who we're needing to get this information to. I understand that as a delivery tool the local organization in Fredericton might use this and therefore it would have an indirect application, but is there an application that is specifically to the mom?

Ms Rykert: There's one example out of Dalhousie, actually, where they put reconditioned old computers in with teen moms and had the machines right in their own homes and have them chatting with each other and connecting with each other on-line and with experts in terms of accessing support around raising their children.

Mr. Scott: I'm familiar with that particular project. Because we'll probably never have another chance to mention this, might I suggest that in many cases where there are particular types of circumstance - for instance, I'm working right now with the New Brunswick Autism Society because the parents are isolated in many cases in small rural communities - they're using the Dalhousie model to try to link all of these parents since there's no critical mass in the community to put a support group together. Their support group will have to be something like this. I just throw that out to you in terms of the future.

.0935

Beyond that, are there any examples of...? Well, I guess my question has been answered. It's more of a support to support than a support to particular people on the ground, at least in the short term.

Ms Rykert: I think there are a couple of issues here. When I talk to community groups about how to use the Internet and how to think about it, there are three things they can do. They can look for information, which is usually what they begin with doing; they can provide information about what and who they are, whether it's on FAS or parenting or whatever; and then they can work together or support each other to have some kind of collective, interactive experience. Usually there is some combination of those three things, but it always breaks down to those three core areas.

When communities come together and think about those things it helps them because they can focus on what's going to be the most specific tool available to them to further their aims, their own objectives.

The Chairman: Thank you, Liz and Sam, for taking the time to be with us this morning. We'll probably be in touch with you again as our study proceeds.

We're going to invite the next witnesses to the table so we can move right on. They are from the Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs.

Welcome. Good morning, Alla. Maybe you can introduce your colleague and give us a statement, brief if possible, and then we'll ask you questions.

Ms Alla Ivask (Executive Director, Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs): Thank you. I'm Alla Ivask and I have with me my colleague, Maureen Kellerman. She is a project manager at the Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs.

On behalf of the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs, its membership, and the entire family resource movement in Canada, I would like to thank the members of this committee for providing us the opportunity to appear before you today.

I will say a couple of sentences about the association and then Maureen will speak about family resource programs and their relevance to the health of children, families, and communities.

For 21 years the Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs, a national organization, has been building networks, producing resources, providing consulting services and professional development, and gathering knowledge to support and help the family resource movement grow and develop. The association is truly grassroots driven. For example, any project or publication our organization develops is done because our front-liners people, those working with children and families in communities across Canada, have expressed a need for them.

The association sits on various coalitions, such as the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children and Campaign 2000. It partners with other national organizations on projects. For example, we've partnered with the Canadian Institute of Child Health on the national coordination of the Nobody's Perfect program, a parent education program.

I would like to take this opportunity to echo our association's support for the Nobody's Perfect program. We feel this has been an excellent federal government initiative and reflects a perfect example of sound, cost-effective partnership between federal and provincial governments. Our sentiments are the same about another excellent federal program initiative, the Community Action Program for Children, which is better known by its acronym, CAPC. We feel this is also an example of positive federal-provincial cooperation.

.0940

Ms Maureen Kellerman (Canadian Association of Family Resource Programs): My purpose this morning is to give you a brief introduction to family resource programs, family support programs, so that you will better understand the types of community-level programs across Canada that support families in their care of young children and promote child development.

Family resource programs exist in communities across Canada, including rural and isolated northern communities, small towns and urban areas. There are family resource programs on reserves and military bases. They have a variety of functions but their primary functions include parent education and support, and they often provide support and training to caregivers of children, both supervised or licensed and not. They have an important function in terms of promoting child development. Some programs are involved in licensed child care, but certainly not all. Some programs focus on meeting the needs of families or children who have special needs.

In terms of the kinds of activities you might see in family resource programs, these vary substantially from community to community. Some of the most common things you might see would be parent education, workshops and courses, parent support groups, training and information and support to child care providers. As I said, these would be informal providers.

At their core these types of programs usually have a variety of opportunities to promote interaction among parents and children and to provide enriched play opportunities. So you'll see play groups, drop-in programs and toy libraries operating in many of these programs.

These programs, through a number of different activities, also provide a great deal of information on parenting, child health and child safety. It's common for family resource programs to have resource libraries that circulate among the users and to have newsletters that provide information on parenting concerns and health and safety issues.

Family resource programs do a great deal to promote mutual aid-type activities, either informally or more formally, such as community kitchens and babysitting cooperatives. Some programs are involved in activities that promote nutrition, including through food banks, teaching about nutrition and the community kitchens. Some of them access funding through the federal government for the prenatal nutrition programs.

The other important function is that family resource programs help link parents and caregivers to other resources in the community, so they often have a bridging or linking function. They often have information and referral services. Some of them have what are called ``warm lines'', which offer non-crisis support and information. Many programs are open to all families in the community, although some are targeted to particular groups, for example, teenage mothers or children who have special needs.

The programs tend not to have a high profile in the community, so policy makers often are not aware of the community-level infrastructure that plays an important role in supporting the ability of parents and caregivers to nurture children, and that helps disseminate information that helps children in their development.

.0945

In terms of funding for these programs, the funding streams have not been designed for family resource programs. When you look at where they get their money from, you'll see programs accessing money from health, recreation sources, child care and from social services. It tends to be all over the map. Programs also access funding from all levels of government. Some of them get money from their city or municipality, and sometimes they get provincial money and occasionally federal money - through the CAPC program, for example. Most programs are very active in doing their own fund-raising.

In terms of the federal government's role, although there has not been a lot of federal money going directly into family resource programs, they do provide an infrastructure for the dissemination of information in areas where the federal government has taken the lead. For example, the federal government has been involved in the promotion of breastfeeding and certain concerns over health and safety issues with children, and these programs provide community sites for the dissemination of that kind of information.

I think there is also a federal government role - and I'm speaking on behalf of the association and association members who have had opportunities to discuss this - in providing direct funding to particular types of programs. Because the funding situation has been so unstable in so many communities, I think it is useful when initiatives such as CAPC do provide some direct funding to programs. This really helps to raise the profile of these types of programs, and it encourages provinces and provincial governments to look at this model of programming as a way of supporting families and young children. I think there's a definite role for the federal government to be choosing particular initiatives that focus on gaps or things that are particular concerns, and to support innovation at the community level.

That's a basic introduction to the program, so we're open for questions.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[Translation]

Antoine.

Mr. Dubé: I would like to congratulate the witnesses on the work they have done.

Before I became a member of Parliament, I was with the Municipality of Lévis, where there was a group of people who did more or less what you are doing at the municipal level. I was therefore able to see all of the good that can come out of parents helping one another. Indeed, sometimes it is the parents who take care of all of the transition activities for troubled youth.

I'm quite familiar with all of this and I think that this meets a tremendous need in our society, which is now in the throws of a transition. We cannot go back to the way things were and the solution does not lie in parents relying 100% on daycare services. We therefore have to come up with an intermediate formula such as the one that you are advocating.

My question pertains to funding, a problem you raised at the end. To my knowledge,38 initiatives similar to yours have been funded through the CPAC program. This is not a lot and many communities have launched projects for which they have received no funding. However, it must be said that if the federal government supported all of these projects, it would wind up costing us a great deal of money.

Consequently, it appears that the funding must come from the municipalities, provinces or various other sources. However, it must also be pointed out that that may become a problem in the long run, because it may not be fair for a community that is not served by an organization such as yours.

What is your opinion? How can we resolve this problem caused by the underfunding or unstabled funding of valuable services and programs? At any rate, I can testify to the fact that these services are valuable.

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[English]

Ms Kellerman: I don't think we can expect the federal government to provide all of the funding needs for these kinds of community-based programs. The resources aren't there, and I think it makes sense that some of that funding be available through provincial programs and at the local level. I think the family resource movement in Canada is looking for federal leadership, recognition of the importance of these kinds of community-based programs, and support for some kinds of program initiatives.

I think that support would need to be strategic, and that's why I think the federal government could look at particular program components that might need extra support or would be particularly innovative. I think federal leadership through programs such as CAPC really does help heighten the profile of family resource programs. Part of the problem is that the programs tend to be grassroots in nature, and there have been no policy frameworks at any government level for the development of this kind of programming. Funding streams have not been designed for them.

