HUMA Committee Meeting

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

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

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, May 16, 2000

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): Colleagues, if we could begin, the order of the day, as you see from your agenda, is pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), study of HRDC grants and contributions.

The theme we set ourselves for this meeting is this one: how the current administrative system for grants and contributions worked from the perspective of the voluntary sector, that is, the recipients. Does it vary from the type of funding that they receive from the private sector and community foundations? What types of reforms would work best? What do they think of the various roles, that is, the roles of public servants and members of Parliament and so on, and of new tools that are available for the delivery and tracking of grants?

We're most grateful to our witnesses for being here today. From the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations, we have Al Hatton, the executive director.

Al, we greatly appreciate your being here.

For the Canadian Association for Community Living, we have Diane Richler, who's the executive director, policy and programs.

Diane, we welcome you also. Thank you very much for being here.

We normally proceed, as I think you know, by first having any presentations you have. We would have both of them, if that's okay, and then we would proceed to questions and answers. If it's okay with you, we'll go with the order on the agenda.

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Diane, if that is okay with you, we will begin with Al Hatton, executive director, Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations.

Al.

Mr. Al Hatton (Executive Director, Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations): Thank you, Mr. Adams. Thank you for an opportunity for us to appear and talk to you a bit about the process that has gone on at HRDC.

First of all, the thing to underline from our point of view is that the federal government has many forms of grants, contributions, contracts, and project moneys that flow to voluntary organizations or out into communities, and HRDC over the years has played a very major role in supporting thousands of groups, individuals, and communities, in particular, I think, focusing on disadvantaged groups, from the perspective of which we sit, and on particular geographic areas that may be facing employment problems or social development problems.

From our point of view, when the audit hit, our focus or our understanding was that it was on administrative procedures, by and large. But very quickly it seemed to get blown up into something much larger, in terms of an issue around political patronage and accusations of government's lack of accountability—and of incompetence, really. Our feeling in the sector was that it was in some sense overblown. As for statements like “it's a billion-dollar boondoggle”, we felt them to be excessive. That doesn't say that there aren't major challenges, so we want to come to that.

The fact is that there are administrative shortcomings. That's clear. It also appears that there are some specific companies and specific individuals who have probably abused the system. Those are coming out and they'll be in court or whatever if they've broken the law.

But in fact, from our point of view—and maybe time will change this—we haven't seen a lot of examples of voluntary organizations or community groups abusing public funds. I mean, I was kind of stunned because, over the years in another position I was in with the YMCA, I found it inconceivable that somebody could get money from government without a contract, without a paper trail. We go crazy with all the details we have to provide to the bureaucracy about what we're doing and how we're doing it. That certainly is at the front end. Sometimes the assessment at the back end leaves something to be desired. But for me and I think for a lot of people in the voluntary sector, that was a surprise.

So what do we see now? We see, as a result of that, more and more detailed requests for information, which I think is leading to a lot of new projects being put on hold, to delays in payments on existing projects, and to hours and hours spent on justifying what we would consider to be pretty normal expenses, like travelling to a place to monitor, meeting with groups, trying to make sure the money is being well spent.

The other thing to say, I think, is that this is not about the sector not wanting to be transparent, not wanting to be accountable. This is absolutely critical for our work and for the trust we have with clients, with donors, with different levels of government.

In fact, over the last couple of years, the voluntary sector has made accountability its priority. We've set up a blue-chip panel, funded by the sector, in fact, not by the government, to look at the issue of accountability. There's a report called Building on Strength: Improving Governance and Accountability in Canada's Voluntary Sector, which talks about ways in which small groups and large groups of charities and voluntary organizations can be more accountable. That's available, and if you contact my office or talk to many organizations, that is possible to get.

Obviously where contracts are incomplete, reports are not filled in, and expenses are not tied and connected to project goals, that's unacceptable. On the other hand, we find ourselves now being bombarded by more and more requests for what we consider to be a bit of an overreaction in terms of what this has unearthed. From our point of view, it's about balance between accountability and transparency and still having some flexibility in allowing organizations, with support, I guess, from bureaucrats, to make sure that as local conditions change, organizations can respond.