So a lot of work needs to be done to recognize the importance of these kinds of programs. I think federal involvement can do a lot, even at the level of recognition, visibility and encouraging initiatives and support from other levels of government. We certainly don't expect that all of the support would come from the federal government, but we do think there is a strong role.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: You said that the CPAC programs encourage and fund innovative initiatives. Since this is a three-year program, the organization that has launched something will no longer be able to receive funding from the federal government for its program after three years, and therefore there will be no continuity in the services. Consequently, the organization will have to look to the Internet or elsewhere. I find that this is quite insecure. What do you think about this? I think that there's a problem.

[English]

Ms Kellerman: I think you're hitting on something that we've documented quite a bit over the last couple of years. We developed a report for Human Resources Development Canada - basically, it was a status report on family resource programs across Canada. In particular they asked us to look at funding issues.

One of the issues that came up was the instability of funding. We documented the damage that does at the community and family level when one funding stream dies and another one starts, and programs that get developed under one funding stream don't get any carry-through.

It is useful to have some kind of long-term baseline support from the federal government that's not project funding, because funding instability is an ongoing problem. It's an ongoing problem because programs have to spend much time, energy and resources to keep their funding together from so many different sources.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Mr. Chairman, may ask that the Association table the document to which it has just referred and that the clerk make it available to all committee members? It appears that this is a very pertinent document because it talks about evaluation.

[English]

The Chairman: Is that a problem?

Ms Ivask: No, not at all.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Even if it's English, I'm interested in it.

[English]

The Chairman: Is in the two official languages?

Ms Kellerman: It was not funded to be translated, so at the moment we only have it available in English.

The Chairman: All right, we'll accept it in the one language with the understanding that the witnesses didn't create the problem. It wasn't funded in both languages. Your big bad government was the problem.

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[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: I understand. However, Mr. Chairman, I would like to reassure you that even if I have difficulty expressing myself in English, I can read it. Moreover, I am very understanding when it comes to community organizations.

[English]

The Chairman: All right. We have three interveners in this order: Sharon, Paul and Andy.

Mrs. Hayes (Port Moody - Coquitlam): I thank you for being here. I have just a couple of questions zeroing in on a couple of your comments.

You mentioned that there is some frustration about federal recognition of what you're doing and family support and even the visibility within that system and the concern for even the HRD references to what you're doing and the lack of concern there.

I guess within government, basically the recognition of the importance of family is of concern to me in public policy. We do have other groups that do lobby and work within government to support certain policy initiatives. One of those, of course, is the women's movement, which has become more and more vocal within government as well as without, I believe. Do you find they are supportive of your program, and is there...? I see in my own community women's centres and women's shelters, that kind of thing. Does that work within the same framework as your goals, or is it somewhere outside of that? And do you find that there's a voice within that group for your concerns?

Ms Kellerman: Our national association hasn't been involved in NAC, for example, or other national coalitions specifically looking at women's issues. But certainly at the local level, family resource programs have links with all sorts of other groups and organizations within their communities. In some cases that would include other services, particularly for women. On occasion, family resource programs do operate out of women's centres. I have heard of that kind of arrangement.

In terms of the philosophy, I certainly think there is a great deal of overlap and support. I think one of the things the women's movement has tried to do is to make more visible much of the invisible work and the unrecognized work that women do in caring for their families and nurturing their families. I think there are strong parallels between that and the kind of focus on nurturing and support that happens within family resource programs.

Mrs. Hayes: Thank you. I have a quick question, if I can just use the wording that's here. Because you are dealing with families from the very outset with a toy program and then going on from there, this question, I think, is most appropriate. What elements do you feel need to be present in a family to ensure the best possible mental and physical development for children? Certainly that's one of the issues we're looking at. What are those priorities within a family resource centre? If a family comes to you, what do you think are the three most important things that family can have to ensure the best environment for their children?

Ms Kellerman: Family resource programs really operate out of a philosophy that you don't focus on problems or deficits. In that sense, they tend to be different from other types of social services or health services that can be problem-oriented. So programs tend to look at what are those family strengths, what things are already working well and what we can do to build on them.

I think the other thing that is at the core of family resource program philosophy is that parenting is a developmental stage for some adults in their lives and that all families require a certain amount of support and information at times and are capable of giving support and sharing information with other families. In working with families, if you're asking the question of what families need, I think what we look at is very specific to each family. We recognize that they may well need some support and some information about child development, about family dynamics, about other resources that are available in their community. What's provided to families really is very much determined by the families themselves.

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The Chairman: Paul.

Mr. Szabo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

In looking at the information you have handed out, in terms of revenue, I guess, we're talking about you providing resources to those who care for children. I assume that we're talking about custodial parents or guardians as opposed to day care people. I noticed in the introduction you had a range of services and you said you could cover the whole life span. But you did have one item that really caught my attention, and that was parent education. It seems to me we spend an awful lot of time on obstetrical education but we spend virtually no time on parenting education. Our focus is more the formative years, infancy, etc. Do you have anything to do with parenting education before parents are parents, or is this after the fact? And how important do you see parental education?

Ms Kellerman: Some family resource programs do include prenatal programs of various kinds, including childbirth education. You typically wouldn't see families necessarily being involved in programs before they'd conceived a child.

Mr. Szabo: Too bad.

Ms Kellerman: So that can be a concern. Some programs do work with teenagers to do pregnancy prevention. That is one aspect.

In terms of what parent education and support looks like in the family resource program setting, some of it is more formal, such as workshops, courses. I think the most effective work is informal and may be somewhat invisible. I think the parents learn an enormous amount just by having these settings where they can come together with other parents and children. Over and over again, when I talk with staff across the country, what they say again and again is that the best learning happens through modelling, through staff modelling for parents, for parents modelling for one another, so that when families get to be in a setting where there are children of a variety of ages, and it's usually zero to six, they get to see what a six-month-old looks like and what a six-month-old can do or what it's like for a two-year-old to have a tantrum and how that parent handles it. There's a great deal of informal learning that happens through discussions and through modelling and through picking up pamphlets that are around in the setting.

Mr. Szabo: Just to finish this up, I think this is a really important point. Your work sounds like it's as it happens. In a lot of cases it's dealing with problems rather than preventing problems. The balance between -

Ms Kellerman: I would say it was just the opposite. I'm not sure how I've given that impression.

Mr. Szabo: Let's put it this way. If you had a child, during those first few weeks I suspect you're not going to programs very often. You're full time trying to survive having a child.

The issue of educating prospective parents on what to expect when they have a child, or planning to have a child, and the preparedness, etc., I guess the point I made earlier - and I want to repeat it - is that we spend an awful lot of time on childbirthing, obstetrics and delivering healthy babies, and we spend no attention, no money, no resources, nothing to letting young people or prospective parents know about what to expect, what their role is, what their responsibilities are, lifelong responsibilities, in fact. It's a tremendous decision to make to have a child. I don't know, in your experience, whether you find that people don't know what they are getting into or didn't realize.

Ms Kellerman: I think that's very common. I think most of us who are parents were in for some surprises.

An hon. member: Hear, hear.

Ms Kellerman: I think the thing to keep in mind is that people seek out information and support as they feel the need. Families come to family resource program settings because they're looking for a way to connect with other families in the community. They're looking for a way to break down the isolation that so many families feel, to come together, to meet with other people who have similar interests and concerns. I think it's very much prevention-oriented. Most people do not access programs because they self-identify that they have a major problem. That's not the way that happens.

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In terms of your question about connecting with young people before they have children, I do know of at least one program that has an arrangement with their local high schools where they go into their high schools as a community initiative. The family resource program sends people to talk with high school students in the high schools about parenting. But that's not a common program component.

The Chairman: Andy.

Mr. Scott: It may very well be that it's one of those things where humanity has an instinctive sense that it shouldn't tell anybody what it's like or we might not perpetuate the race.

One of the things that's happening at a broader level is we are negotiating between the provinces and the federal government respective roles in a whole bunch of areas - witness the big announcement last week in terms of human resources development. I have a fear that we may be discussing things that we would like to see done, and be swept away by the tidal wave of rebalancing.

You say you get funding from federal, provincial and municipal governments -

Ms Kellerman: Our particular organization, which is a national, non-profit organization, does not get provincial or local funding.

Mr. Scott: You get national funding.

Ms Kellerman: Yes, as a national non-profit. But certainly the community-based programs -

Mr. Scott: That's what I would like to speak to, your information or your awareness of their programs.

Can you articulate the sense of the role of the federal government? If people in my constituency are getting money from a whole bunch of sources, do you think they would have an understanding that the reason the federal government is doing this is because they accept some responsibility for this part of the problem, and the province for that part of the problem? Or is it all simply a source of funding, and we'll figure out the best way to try to get it? I'm involved in that a lot myself, so that isn't intended to be a slam.

Do you think the organizations you represent or interact with have a sense of what the role of the federal government is in this area as against the role of the provincial government? Are these things federal in your mind and these other things provincial?

Ms Kellerman: I think people recognize that there has been leadership and funding from a variety of government levels because there have been overlapping jurisdictions. I think we're at a point in time when we tend to see that as negative and wanting to disengage and have the boundaries much more clear-cut in terms of respective jurisdictions and funding.

We need to look at what some of the strengths are of having some of those federal-provincial initiatives, and I think CAP is an example of that. It certainly took a great deal of work to arrange each of those federal-provincial agreements before the funding could flow.

But when we brought together people from across the country for a consultation about a year and a half ago to talk about the social policy reform process, all of our representatives, including the people who came from Quebec, felt that it was very important that the federal government continue to take a leadership role in terms of supporting community-based programs that support families with young children. I think people did not feel they could rely on their provincial governments to take all of the leadership necessary. Some of it was concerns about availability of funding, particularly in some of the poorer provinces. But I think they felt this was an appropriate role, that the federal government be concerned about the welfare of families and be concerned about those very early years. They were hoping the federal government would continue to take a variety of initiatives that would support families with young children.

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Mr. Scott: But there's no particular objective. That's the reason the federal government is in it as against the reason the provincial government is in it. I understand the issues. I come from New Brunswick. I understand poorer provinces looking to the federal government for some equity kind of things. But as far as a specific objective, in your mind or in the minds of those people you represent, it isn't clear - or I haven't heard - that this is the part of the equation the federal government is interested in and this is the part of the equation the provinces are interested in; we just have an objective on the ground, and we think both levels of governments should be in it.

Ms Kellerman: I think one of the problems here is that those kinds of discussions have not taken place.

These kinds of community-based programs have kind of grown up in the last twenty years, and they have not had any kind of policy framework in which to grow, any kind of funding framework. They've pieced their money together from a whole variety of sources. They are very volunteer-driven and have a lot of unpaid and community resources that go into them. I don't think we've had those kinds of discussions or sufficient discussion to sort out what some of those respective roles might be. I'm not saying none of it has gone on, but I don't think there's been enough about it.

Mr. Scott: Thank you.

The Chairman: I want to thank our witnesses for contributing to our study on strategies for healthy children. We may well be in touch with you again during the course of the study. Thanks for coming.

In a moment we're going to move on to the two other sets of witnesses. Before doing that, let me say to the committee that we won't be meeting Thursday, of course, because the House is in recess. We will not be meeting Tuesday because that's pre-empted by the visit of the Mexican president to the House of Commons. So our next meeting is Thursday, nine days hence, June 13. That date will be a full business meeting in which we will deal not with witnesses at all but with a couple of other issues - the estimates, because we have to report those. So I say again to the opposition parties that if you have motions, next Thursday is going to be your last opportunity to get them in.

We're going to have for you, committee members, a draft of the work plan for the review of drug policy. We'll circulate it to you in both languages prior to next Thursday so you can have a look at it and come prepared to make some decisions.

I have commitments elsewhere, so I'm going to invite my competent vice-chair, my good friend Beryl, to take over from here. Beryl.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Thank you very much.

We're running behind the clock. We have two more witnesses to hear from, and we have three-quarters of an hour left in our timeframe. Is that correct, Nancy?

The Clerk of the Committee: Yes. The room is available until 11 a.m.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): So we can run a little bit over.

You're from Kids First. Thank you very much for coming to the table, Cathy Perri andCheryl Stewart. Who is going to start?

Ms Cathy Perri (President, Kids First): I'll start.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Okay, Cathy, go ahead.

Ms Perri: I want to begin by saying that Kids First is a national non-profit organization that speaks on behalf of stay-at-home parents.

I want to open with a poem by G.K. Chesterton from Songs of Education:

I remember my mother, the day that we met,

A thing I shall never entirely forget:

And I toy with the fancy that, young as I am,

I should know her again if we met in a tram.

But mother is happy in turning a crank

That increases the balance at somebody's bank:

And I feel satisfaction that mother is free

From the sinister task of attending to me.

We are very grateful for the opportunity to address the committee today. Up until now we had been very discouraged as our insight, views and opinions have been dismissed because we are just parents, as though only having and raising children precludes us from knowledge simply because we do not have a PhD attached to our name.

As parents we also know that any policy or theory that is put into practice will directly affect us and our children. We are not researchers who can theorize on child development, then move on to the next project or theory when the results are disastrous and/or the money runs out. We are not formally studying or researching the nurturing or bonding process. Instead we are doing it. We don't have quantifiable results, as our measurements come from the heart. Although we are not child care experts in the classic sense, we are experts via our knowledge of and love for our children.

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In terms of prevention in children's health, the focus continues to be mainly on physical and intellectual development. We all know the importance of prenatal care. Canada has achieved remarkable results in this realm. Over the past 30 years the infant mortality rate has decreased by 75%. We all know the importance of ensuring that children reach kindergarten ready and able to learn, thereby lessening chances of learning difficulties that can lead to educational failure. But what about emotional development?

Dr. Elliott Barker, president of the Canadian Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, states:

Nothing is more important in the world today than the nurturing that children receive in the first three years of life, for it is in these earliest years that the capacities for trust, empathy, and affection originate. If the emotional needs of the child are not met during these years, permanent emotional damage can occur.

The Canadian Institute of Child Health in their report The Health of Canada's Children states that

What happens during the preschool years can start children on a pathway to a secure sense of who they are or, conversely, leave them feeling insecure and worthless.... By the very nature of their development, preschoolers have great potential for growth - physical, emotional and cognitive. By the same token, they are very vulnerable.

The earliest years of life thus lay the foundation for all that follows. Research has given us rich knowledge of development during this period, but we are applying it poorly. When it comes to emotional development, it is clear that children have not benefited from what science has told us.

In terms of nurturing we are failing and failing badly. Children are feeling insecure and worthless; they are in trouble. According to academics and practising psychiatrists and psychologists, today's youth are exhibiting far more serious emotional and behavioural problems than those of 20 years ago. There is a difference between students who enter school today and those of a generation ago. There is a problem.

We all know what the major cause is. We can point to other contributing factors and talk about short-sighted solutions like more day care and full-day kindergarten for three-year-olds all we want, but they will never be more than peripheral and palliative. We cannot, however, continue to ignore the main reason for the discontentment of our youth, which is lack of parental involvement. As Dr. Amitai Etzioni, esteemed sociologist and professor at the George Washington University, stated, ``There is a parenting deficit today''.

Why is the realization of the necessity of parental involvement so difficult to comprehend? It is almost as if we as a society want our youth problems to be caused by violence on TV or rock music, because it is easier to deal with. Purchase a v-chip, ban heavy metal music or, even further, tighten up the Young Offenders Act. Bring back capital punishment and the problem is solved.

Yet when we get into the area of parental involvement and what the critical level needed to ensure happy, stable children is, we avoid its discussion. It is uncomfortable. It is sensitive. In the past, parents, especially mothers, have borne the brunt of blame for children gone wrong. Within the climate of political correctness, we don't want to offend anyone, or worse, make anyone feel guilty.

We as parents may have to admit that we are selfish and that our careers, not our children, take priority. As women, we may have to admit that the notion that ``you can have it all'' is just that, a notion. A child doesn't just ``fit in''. ``Instead, it forces you to confront your deepest beliefs about what is important in life - and to work out a new life pattern consistent with those beliefs''. We may have to admit that our beliefs have more to do with consumerism and materialism, and less with the heart and soul.