More and more, we see that audit procedures, financial monitoring, and administrative nitpicking, I'd almost say, is taking precedence over innovation, risk-taking, and entrepreneurial behaviour. In communities, if we are not more entrepreneurial, if we are not meeting the needs based on what's going on in the global economy, we're just going to be left behind, so the more we're bogged down with administrative details instead of responding to dramatically different and challenging needs of clients, unfortunately, I think, the more that's going to hurt our ability to be responsive in the future.

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We started to become excited, even in light of program review and some of the negative impacts of that on organizations and cuts to government... We began to see, at the same time, though, some creative new possibilities of partnership, and that started to get us really excited. We're involved in a whole pack of those across the country.

The wave of this that's flowing across departments now puts some of that in jeopardy and has many people in the sector saying, well, maybe this isn't the way to go; maybe we'll go back to finding other ways of doing business at the local level. But without question, we need support from government, not to become dependent but to become more independent, in fact, to find better ways to measure results.

One of the by-products of the whole process is that we see a real change in morale in the public service. Public servants are really discouraged. They basically see, even where they're working very hard and trying to work within the guidelines, that in fact that's not having much effect, and it's changing the nature of their jobs.

The other thing is that it appears as though good paperwork means good results, and we don't see that. In fact, what we do need is better assessment tools. We need ways to measure impact, and the focus of this, now and in the future, really is about how this government flows resources to communities and to groups that can really be used to create measurable and concrete results, not just based on numbers. Diane will talk a little bit more about that.

As to some possible solutions, I think the clear one is let's focus on results and outcomes. Our experience in the past is that you spend hundreds of hours trying to follow all the guidelines at the front end to get the money, and then you hardly hear from anybody until it's all finished. Our perspective would be to make it lighter in the front end and monitor and measure what is going on as organizations carry out activities.

We also believe the private sector has gained a lot of experience in this, and so has the voluntary sector. Why not set up a process where public servants, business people, and local community leaders really sit down and come up with viable ways in which these kinds of programs can be measured? We don't have anywhere near enough resources built into evaluation and monitoring.

So what always gets cut? It's things like training, monitoring, and evaluation, because all the money, in theory, has to go directly to the clients. We and the vast majority believe what you do at the same time is have mechanisms in place that make sure you can assess results.

I have three or four other comments, and then I'll pass it over to Diane.

One is that there's kind of an assumption that only government is accountable. We find this fascinating. In fact, organizations are accountable every day. First of all, we have to make sure we follow all the guidelines that are in the contractual agreements that we make with government. At the same time, almost every organization I know of has a monthly meeting of a board of directors drawn from the community. There are yearly audits. If there's not an AGM, there has to be an audit. There usually is an AGM with an audited financial report and a record of the accomplishments over the year. Any citizen can phone up that organization and say “We'd like to meet with you.” The odd one might not want to, but in my experience, people are very happy to share what they're doing and try to get people excited about why that's important. So we believe we are very accountable.

The second thing is, frankly, the voluntary sector is not all that much subject to patronage. We don't get in situations where we get a lot of money, where anybody personally gains. That doesn't mean we're not trying to influence people about what we think is important. That's our role as advocates; that's our role as defenders of people who say to us, “We need your capacity and your help to help us get what we need.”

We have remained relatively silent on this issue because, for us, this has become a major political problem—and we understand that—and a problem of accountability. A lot of groups have said “We don't want to go near that. We are based in the community; we don't want to be on the front page of the National Post, the Globe and Mail, or the local newspaper as not wanting accountability, not wanting transparency.”

The way this story has so often been reported, very seldom has the good work that HRDC and the government are supporting been highlighted. It has pretty much been the opposite.

We didn't want to enter into that fray, because we can't control the outcome. Most of our people say “We're in here for the long haul. We'll just keep working in the community. This will pass. Hopefully things will get better, there will be more accountability, and we'll continue working at the local level to serve people.”

The last point is that I think this has had a major impact on the role of government in support of this sector to look at issues like research, advocacy, policy development, and citizen engagement.