Parenting requires an emotional investment in children, and it requires time. It is no accident that today's youth problems directly correlate to a significant decline in the number of hours parents spend with their children, 40% less than a generation ago. In fact, according to Human Resources Development, a child who enters full-time child care at six months of age is estimated to spend between 10,000 and 12,000 hours in non-parental care by the age of 6. This is comparable to the number of hours she or he will spend in elementary and secondary education combined.

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Children are not pets. They are not hobbies. They do not fit neatly into adult career ambitions or lifestyle goals. They demand commitment and sacrifice. They require consistent, reliable care by an adult, ideally the parent, who loves them quite irrationally just because they are connected, bonded one to the other. We all know this. We know how difficult it is for a two-parent family to achieve this; we have known for generations how much more difficult it is for a single-parent family, most especially one in which that single parent must leave her children for long periods of time while she works in the paid labour force to put bread on the table.

But our solutions are not to make it easier for parents to do the job of raising their children. We're good at laying blame when things go wrong, but not at providing support to prevent problems.

Despite the importance of parental involvement, and the documented ``time crunch'' families are experiencing, what has our federal government done via our tax policies? Families wishing to have a parent at home caring for their children are penalized to the tune of several thousand dollars per family, per year. Our social policies are exclusively designed to benefit the 12% to 16% of working parents using formal day care.

Right now, government is playing a rhetorical game where they say one thing and do another. They talk about the importance of family and the need to strengthen and promote family values. Yet the Departments of Finance and Human Resources Development made it very clear to us, in our meetings with them in November, that direct parental care is not part of the Liberal Party's vision. The goal instead is to get as many parents as possible into the labour force and as many children as possible into substitute care - all the while talking about the importance of family and its vital role in society.

Why hasn't anything been done? Is it because infants and toddlers can't storm into federal committee meetings and throw chairs around that their needs continue to be overlooked? We have excellent prenatal programs across the country. What do we do to prevent problems after the baby comes home? Early intervention doesn't have to mean taking children out of their homes once things have reached a crisis point; it could mean working proactively with new parents from the start, using the health care professionals we already have to prevent the damage we all pay for later on.

The academic studies have been around for years to back up what we know to be true. What happens between parents and their children in that zero to six age range is crucial. Health family functioning means a healthier society.

The issue of parental involvement must be looked at honestly in terms of what parents and children want and need. This does not mean that women have to head back to the kitchen and assume sole responsibility for child care. It does mean that we need to acknowledge the enormous contribution women have made and continue to make to the nurturing of children and to healthy family functioning. It means we must acknowledge that the gap women have left as they have entered the paid labour force has not been adequately filled. ``Daycare, babysitters, nannies, after-school care were all considered necessary supports to enable men and women to have careers and families, but they are not viewed as adequate substitutes for parental involvement.'' Let's face it, parents are the make-or-break custodians of their children's well-being.

Parents are not easily replaced. Their presence, or conversely, their absence from their children, matters. In a society where parenting is devalued and we degrade those who choose to make a full-time commitment to that job, we will all pay the price. We are paying it now. For a child, those early years of growth, understanding and love can never be brought back to do over again. This is not the rehearsal; this is the main show.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Cheryl, did you have something to add?

Ms Cheryl Stewart (Vice-President, Kids First): Yes. I would just like to briefly review our proposals and -

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): I would ask you to keep it short, as we're running almost ten minutes behind right now.

Ms Stewart: Our proposals:

1. The Government of Canada and the Liberal Party must officially include direct parenting as an option in their child care vision for Canada.

2. There must be official recognition that 70% of working women would rather be at home raising their own children.

3. Education about the importance of attachment parenting and nurturing on the development of trusting, affectionate, empathic children is critical.

4. Parents must be supported when they choose to care for their own children. Parents at home, in addition to being financially penalized, are isolated, receive no recognition for the work they do, receive little or no ``professional development'', and often suffer from low self-esteem, all of this for doing the hardest job there is - raising happy, healthy children. There must be a concerted effort to increase the status of at-home parents to a level that reflects the true demands of their work.

5. Single parents choosing to raise their children at home should be assisted also.

6. Many changes to the tax system should be made to end the discrimination of one-earner families with the parent at home raising children.

7. Pursue extended maternity leaves, encourage creative work options such as flex time, job-sharing and contract work.

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I would like to conclude with a quote from Dr. Patricia Morgan of the health and welfare unit of the Institute of Economic Affairs in London, England, and author of the book The Hidden Costs of Child Care:

Children themselves are entitled to a healthy, secure, consistent, loving, disciplined, nurturant and unpressurized infancy and childhood. It would appear to be the primary responsibility of parents to provide this, but they cannot do so unless the wider society creates the facilities and policies to enable them. No society will do this unless it believes in the future and acknowledges that the competence and character of the next generation depend upon the circumstances in which they are raised. Where family life is valued, the compensatory measures to protect it and counter its disadvantages also serve to define childrearing, not as worthless and demeaning work, but socially approved, important work which contributes to the greater good of the entire community.

Thank you again for the opportunity to speak here today. It really is a momentous occasion for Kids First to be invited here to express our concerns and opinions and proposals.

This concludes our part of the presentation.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Thank you very much.

Did you read the back page of The Globe and Mail this morning? There is a very interesting article by a woman who's writing about how she got her mother back. She remembered her mother from when she was a child and the things her mother did for her. The mother had then become an alcoholic. Now the woman who was writing this story was suddenly a mom herself and her mom is now no longer an alcoholic. The writer still remembers her as what she remembered of her before she became an alcoholic. It's a good story.

Mr. Dubé.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: It is impossible to be against the objectives that you are striving to achieve. You say that children are the priority. Indeed, we must do all that is necessary to give children the best possible living conditions. I believe that we are all on agreement on this point, because this can prevent a whole series of problems.

However, your first suggestion surprises me. You said that we should abolish the child care expense deduction. Personally, I have nothing against your objectives but it seems to me that you are contradicting yourself somewhat. On the one hand, you are telling us that we have to help children and, on the other hand, that people who need child care services should not benefit from certain advantages.

Why not do both? Why shouldn't our society ensure that people have a choice as far as this goes? You yourself have said that many women must work today, not out of choice but because they must bring in a second income.

I am not referring to women who are the heads of single-parent homes. Although this does not always show our male citizens in a good light, it must be said that more and more fathers either do not acknowledge their paternity or are not able to pay child support. We cannot bury our heads in the sand, because the problem is real. We must also realize that our society has changed and that this problem exists. Moreover, I do not foresee us making a great deal of progress in dealing with this issue in the future.

In my opinion, the parents, and very often the mothers are the ones who make decisions pertaining to the welfare of their children. I applaud this attitude and I think that we should attach more importance to this and even encourage it. However, I fail to understand why you want to do this to the determent of certain deductions that many people use because they have no other choice but to entrust the care of their children to others so that they can earn a living and they do so for the wellbeing of their children.

It's as if you were saying that people were abandoning their children. That is not true. I would repeat that many women have no other option enabling them to earn additional income. They are not abandoning their children. They must go out and earn a living.

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This is why I fail to understand you. This is not the first time that we have met since I sat on the Human Resources Development Committee. Your objectives are very commendable, but I do not understand why you have decided to take such a contradictory position.

[English]

Ms Perri: The assumption we're getting at here is that there have to be two incomes, that in reality both parents have to be in the labour force. I think when you make that statement there are two assumptions here and both of them are inaccurate. The first assumption is that the only reason we have double-income families is out of need. Secondly, single-income families exist because we are wealthy and because we can afford to have a parent at home and that's why we're here. While that's true in some instances, their numbers are greatly exaggerated by value judgments.

In regard to your comment that both parents have to be in the labour force and that they're doing it out of necessity, which you apply blanketly to all of them, on behalf of single-income families I must say we find that very irritating, because we have sacrificed material wealth and political and social advantages, all of this, to be able to be at home with our children.

You will find that a family with a parent at home exists at all income levels. Simply, the whole need for two incomes is multifaceted; it takes into account economics and it also takes into account values and lifestyles. When you look at economics, you'll find that a single-income family makes $26,000 less than a double-income family. You will find that if you take the second income away in a double-income family, the incomes are basically equal.