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The use of new technologies is what we should be talking about day to day, in terms of how we use new technologies to produce better results. So at the end of the day, for the communities and citizens that it would appear all this is to help, in some ways this may not be helping the longer it goes on. Let's put the bloody machinery in place to make sure we have accountability, but get on with the life of dealing with people in communities and doing what government is supposed to do and the community is supposed to do.

Thank you very much for listening.

The Chair: Thank you very much, and thank you for being so very much to the point.

Diane Richler.

Ms. Diane Richler (Executive Director, Canadian Association for Community Living): Thank you very much.

Al has present a macro-picture. I'd like to talk a little bit about the life of one small national organization, the Canadian Association for Community Living.

We're a federation of about 400 local associations across the country, mostly families of people with intellectual disabilities and their friends, who are federated at the provincial and territorial level and then again nationally.

I'd like to build on some of Al's comments and try to answer three questions. First of all, from our perspective as a voluntary organization, is Human Resources Development now doing things right? Are their processes working? Secondly, are they doing the right thing? And lastly, what could be improved?

I'd like to reverse the order and start by talking about some positive examples and whether HRDC is doing the right thing.

The first example I'd like to use is one that involved tremendous collaboration between us and the department, but also the subcommittee of this committee on disability—that is, the announcements that were made in the last federal budget around improving the tax situation of families of children with disabilities. That was an enormous accomplishment. I think it's something about which we can be patting each other on the back, because there was tremendous collaboration.

What we did was recognize the public mood and the mood of government, which wanted to provide some tax relief but also to be able to come up with some very concrete ways to do that, which would target families that were suffering disproportionately, and those were families of children with disabilities.

The way HRDC was involved in that is that, as part of a larger project, CACL received a little bit of money to look at some policy issues affecting people with a disability and their families. That funding allowed us, first of all, to gather information from across the country on what was affecting individuals, to analyse the problem, to then conduct some very specific research, using professionals in the field, to present some policy options.

Then the subcommittee convened a special hearing just before Christmas to look at some of those issues, was convinced both by the arguments and by the options presented, and felt that there was a community consensus. I think presenting that subcommittee's position forward to the Minister of Finance was the tipping point in terms of being able to have a really concrete outcome for families of children with disabilities. That was only possible because of the interrelationship between our members across the country, Parliament, and officials at HRDC on the funding of the program.

I think it's important to note that we have members in every single constituency across the country, but they're always in the minority. You may each have a few families who have identified tax issues as something that was affecting them, but it would be very difficult for them, working with you as individual MPs, to come up with a solution that would then provide some options nationwide. By having organizations like ours receive funding through HRDC, we're able to pull together all those constituents from across the country and translate that into options that Parliament can then consider and work with.

That specific initiative was part of a larger initiative that HRDC has been funding now for three years, called the Community Inclusion Fund. It's a $3-million-a-year initiative that's targeted at people with intellectual disabilities and their organizations. That's really helping our association and the network of associations across the country work with their communities to figure out what barriers exist that are preventing people from participating and helping them to participate.

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With some of the action research that's been done over the last year, we've identified that just in the last year, from that $3 million, 639 communities were involved in 639 specific projects; 3,442 families and 7,414 were touched; we had 350 different government departments involved at the municipal, provincial, territorial, and national levels; and 44 different coalitions were created at the local, provincial, and territorial levels in order to solve problems.

I mentioned HRDC is investing $3 million in this initiative. Interestingly, that levered an equivalent amount—just over $3 million—in contributions by provincial and territorial governments and by the private sector in communities across the country. And that's not counting the in-kind contributions, which were overwhelming.

That kind of initiative allows us to first of all have a real impact at the local level. In some communities in P.E.I., for example, there's been a real emphasis on education and making sure kids with disabilities are included in their regular school and transforming schools, not just for the children of today but for the future. In Alberta a lot of work was done with native communities and making sure people who are part of indigenous communities and also have a disability are included. In Quebec we had tremendous success in some innovation in areas for which otherwise there was no funding within the province, particularly looking at bringing together everyone working in the criminal justice system and making sure people with a disability aren't discriminated against.

Through all of those activities across the country, we're able at the national level to feed that into the policy process, so that when there's an opening, as there was in the tax system last year, we can bring forward options that then can be considered and possibly lead to action. As Al said before, it's been one of the great examples for building partnerships and for tremendous innovation.