If you need what's the determing quality or the determining factor, you would tend to see the percentage of spouses in the labour force as being higher at lower income levels, but you'll find that it's not true. The percentages are basically equal. So there's really no significant income pattern to the propensity of spouses in the labour force.

As far as fairness in the tax system, we've always talked about fairness. We've never talked about upping the ante and giving parents at home preferential treatment. We've never said that. All we've said is that the tax system should be fair and it should be equal, and that it should provide parents with a choice so that they can choose where their children are cared for. We feel money should be placed in the hands of parents, therefore enabling them to make that choice as to where their children are cared for.

Is there anything else that you want to add, Cheryl?

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: But you say in your first recommendation;

a) The child care expense deduction should be repealed.

Repealed means cancelled.

[English]

Ms Perri: Yes.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: Then it says that we have to help those who choose to raise their children by themselves in various ways. All of this appears to be very contradictory as far as I am concerned.

[English]

Ms Stewart: What we are saying is that all families should be assisted in raising their children regardless of where they choose to raise their children, whether it be at home or in substitute care in an institutional type of setting or an informal caregiver, a relative or whatever. Every family should be assisted so that every family has equal opportunity and it's fair across the board. We've never asked for a reward to be at home. We're just asking for fair and equitable treatment.

Ms Perri: I want to address the child care expense deduction. What I find interesting is when we are talking about eliminating it, if you really look at the child care expense deduction, what you find is that it is a very elitist deduction. It benefits the wealthy. The wealthier you are, the more benefits you get from the child care expense deduction. It has an inverse relationship to need. As your income goes up, the more benefits you get from it.

Also, with the child care expense deduction, it is limited in the fact that you are only allowed access to it if you're double income and if you use formal receipted child care.

The interesting thing that we found out in our investigations here, which is very annoying to us, is that what is constituted as a definition of child care you find out is hockey camp, play school, nursery school. In Alberta, where we have user fees for kindergarten, if your child goes to a kindergarten housed in a day care you can deduct those user fees as a child care expense.

Single-income families use those too, at great financial cost to us. We put our kids in play school too. We put our kids in hockey camp too. Even though we're financially poorer, we can't deduct it because we're not working outside the home.

Mr. Dubé: Good point.

Ms Perri: That was our biggest problem with the deduction. It benefits the wealthy. It does nothing to help single parents. It does nothing to help the struggling double-income families that don't make enough to even qualify for it. That was our biggest concern with the deduction.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: As you have just said, the solution may be to better word things, namely, to distinguish between real child care expenditures and those that are not. That is a good point. By the way, the Quebec Government intends to do that.

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Thank you very much. I'd like to move on now to Dr. Hill, please.

Mr. Hill: Thank you.

Might I first say that I support very strongly your position.

Could you point out for me any countries that do better than Canada in terms of fairness in their tax system?

Ms Perri: I know from what we found out that a lot of countries - Germany for one, Italy and France - actually reward families who have a parent at home. Actually you get more breaks from the tax system, depending on how many children you have. So the more children you have, the more breaks you get from the tax system. As far as individual tax burdens on families in those countries, I am not aware. I do know that in countries like Sweden and those countries whose day care policies were set before us as some sort of an example, we have found that they are tending to move away from that now because they realize it hasn't been helpful to children. They've realized that it doesn't produce choice for families. They've really looked at extended parental leave and those types of things to enable parents to be with their children.

Mr. Hill: In those countries that do have a fairer tax system, do you see better outcomes? In terms of all the things we can measure, are they better?

Ms Perri: As far as I know.

Mr. Hill: I've always thought that legislation the government brings down should be looked at in terms of what impact it has on the traditional natural family. Do you see that concept as being useful, to review and make certain there isn't a negative impact on them?

Ms Stewart: I think that would be the very first priority of any policy discussion, any budget discussions. Is this in the best interest of children? If that is your first priority, then your policies and your funding should all fall into place. That would benefit families.

Mr. Hill: Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Szabo: Thank you, Madam Chair, and welcome witnesses.

I'm familiar with your work and as a national organization I think you have a lot of information we should have. Your brief provides some of it. Unfortunately, we get bogged down in discussions about whether a tax break...this, that, and the other thing. We forget about the other part of it, and that is, over the long term, if we don't provide that nurturing environment, that quality of care that's essential, in the long term health care costs increase, social program costs increase, criminal justice costs increase. It's like the short-term gain, long-term pain situation.

You're not researchers, but you're in contact with families right across the country. I could say to you that in a lot of cases where there are two-income families with pre-school children and child care, because of the tax treatment of the child care expense deduction to the lower-income parent, after child care costs, income taxes, cost of employment, the net take-home pay is so small that parents are saying this isn't worth it, why am I doing this? You don't have research, but having the contact with these families, is this the message you're hearing, and from what proportion of families are you hearing it?

Ms Perri: I think we hear it from all families across the board. I think what I find interesting is that in those types of families such as Mr. Szabo mentioned, they say that the time stress is just not worth it. The fact that by the time they pay for all the incidentals, etc., it's just incredible - they don't have enough time with their family.

We've just experienced that in getting prepared to come to Ottawa, in trying to get packed and everything, and realized that there wasn't time to fit in all the little kid things before we left, and to try to do this day in and day out. We hear about the tremendous stress families are under.

We also hear from a lot of parents who are at home who are really angry with the lack of respect they get for the role they're doing and for the sacrifices they've made. We hear especially from a lot of women who are really angry by telling us that they bought into the whole bill of goods here, that if they were in the labour force they would be fulfilled and happy and whatever, and that no matter what they chose to do in life, they'd be supported. They find out that's not the case when you choose to be at home. A lot of them are in the labour force and would like to be able to be at home. They've come up to us literally and said this isn't liberation, this isn't freedom; I'd like to be at home and I don't feel that I can be, whether by financial reasons or by just social reasons, because there isn't that acceptance there. We do hear it from a lot of families.

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Mr. Szabo: Very quickly, are you aware of any provincial governments that have expressed a sympathetic or supportive view of the Kids First position?

Ms Perri: Very much in Alberta. I'm from northern Alberta. I've had very close contact with Jim Dinningy, the Alberta treasurer, and with the new social services minister, Stockwell Day, who are very supportive of what we're doing. They have been trying to lobby the federal government to initiate tax changes and to be more supportive of parents at home.

I'll let Cheryl talk about her experience with the Ontario government.

Ms Stewart: I recently had meetings with Janet Ecker, who is the parliamentary assistant to David Tsubouchi in Ontario. I felt extremely encouraged by the support and the understanding that came across from Mrs. Ecker on the whole issue of parents who are at home, or especially parents who wish to be at home.

My understanding is that there is an upcoming meeting with the social services ministers across the country with the federal minister. One of the issues she plans on bringing to the table is how we can make it more feasible for those mothers who want to be at home, to be at home. So we're very grateful for this and look forward to further work on that.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Before I go to one more questioner, do committee members have any problem staying after 11 a.m., to give the next group their half hour too? Is everybody okay on that?

Some hon. members: Agreed.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): I'm going to go to Mrs. Hayes.

Mrs. Hayes: Thank you, Madam Chairman.

Before you came, we had a group before us with a parent resource centre. Actually I thought some of the answers they gave were quite vague concerning the priorities of their parent resource centre.

I was wondering, as this is a federally funded initiative, what suggestions you might have. Obviously you feel that parents in the home, taking care of their children, is a priority - and I agree with that - or it should certainly be recognized as a viable alternative and choice. Right now it is not a priority, it seems, within government policy.

What could a parent resource centre do to support and encourage people like you?

Ms Perri: Do you want to answer that, Cheryl? Cheryl has worked with parent resource centres in the community.

Ms Stewart: I think that the first priority would be in terms of post-natal education. Earlier in our remarks we addressed the fact that we've done a wonderful job in prenatal care. But I found myself ten years ago bringing home my daughter, and, plump, I was at home with this infant and I really didn't know what to do. I started to read and ask for advice. Some I took; some I didn't.