That's the good news. Now for the bad news. It must have seemed ironic to the officials in HRDC I visited last August that I was coming in to talk about problems I saw in the administration, because they probably already knew about the results of the audit when I walked through the door. I didn't know about that. What I walked in to talk about were the problems we were seeing with the devastation that happened within the department with cutbacks and the lack of person power to be able to deal with the grants and contributions we were working on.

Sometimes that would mean we'd sent in an application and it wasn't clear who got it or whose desk it was on or where it was sitting. We wouldn't hear back. We wouldn't know if something had been approved or hadn't been approved. On occasion we actually received a cheque before we received notice that a project was funded. Other times we'd send in a project proposal and we'd never hear whether in fact it had been considered or not.

We've seen too with the cutbacks a real loss in corporate memory. There has been a lot of movement within the civil service and a lot of people are working very hard to do their jobs at different levels, but people don't necessarily have expertise in the area they're working in, so there's a constant game of catch-up. We do believe in lifelong learning, but it starts to be a little bit onerous when officials are engaged in that process because they don't have any of the background.

It must be really difficult for people who are in supervisory positions and are responsible for major project areas when they don't have any of the content knowledge. I can't imagine an analogy in business where people would be put into senior positions and have absolutely no idea of the content of the kind of operation they're managing. That needs to be addressed.

The impact of the current situation has been devastating. Our treasurer, at an executive committee meeting last week, said that as a chartered accountant he could describe our organization as bankrupt, because we're broke. Since the crisis hit, we have struggled every two weeks to meet payroll and to make our statutory remittances, and those are the only things I'm worrying about. Our suppliers haven't been paid. The people who do our printing, the people who provide our photocopier, the small business people, and our contractual providers are not being paid, because the money has just stopped.

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I just did a double-check with my office this morning. From the last fiscal year, for work we completed up to March 31, over $0.5 million is owing to us from HRDC. We don't have the kind of capital that allows us to finance those operations. For this current fiscal year, so far we've received $50,000. So we've undertaken work from April 1 until today, we have all of the work we did last year up to March 31, and basically our creditors are financing the federal government.

We can't go on. We have nowhere else to turn. We managed to make the May 15 payroll. I honestly don't know what's going to happen by the end of the month if more is not forthcoming.

What does that mean for the future? Certainly I endorse the idea of needing some streamlining within the department of managing proposals that come in and knowing where they are, of record-keeping, and of administration. But I'm really concerned that what's happened over the last little while is that instead of being treated as partners in problem-solving, where the voluntary sector plays certain roles, Parliament plays certain roles, and department officials play certain roles, we're simply being treated as service providers, as purveyors of services. The attitude seems to be almost, “If you can't deliver the service, we'll go somewhere else”, not “This is a group that represents a constituency across the country that we want to be working with”. That makes for very uneasy relationships.

I'm also concerned about the comment Al made in terms of the kinds of outcome measures we're being asked to report on. I really wonder how much opportunity is being made of the kind of information that is being generated through the reports we're writing on all of our projects, and how much people rather are only interested in making sure we have the right tax year receipt and we spent the right amount on each line. I have no problem with that kind of administrative accountability, but I do have a problem when that becomes the way our work is evaluated. A tremendous amount of advantage can be taken of what exists.

Finally, we've seen a gradual shift over the last number of years to more and more targeted project funding and much less recognition of the support for the infrastructure of the voluntary sector. We're having real problems with that right now. The amount of reporting we've been required to do over the last number of months is just unbelievable. We don't have the staff to be able to do that. We can't build that kind of time into our projects, and yet we're required to do provide that kind of accountability. And I guarantee you that's not a very attractive funding package to go sell to the private sector: “Would you please help us to hire one more accountant so that we can make officials at HRDC happy?” I haven't found a corporation that wants to fund that yet.

Also, project funding is weakening the overall democratic process of our organization. What we've seen happen over the last number of years is a restriction in the way we're able to involve volunteers in the work of our organization. Things such as meetings to bring people across the country to share ideas are starting to be viewed as fluff rather than as contributing to the democratic process and to citizen engagement by people from across the country. So you're starting to see more and more a day like today, with a staff person like me coming forward, rather than necessarily seeing the richness of the volunteer experience we really have across the country.

Those are my points. I'd be happy to answer questions.

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The Chair: Diane, thank you very much. Thank you both.

I'm going to try to keep it moving, colleagues. First I have Diane Ablonczy, Bryon Wilfert, Réal Ménard, Bonnie Brown, Libby Davis, and Larry McCormick. So it's Diane first.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy (Calgary—Nose Hill, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank the two of you for coming. As you know, there has been some real concern about the operation of the department, so hearing from the end user, so to speak, from the people who really need to have the department working well, is very helpful to us. In opposition, our responsibility is to hold government accountable, so your obvious frustration and some of your comments will help us to do that.

One of the concerns I've had for a long time is that there seems to be very little emphasis on the value-for-dollar audit or assessment that both of you mentioned. It's all very well to have a lot of red tape, a lot of forms, a lot of fill-in-the-blanks work, but at the end of the day—and I think Mr. Hatton made that comment to the committee very eloquently, Mr. Chairman—it's really the results that we care about. It's not the paperwork and the volume of information as much as what that all leads to in terms of helping people in this country. I can tell that is the real concern.

I would say, Mr. Chairman, that the committee should take to heart the concerns expressed by both of these individuals, that we really need to recommend more emphasis on evaluating results and on allowing the people who are using the money to have some flexibility in getting to those results, as long as at the end of the day there is some way of objectively satisfying ourselves that those results have been arrived at.

Both of you mentioned the involvement of the community. That's something I've been talking about to a number of not-for-profit, charitable, community-based help organizations in my own riding and in the city of Calgary. I'd be very interested in comments from these witnesses, Mr. Chairman, on whether we could involve the community more actively in this evaluation of benefits of the use of funding, and how we could get the communities involved in a practical way, if the witnesses feel that would be useful. In other words, having less of a bureaucratic direction and oversight, and more evaluation, opinion, and direction from the community itself.

Mr. Al Hatton: I think that's critical. How to do it is a bit challenging, because we haven't really done it. The idea of consultation in government often is a one-way street—we have a good idea in government, and we're trying to convince people it's a good idea. Sometimes it is; sometimes it isn't. That's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about is a way to really engage people.

Let's face it, if you're in a local community or you're receiving a service, you have some sense about whether it's working or not. This isn't rocket science at the end of the day. If you're supposed to get a job and you don't have a job, the person who doesn't get a job after a training program knows they don't have a job. It doesn't matter what goes on in Ottawa, they don't have a job.

Diane has eloquently described a particular process that has been going on for three years, but the infrastructure to prepare for that was built up in her organization over many years. We've had thousands of organizations like that. There's a huge infrastructure out there that we are not tapping into. I think it's because we don't quite know how. I think a lot of times we're confusing the political process and decision-making with what really works at the local level. We have to get bureaucrats out—and I don't mean that in a negative way. But a lot of times what you hear in the regions, at least what I hear, is that it gets blocked in Ottawa. I'm in Ottawa, so I don't always like that message, but it's pretty clear.

So how do we reverse that? This whole process, the road we're going down of more and more detail, more and more paperwork, is actually getting us off that track. If we get back on that track, then the paperwork starts to make sense. There is a need for a paper trail. But it suddenly becomes to validate, and have people see that the effects can be measured on paper at the same time they're going on in the real world. It's a challenging process. Some organizations, corporations, and governments have gone further on this. Some departments, I think, are struggling with it.

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I was at a thing in HRDC some months ago out in New Brunswick where the region was bringing provincial governments, local community groups, and academics together to start to struggle with how to have bigger impacts in the community.

So there are some models out there. I think we just have to tap into them. And they have to be validated. They can't be the exception on the fringe.

Anyway, I am totally in agreement with the intent of what you're suggesting, Diane.

The Chair: If I could remind you all that each member has a certain amount of time, and he or she has the question and the answer. The answer goes into the time.

Diane Richler.

Ms. Diane Richler: Thank you.