I think we do that. We send these mothers home with young infants and we let them fly by the seat of their pants with these young children. So I think post-natal education is critical.

We would suggest that there be some sort of a system where post-natal education classes are set up, either through resource centres or local health departments, that are similar to the prenatal classes now. I don't know of any mother who is expecting a child who hasn't been through the prenatal classes.

Speaking from my own personal experience, there is that whole educational aspect of the resource centres. I can think of workshops, which I attended at my centre, to do with toilet training, sibling rivalry. There were workshops that dealt with me as a mother and how I felt about myself as a mother. All sorts of aspects supported me as a mother, and there were issues with regard to the development of infants and toddlers so I could understand those stages of development and help the children through them.

In our centre we were very fortunate to have enough room in our facility to have a drop-in area. I know that many times, especially when my children were young, that was my saving grace. In the middle of winter when I was stuck in the house with two young children and I thought I was going to go crazy, I packed the children up and headed off to the resource centre. I could sit down and talk to other moms, and have a cup of tea. The resource workers were there to give a hand with the children. They played with the children. I could go home and feel refreshed and rejuvenated, ready to take on the afternoon or whatever the case may be.

So I think in terms of prevention, it certainly helped me in my parenting skills and prevented me from perhaps taking extreme measures with my children sometimes.

Mrs. Hayes: Did you find they met that need?

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Ms Stewart: Our centre is particularly good. I know centres across the country that are quite different in the way they respond to their community needs. But I can't say enough about my particular centre.

Mrs. Hayes: So perhaps a redefinition of goals, rather than some do and some don't, and perhaps at the level of decision-making saying these are our priorities within the system would not be a bad idea for family resource centres.

Ms Stewart: These should be consistent goals, but they should still allow enough flexibility to respond to certain communities, because communities are different.

Mrs. Hayes: One recommendation you make - and it's a very timely topic - is changes to the CPP. You mention a recommendation here. Could you elaborate on your approach to CPP and homemakers, and so on?

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Can you be brief?

Ms Perri: Yes.

It's basically coming out with a homemaker pension, and we haven't really gone into any specific details on how to go about that. It's just to give acknowledgement for the work done in the home. We understand everything is in turmoil with the CPP, and we know with the deficit and whatever that it might not be forthcoming. But I think it was just a way of providing some recognition for this, and maybe providing not only compensation, but also financial stability when mothers at home retire, or that type of thing.

Mrs. Hayes: So perhaps the CPP allowance for a working spouse could be doubled for a stay-at-home spouse.

Ms Perri: Yes, something to that effect.

Mrs. Hayes: So there should be some recognition of that second person who is not in the labour force but who needs some financial security.

Ms Perri: Especially in the end days.

Mrs. Hayes: Okay. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Thank you very much, Cathy and Cheryl. Your presentation was very timely.

I don't think any one of us, as members of Parliament, have not had our constituents approach us with regard to the unfairness in the Income Tax Act. I have talked to it time and time again with my people. In fact Sharon and I were even talking yesterday in the House of Commons, privately, about stay-at-home moms. A lot of people would probably not work outside the home if they had the same kind of a tax break, or a homemaker's pension, or whatever, that the people who are working outside the home have.

Thank you very much.

Ms Stewart: Before you move to the next group, perhaps I could just mention that poll after poll has shown that 70% of working women would prefer to be at home raising their children. Hopefully we could help make that happen.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Okay. Thank you very much.

The next witness is from the Vanier Institute of the Family, and it's Dr. Robert Glossop. You're the last, but you're certainly not the least. We're very familiar with the Vanier Institute of the Family. Sorry that we made you wait so long, but we will try to give you your full share. So please go ahead.

Mr. Robert Glossop (Director of Programs and Research, Vanier Institute of the Family): Thank you very much, Madam Chairperson and members of the committee. On behalf of the board of directors of the Vanier Institute of the Family, I want to thank you for this opportunity to be with you today to talk about nothing less than the future of our nation, which rests, as we all know, in the prospects of today's children.

Time did not permit me to prepare a formal brief for you. I have left French and English copies of a publication called Profiling Canada's Families, which will provide you with some substantiation and evidence for some of the observations and claims I will make. For the purposes of your time constraints, I will move to the end of the second paragraph at page 4 in the text that I left with the interpreter.

Despite the bad publicity and bad press families often get today that would lead us to believe that families are nothing but the places where there is intergenerational conflict and the places where women and children and elders are abused, and they are nothing but the institution that is bound to resolve itself in separation or divorce, despite all of this bad news, I would argue that families remain central to our characters, to our identity, and to our aspirations. The essential point is for us to recognize that families are the crucibles of competence within which the capacities, hopes, and expectations of our children and our future are moulded.

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Within the lifetime of a single generation Canadians have witnessed a revolution in their patterns of family living. These changes have transformed in fundamental ways not just the experience and needs of individuals, but also the obligations and responsibilities of governments and other agents of social responsibility in the private, public, and community sectors.

Among some of the most notable trends familiar to us all has been the growing diversity of family forms and patterns of family functioning. This diversity is reflected in the increased rates of separation and divorce, lone parenting, cohabitation, intentional childlessness, the postponement of marriage, the prevalence of remarriage, the preference for smaller families as manifest in lower rates of fertility with the consequence of societal aging, and immigration increasing ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity within our population of Canadian families.

We have also witnessed the growing economic insecurity of families that are devoting more hours per week to the paid labour market in order to earn the average family income and balance the chequebook at the end of every month. Families are feeling like the decisions that shape their economic destinies and those of their children are no longer within their capacity to influence in an era of government restraint, global economics, downsizing, and restructuring.

As you've already heard this morning, we have witnessed the increased labour market participation of wives and mothers, which in turn has led to the dual wage-earning family as normative, both statistically and culturally; the growing disparity of incomes between one and two wage earner families; the need for publicly sponsored child care and elder care; and a variety of family-friendly workplace policies to help family members, especially women, adjust to the competing demands of their jobs and their families.

We have also witnessed the growing economic vulnerability of families and children, often, although by no means always, associated with separation and divorce. I should point out that the majority of poor children in Canada are being raised by two parents, even though the probability of a lone parent living in poverty is five or six times higher than that of a two-parent family.

The number of children growing up in poverty, estimated at close to 1.4 million, is tragically high, much higher than in most other industrialized nations. The costs of such neglect will be borne by them as individuals and by the rest of us as we live with the consequences of their poorer health, squandered potential, diminished educational achievements, and lack of social integration.

Those of us who are not poor, those of us who are fortunate enough to have employment, with either one or two jobs in the family, often feel crunched by the demands on our time, as the previous witnesses attested. We are stressed out and it seems that our families are often living on the leftovers of human energy and commitment.

I'd like to break away from my text at this point and say that I agree with Mr. Dubé. I am particularly worried right now about the pitting of the interests of one kind of family against the interests of other kinds of families. It often seems to me that what gets lost in the current discussions and debates about family is a sense of commitment to children and their well-being and to the relationships and the health of the relationships between children and parents, regardless of whether they are lone parent families, two-parent families, single wage earner families, or dual wage earner families.

Too often, it seems to me, the interests of children in families are submersed in a sea of political and ideological debate, which in my opinion does not advance the interests of children and families well.

I will speak briefly about the emergence of the dual wage earner family as normative, to give you my sense of why I believe women are in the labour force to stay.

The purchasing power of male wages has declined over the past 20 years. Men are no longer paid a family wage sufficient to support a financially dependent spouse and their four or five children, as was typical in the 1950s and 1960s. Predictably, families have responded by fielding more labour, to use the jargon of the economists.

Second, the costs of maintaining an aging society will impose greater pressure on all of us who are of so-called working age, be we men or women, to be productive in the paid labour force so that we can cover the increased expenditures on income security, health care, and social support associated with an older population.

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Third, we are a greedy people, but I suggest that it is not fair to lay the blame for that greed at the feet of individuals, for it is the case that our economy is now addicted to growth in levels of production and consumption. Without family expenditure as the major engine of economic prosperity, fewer houses would be built and the lumber industry in British Columbia would suffer, fewer automobiles would be purchased and automakers would start laying off people in Windsor, and the Conference Board of Canada would tell us that our levels of consumer confidence are so low that we will never recover from the next recession, which is dependent upon increased consumer demand.

Fourth, the aspirations and expectations of women and men have changed dramatically. If we want to blame someone for the emergence of the dual wage-earner family as normative, we should probably blame my mother and father. After all, it was they and their generation who invested heavily in the education of their children, their daughters and their sons. It is no great surprise that their daughters have sought to put those educations to use, not only in the home, where they are vitally important, but in the world of commerce and civic affairs.

Finally, given that women now contribute in excess of $20 billion in tax revenues to the federal and provincial coffers based on their employment earnings, it seems patently evident that as a society we have become quite dependent on their productivity and participation in the paid labour market.

If we are searching for ways to support families and the crucial work they do in nurturing the next generation, in protecting and advancing the health of the next generation, and that is the generation upon which each of us will grow dependent in the years to come, I think there are six strategies of investment that recommend themselves.

First, we need to better acknowledge the work that parents and families do in the interests of individual children and in the interests of the larger society, which is the beneficiary of the investment that parents make in the next generation. We can increase directly the resources available to all families. This is what family allowance is, and the tax system's now-cancelled child deduction used to do, before they were eliminated and replaced by the targeted provisions of the child tax credit.

In comparison to seven other industrialized countries - Australia, Sweden, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States - Canada has the dubiously unique distinction of being the only one of these nations that does not now provide a child benefit independent of parental income.

Second, we can assist vulnerable families or vulnerable family members through such measures as targeted income support programs, transportation or housing subsidies, clothing and food banks, headstart programs for poor children and so on.

Third, we can work to improve the capacity of families and family members to fulfil their responsibilities through family life education programs, self-help programs and employee assistance programs in the workplace.

Fourth, we can establish programs and services that supplement the capacities of families themselves. Child care is the obvious example, but an employer or a community group might also provide assistance in locating appropriate child care, elder care and respite services. School lunch programs, although unfortunately necessary, do supplement the incomes of families unable to provide adequate nutrition to their children.

Fifth, we can help families through particular transition stages with marriage preparation programs, parenting classes, respite services, parents-without-partners groups, or programs specifically designed for children whose parents are separating or divorcing.

Finally, we can strive to strengthen the communities from which families draw their strength by investing in family resource programs like you heard about this morning - toy-lending libraries, public libraries, recreational facilities and programs and community development initiatives more generally.

Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Thank you, Dr. Glossop.

We'll start with Mr. Dubé from the Bloc.

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: First of all, I would like to ask you whether or not you understand French.

Mr. Glossop: Unfortunately, I can barely speak it.

Mr. Dubé: Obviously, I haven't had the time to read the entire document that you have just presented, but I find it very interesting and I also find your approach, which views society in a non-ideological way, to be very interesting as well.

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The sociological facts are there, and it may very well happen that this direction is taken. Nevertheless, your six strategies deserve greater explanation. I do not know on which page these strategies can be found in your document, but I would imagine that we can find them easily.

I really appreciated, in particular, the concept of transitory measures. Unfortunately, I do not know whether you and I would draw the same conclusion. I feel that we do quite the opposite as far as financial belt-tightening is concerned, both in Canada and in all of the provinces. Indeed, we want to improve public finances and therefore we cut back in social programs. To do this, we advocate certain measures and, as we want to reach the most disadvantaged, we target our programs and abandon the most universal measures, so that, instead of seeing progress, we are witnessing a deterioration of these measures.

We have seen some very interesting programs, but the Federal Government acknowledged this morning, for instance, that through the CPAC program, there are 38 initiatives throughout Canada to explore new avenues, programs which are funded on a three-year basis, but without any promise of continuity. Everything stops at that point. So we beseech the heavens or I don't know whom to intervene so that other governments will be able to continue funding the program.

Finally, we realize, based on what you said, that it is difficult to make improvements if we don't change our position radically, given the new measures at the grassroots level. Indeed, municipalities, provincial governments and the federal government are trying to cut back on their spending and, in the final analysis, they are leaving it up to individuals and community groups to look after themselves. If no change is made, we will wind up in a dead end situation. I do not know whether you share my point of view, but I would like to ask you how you foresee changing all of that.

[English]

Mr. Glossop: I think I do. It could generate a long conversation, but I know we don't have much time. Let me suggest two responses to parts of what you've said.

The elimination of the universal family allowance and the elimination of the deduction for dependent children, in my opinion and from a family policy point of view, was incredibly unfortunate. It represented a transfer of tax burden away from those not raising dependent children and onto the backs of families who are raising dependent children. If you have a relatively well-off family earning $70,000 a year with two children, and you compare them to a family at the same income level without two children, right now they pay exactly the same in tax.

In other words, I think there has been a violation of fundamental taxation jurisprudence, which suggested that families should be taxed in accordance with their ability to pay. In the past their ability to pay was calculated on the basis of whether or not they had dependent children, because dependent children now cost the average Canadian family 4,000 to 8,000 after-tax dollars per year.

In this effort to exercise fiscal restraint, which I think no Canadian at this point would argue with, the question as to who shares the burden, or how we distribute the burden of that restraint, I think was not well addressed in terms of the decision to eliminate family allowances and that child deduction.

The other point I would make in response to what you've said is that there is an irony. It is what I call the naive rediscovery of the family. Canadian and other governments, with the exception of Quebec, perhaps, managed to ignore family policy issues for many years. However, as the welfare state has realized that it must restrain its costs, there is often the naive assumption that families and communities will pick up the pieces and once again do for free what we think families did for free 30 or 40 years ago - care for the very young, the sick, the disabled and the old. This is imposing incredible pressures on families and communities that are not themselves well resourced and are already crunched for time, as I pointed out.

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So this era of restraint is one that is very difficult. It is, in my opinion, representing increased expectations by the larger society on families at a time when families have already been incredibly resilient, adaptive and contributory to the well-being of the nation.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): Have you finished, Mr. Dubé?

[Translation]

Mr. Dubé: I have concluded. I could go on further, but I have essentially said what I had to say.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): I'll go on to Mrs. Hayes, please.

Mrs. Hayes: I'd like to comment on the book you've distributed and the statistics, and so on, Profiling Canada's Families. It has a lot of interesting information in it; it's a statistical bonanza, shall we say, for families.

Mr. Glossop: Then it has served its purpose. Thank you. It was produced at the beginning of and specifically because of the International Year of the Family, and it was distributed at that time.

Mrs. Hayes: In a quick review of it while you've been presenting your case, one thing jumped out at me, specifically the divorce rates and the phenomenal increase in those within Canada and within other nations. It looks like Canada's has gone up between 1965 and 1988 by approximately - I'm looking at a bar graph here, so I don't know - five or six times, whereas in the States it has maybe doubled, and in other nations as well.

Mr. Glossop: It was higher in the States to begin with.

Mrs. Hayes: Yes, but from the looks of it, we're doing a good job catching up.

As you are a family research institute of sorts, is there any indication...? Actually, when I look again at the statistics, there's never maybe a full story given on a certain number of statistics. I know, for instance, that as well as the divorce rate going up that much, there's also an increase of children born outside of marriage. So in that sense there are that many more children without two parents than even is indicated within this divorce thing. Of course there's remarriage within the divorce as well, but it's probably a bigger factor as far as the breakup or the instability of a two-parent model within a family situation than is even indicated on this graph.

What is the effect on children of that phenomenon? Has that been measured? Is there some research or proactive move to address - and I will say it - the problems? At least from what I've heard there are problems indicated with the instability of relationships between parents on the children. Could you answer that?

Mr. Glossop: I have to say about three or four things, but I'll be very quick so as to not abuse the time available.

Yes, Canada has caught up with its divorce rates. We used to pride ourselves, prior to 1968, as being a low divorce rate country, particularly in comparison to the U.S. or some European countries. We can no longer do that. We have caught up. We are among the high divorce rate nations.

It is estimated that about 40% to 45% of children born in the late 1970s will see their parents separate or divorce by the time they turn eighteen. It's not yet a majority, but a very large minority.

I have to point out that there has been a dramatic increase in the number of children born to women who are not married. In Canada as a whole, it is about 26% as of 1993. In Quebec it is closer to 50% of children now born to women who are not married. However, please don't make the mistake of thinking those children are being born to single parents. The vast majority of those children are being born to two parents who are cohabiting.