I think it's important to look at the culture that's behind the whole process of the grants and contributions, and my sense is that we've moved a lot to a culture in which organizations like ours that are receiving money are almost being treated like criminals, as if we must be trying to play the system somehow, we must be trying to do something that's not right. How are they going to be able to catch us?

People are looking for a victim, as opposed to having a culture of collaboration and openness. I worry that in terms of the kinds of outcome measures that are looked at, that's part of the problem too. The system now is being driven to look at outcome measures that are easy to count. If you can check a box and say this has been done, then it fits. It's much harder to do an evaluation of community development.

Again, looking at the community inclusion projects, we've instituted an action research process across the country that's been really painful but has also been really effective, because we're developing a culture in which people are being forced to evaluate what they're doing on a regular basis against the measures of what they're trying to achieve. I think it's really important that the outcome measures be designed to be consistent with what a particular project is trying to achieve, not according to some framework that may suit some kinds of projects but not others.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: I recognized that. That's why I was thinking about trying to get outcomes measured not with the fill-in-the-blanks or check-off-the-box approach, but in terms of real people evaluation. Who would best be able to make that evaluation in the most realistic way? It seems to me it would be people in the community.

I think we all want to make sure Canadians' money is wisely spent. Canadians are very caring. They want to help people in the community who need a helping hand from the rest of us. But they also want to make sure that at the end of the day the money hasn't just been put out there in the vague hope that it's done some good, with nobody really knowing.

It seems to me that one of the things we might think about, Mr. Chairman, is having those evaluations made by people in the community that is affected, not directly in the organizations involved, but working with them rather than having a faraway bureaucratic evaluation. So maybe that's something we can develop. I do appreciate the witness' comments on that.

The Chair: Bryon Wilfert, and then if it's okay, I'll go to Libby Davies, Bonnie Brown, and then Paul Crête.

So it's Bryon Wilfert.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert (Oak Ridges, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, thank you, and thanks to our presenters.

I've said in the last few weeks, Mr. Chairman, that it's too bad we didn't have some of these presentations earlier than we did, because they do add more of a context to what the impact has been in the field.

I think it's regrettable that after we get through all the political rhetoric and all of the innuendoes that have been made in the last few months, we come down to the issue of people and to the problem that there has developed over the last while, in my view, a culture of strangulation in terms of process. This strangulation is being seen at the community level.

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As one who has been involved with one organization and on their board for 15 years as a volunteer and as one who has dealt with governments in trying to get money for the organization, which in my case is the Government of Ontario, and then organizations, such as the United Way, that are made up of community members who would come in and do an evaluation of the organization... It's absolutely correct, Mr. Chairman, that they are extremely bureaucratic. You don't have to be government to be bureaucratic. The United Way is extremely bureaucratic when they ask you all of the ins and outs. For 15 years I've been answering the questions as to the dollar issue.

I'll just mention that next year is the International Year of the Volunteer, interestingly enough. I was just asked to be the honorary chair in my community for this particular...

How ironic, we're asking volunteers to be on boards and to help administer dollars. How ironic, they're asking volunteers to participate in organizations and to deal with dollars and to administer programs.

I'm somewhat disconcerted to hear that you feel you're more of a service provider. There's no question that we want transparency and accountability, but you mentioned the need for balance. The problem is that a lot of what we've read and seen in the media in the last while has unfortunately turned people away. In my own community it has turned away not only people who would contribute normally, but also volunteers. We don't need this. I have a job and work 40 or 50 hours a week. I come to volunteer, and all I'm getting is grief. I don't need this. This is not what I want.

You mentioned that better assessment tools are required. Through the chairman, I'd like you to expand on that. I'd also like you to expand on the issue that there's all this front-end activity, and then there seems to be a big black hole. You talked about coming along later after it has been completed. The issue in the middle, I think, is how do you do effective monitoring without gumming up the works in terms of getting what you need done?

You commented that you're owed $500,000 from HRDC. You received $50,000. You're not sure if you're going to be able to make the payroll and other things. If that's the result of what has happened over the last six months, then we all have done a great disservice, in my view, to those organizations that in fact... We're trying to recognize that there is a problem, but at the same time there has been a retrenchment. I've seen it in my own community, and I know it's happening in others. There has been a retrenchment by officials who are now afraid of their own shadow and therefore aren't doing anything.

Perhaps you could elaborate on some of those.

One organization in my community that I have dealt with regularly is York South Association for Community Living, so I know all about community living. I know what they do. But I also hear the same concerns, that at the end of the day personnel cuts, loss of corporate members, all of those things mean that sometimes they go in and it's somebody different from week to week. Stress leave is up. People are stressed out.

The Chair: They have about three minutes to reply to this, Bryon. I'm just pointing that out to you.

Mrs. Diane Ablonczy: Not that you're not eloquent, Bryon.

Mr. Bryon Wilfert: I'm just trying to put some of those issues on the table.

Anyway, through you, Mr. Chairman—as always in deference to the chair—

The Chair: Thank you, but grovelling doesn't help.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

The Chair: You have about three minutes, if you would.

Ms. Diane Richler: I think one big point is that HRDC is overwhelmingly affected by the culture that came from the previous Department of Employment and Immigration. There's a very strong culture and an emphasis on job creation, and for areas like ours, which are much more oriented to social development, the model doesn't work.

I think it's really important that the distinction be made between the funding side of the department and the activities in the department that are much more oriented toward community and social development and also, say in our case, promoting the citizenship of people with disabilities, following up on policies that have been set by Parliament, and not getting locked into the kinds of assessment tools that fit another environment and another model. I think it may not be a case of one tool fitting the entire department. I would certainly caution against that.

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The Chair: Al Hatton.

Mr. Al Hatton: Do I just have about 12 seconds?

The Chair: You still have about two minutes.

Mr. Al Hatton: I think that's really important, Bryon, in the sense that when most organizations go for a grant or go before the board, they're saying, this is what we want to do. Normally there's a series of objectives, a budget, a purpose, a clientele, and a timeframe. Most boards receive those. You're right, if they get money from the United Way, it's even more rigorous. If they get money from a foundation, it's actually less rigorous. But foundations now, more than any other place, are, I think, focusing on outcomes, because they're overwhelmed with more requests and less capacity than government collectively. So the tools are out there.

The Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been working on quality-of-life index measures. The CPRN is experimenting with this whole thing in terms of best practice, best policy, and best mix of practice and theory. The Public Policy Forum is engaged in a process with leaders of the voluntary sector and the private sector in looking at new measurement outcome instruments. They're being developed.

On a macro level there's lots of activity. Because it's so big, we get overwhelmed. I would argue that if the government worked more with communities, with boards, and with staff, they could design those pretty simple outcome measures. If it's a huge project, it will be more complex, and if it's a simple project, it will be simpler. Tailor it to the amount of money, the timeframe, and what you're trying to do. If it's a community development process, it's very challenging. If it's a straight program to do something specific with a clientele, I think it's possible.

The other thing is that 2001 is the International Year of the Volunteer, and we are preparing for that by organizing the sector at the same time as the volunteers, because unless this point of infrastructure and capacity...

I remember back 10 years ago when the private sector was saying to the government, help us create the environment where we can do business globally, locally, and nationally to the best of our ability. We're saying the same thing in the private sector, that is, create the environment and support the infrastructure of organizations and communities so that they will be able to strengthen themselves. The more we have project fundings that are very limited, the less we're doing that. We need that, but we also need the other thing thought through.

The big sacrifice in all of this business is that because that's a bit softer, the government is sort of retrenching. I think that's a critical issue to the health of organizations to continue to respond to new challenges. That is a critical point that I think this committee has to make back to the centre. This will resonate with most people. The other stuff looks really good, but it's not the thing that's substantively going to make for better programs and better services over time.

The Chair: Next is Libby Davies, followed by Bonnie Brown and Paul Crête.

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

First of all, I'd like to say to both witnesses that I thought you made excellent presentations that really hit a number of issues right on the head. There were very good comments from the perspective of community services and community organizations.

I think there is a sense of frustration. There's no question that there are some very serious problems within this department. What I find difficult is that everything gets lumped under the same blanket, and it's as if rigor mortis has set in. I know that from the feedback I'm getting in my own community in east Vancouver, where we have very active non-profit organizations and a long history of working in partnership with various levels of government. All of a sudden everything's under a stranglehold.