Mr. Szabo: Not true.

Mr. Dubé: Conjoints de fait.

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Mrs. Hayes: To clarify that point, is there a stability rating of cohabitation, then, as opposed to divorce? If divorce is that high, what is cohabiting -

Mr. Glossop: We know cohabitational relationships are less stable than marital relationships. We also know that second marriages are less stable than first marriages.

Mrs. Hayes: Okay.

Mr. Glossop: So I'm not saying there's no problem here, that there's nothing of concern. But I want you to accept, I would hope, my observation that the same number of children today as was the case in the 1960s are being born into two-parent family situations. The dilemma, of course, is that there has been this dramatic increase in the number of those children who are going to experience the dissolution either through separation or divorce of their biological parents.

Finally, you asked about the consequences. Twenty-five years ago, when I started in this business, I think I had a rather typical attitude, which was that it was best to get kids out of a conflict-ridden situation, that divorce would probably be in the best interests of everybody. That is still my conclusion with regard to very many examples. However, the longitudinal surveys that have been done now tell us that divorce and separation do have long-term traumatic consequences for the children. They differ according to the age at which the child experienced the separation or divorce; they differ according to gender as well.

Mrs. Hayes: At what age is it most traumatic?

Mr. Glossop: I can't say there's any age at which the separation or divorce of one's parents is easy. It bears emotional and psychological consequences with long-term effects. As Judith Wallerstein in the United States discovered some years ago, if kids could vote, divorce would be illegal. There are long-term scars.

That is not to say, however, that the way to do this is to outlaw divorce, because I don't think that is an adequate response either. I would prefer to see far more investment in making family life easier so that individuals can better sustain the commitments with which they entered into marriage. If you ask Canadians what marriage is all about, they still tell you it's a lifelong commitment. They don't think they're going to get separated or divorced when they establish their conjugal union. I would also like to think there could be better marriage preparation courses, more parenting programs, more couple programs, marriage enrichment programs, and so on and so forth, to help those people maintain their commitments.

Mrs. Hayes: I'm familiar with marriage enrichment but not with anything government- sponsored in terms of marriage enrichment. Would you suggest that would be a good idea?

Mr. Glossop: There may already be some indirect government sponsorship for some of these programs. Family life education programs and marriage enrichment programs are often offered through municipal governments and through faith groups around the country. To the extent that they may be in receipt of grants in order to run some of those programs, there is perhaps an indirect contribution.

As you can tell from what I said with regard to family allowances and the tax deduction, I think the federal government and provincial governments do have financial responsibilities and obligations to support families. When it comes to who should run family life education programs and marriage enrichment, I'm not sure that's one I would in fact lay at the feet of you and your colleagues in the House of Commons. I think that is something that communities, families, faith groups, and other voluntary sector organizations can legitimately be expected to sponsor.

Mrs. Hayes: But recognition of the importance of that -

Mr. Glossop: Absolute recognition of the importance of them, yes.

Mrs. Hayes: Okay. How about divorce laws?

Mr. Glossop: Divorce laws?

Mrs. Hayes: It seems there's a direct correlation between the timing and the opening of our divorce law, easier....

Mr. Glossop: There are many reasons, cultural, social and economic, that the divorce rates have gone up such that we are on par with many other industrialized nations. We're not out of line with trends in modern industrialized nations. Therefore I think it would be a little contrary to think Canada can through legislative reforms reduce its divorce rates dramatically.

I don't mean to be quick with my response to you, but I would simply suggest that divorce is the end of a process that has already precipitated the dissolution of a relationship. The divorce law itself is not what leads people into the conflict, the tension, the frustration, the failed hopes and aspirations. Therefore, I don't think the law is the problem.

Ironically, we have family law that speaks more about families at the time of separation and dissolution, but very few laws that support families while they're intact.

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Mrs. Hayes: Could I make a short statement?

It seems that divorce traumatizes children, puts women in poverty, and again the vast majority of women are the victims of divorce, which again is in here. It doesn't do a lot of good for a lot of people and so much of government policy is in the best interests of children and certainly the women's movement is in the best interest of women. I would suggest that this could be looked at in terms of government policy to lessen the predictability or possibility of divorce if something could be done in society that would work to the advantage of very many groups we are trying to help in this place.

Mr. Glossop: I would certainly like to see the incidence of divorce reduced in Canada. How you go about that, I'm not exactly sure. There have been suggestions from the United States that we should restate -

Mrs. Hayes: Reduce the stress of double-parent incomes, perhaps.

Mr. Szabo: I'm pretty sure, Robert, you would agree that poor people can raise lovely children but that the probability of having a problem is probably more prevalent in a lower economic level than in a higher one simply because of the impact of say nutrition or whatever.

You talked about child poverty. Do you have any idea of how many children are born into poverty as opposed to - and this is related to the family break-up - those who are thrust into poverty because of family breakdown? And if child poverty is a contributing factor to less than desirable outcomes of children, how important is this issue of healthy families in the scheme of good health strategies for children?

Mr. Glossop: Your question is very interesting from a researcher's point of view. I wish I had a really good answer. All I can say, in terms of the quantitative questions you've asked, is that the majority of poor children in Canada live with two parents. However, we do know that separation and divorce accounts for the incredible increase in he numbers of lone-parent families, and we know that 60% of lone-parent families led by single moms are living below the official low-income cut-off point.

So yes, indeed, separation and divorce has a dramatic impact on the financial security of children, with all of the attendant consequences you point out.

Mr. Szabo: I did jump in earlier, and I apologize for reacting, but on page 90 of your book it shows that in 1980 62% of poor children lived with two parents. In 1991 it was only 54%. Now, to me 54% is not a vast majority, and that's what I reacted to. In fact, if we talk about going from 1980 to 1991, going from 62% down to 54%, we've had five years since that, and if the trend line holds true your vast majority is absolutely incorrect. I bet you it is, because I can't imagine with the family breakdown situation that we see in Canada that two income earners are the ones who are accounting for most of poor children.

Mr. Glossop: No, I'm sorry, I did not say two income earning families; I said two-parent families.

Mr. Szabo: Two-parent families.

Mr. Glossop: There is a difference.

You're absolutely right with the point about the trend line. There has been an increase in the proportion of poor families that are single-parent families and that has continued. Those were 1991 figures; it is still 53% or 54%.

Mr. Szabo: I have a last question. If you were to plot the number of social agencies that we have evolved in Canada over the last ten years with the number or the percentage of two-parent families both working, is there a correlation between non-direct parental care and the rise or prevalence for social agencies to fix up problems?

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Mr. Glossop: I do not have any evidence as to that. I've never seen any such correlation. What I will share with you is that on the basis of my familiarity with the child care literature and the research I have seen, no credible evidence suggests to me that non-parental supplemental child care is damaging to children as long as it is of relatively high quality.

I have also seen evidence that speaks basically to the economic security of families and its consequences on children. Evidence tells us that in Australia the children who have the best outcomes, measured according to cognitive measures, emotional and social bonding measures, and so on and so forth, are in fact children who have grown up in families with two wage earners. That simply is a function of the economic resources available to that family. It's not by any means a -

Mr. Szabo: Are you familiar with what was described as the most far-reaching and comprehensive study done on this whole care situation that was described in The Globe and Mail in April of this year, in which they commented in regard to the issue of the disruption of that consistent adult, etc., that in excess of ten hours per week could contribute to negative implications? This is a statement that tends to challenge a little bit what you just said.

Mr. Glossop: I'm familiar with those statements. I'm familiar with the person who makes them and I'm familiar with the organization he represents. I am also familiar with the letter that has been submitted by 16 recognized child care authorities questioning the credibility of that research and the integrity of the statements that have been made.

Mr. Szabo: So research, even the most far-reaching, is questionable. Shame.

The Vice-Chair (Mrs. Gaffney): We've run out of time. Thank you very much, Dr. Glossop. I appreciate your being patient with us. We did finally get to you, and I think we've given you a good hearing.

Thank you to committee members for staying past eleven o'clock. Our next meeting is June 13 at nine o'clock.

The meeting is adjourned.

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