I think part of the job we have to take on is to separate this. I know I have issues with where some of this money went and how decisions were made, not at the community level but right here at the top. Where did some of these big bucks go? How did money end up in Wal-Mart? Is that a good decision? So my beef is not with the—

Mr. Larry McCormick (Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, Lib.): I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. Just on that, in a friendly way, no money went from HRD to Wal-Mart. I know that—

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes, they got a $500,000 grant.

Mr. Larry McCormick: No, they didn't.

Ms. Libby Davies: A contract?

Mr. Larry McCormick: But not to Wal-Mart.

Ms. Libby Davies: Well, however you choose to claim it—

Mr. Larry McCormick: I just think there's a difference.

Ms. Libby Davies: There are issues about where those funds went. I want to be clear that from the perspective of New Democrats, we're very supportive of the idea and the implementation of government playing a critical role in working with communities at a local level, a grassroots level, to promote job development and community service.

• 1200

In fact, Mr. Hatton, one little issue I would take you on about is that we use this word “dependency”, and I think it's actually a really negative word.

The idea of government using public funds to support community initiatives that can't be bought or sold in the marketplace is totally legitimate, but I think we buy into this whole notion that we're all dependent. Yes, we do strive for our own self-sufficiency as community organizations, and we look for ways to do that, but as for the idea that somehow if you get government money you're dependent, I think we actually have to make sure we don't get caught up in our rhetoric on that. It's a legitimate role for government.

But I totally agree with both of you when you talk about the need to have community involvement, real transparency in decision-making, and a monitoring that involves the community as a partner, not just as some sort of service provider that you can cut off at will.

There's one question I have. As we wade our way through this and try to figure out where there's good stuff that we can actually build on and where things really need to be changed, one thing strikes me when I look at the history of some of these programs. I remember the days back in the 1970s when there actually were local committees that advised the MP on where various job creation funds should go. I'll tell you, they were tough committees to get through, because it was like going through your peers. Those local people knew whether the money was being spent properly or not. They would actually recommend to local Canada Manpower staff, as it was called then, and to the local MP, where some of those dollars should go.

I would be interested in your comments about whether or not we should be looking at those kinds of mechanisms, following up on Diane's comments about how you can have all the paperwork you want, but unless there's some meaningful role in terms of decision-making, not just at the top but right at the grassroots, I think we're going to just keep going on with this debate forever.

Anything you can provide in terms of your suggestions or experience is, I think, very helpful to the committee in sorting these issues out, building on the strengths we have, and then really focusing on where the problems are.

The Chair: As I understand it, Al will comment.

Mr. Al Hatton: There are a couple of things.

That's a very good point, that first point about treating everything the same. I think there's a big difference in going into a high-risk venture in an area where you're creating jobs and where there isn't an infrastructure—economic, social, cultural, and community—that supports that. That's one thing. I think we need rules for that and we need one kind of monitoring. Ongoing organizational development that's complementing a whole series of things in a community is a totally different kettle of fish. We're using one instrument and treating them the same—so that would be one suggestion.

Second, thank you for clarifying the point about dependency. In fact, what I was trying to say was that you can flow money on an ongoing basis to groups without creating dependency or you can give them money and make them so dependent that when you leave they're dead or very quickly strangled—great word. It's a process of understanding community.

In regard to your last point about committees, about bringing in a local committee that would work with an MP, there were some good ones and bad ones. Again, I think it's the community assessing what is going on in a local community. In regard to your regional offices of HRDC, you have some staff there, the good ones, who are connected to the community. They know the key actors.

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes.

Mr. Al Hatton: They know the MP. Frankly, they know what's going on in the community. They know when everybody says “That person's a loser. We may have elected him, but the person's a loser.” Again, assessing what's going on in the community, tapping into the resources, and getting people to work together: if that's the theory, you're not going to make very many mistakes, you know.

Ms. Diane Richler: If I may, I will just add one point. I was really happy to hear your comments in terms of recognizing the role of government in supporting activities like the ones we're involved in. I have not read one thing about that in the press.

• 1205

We've been feeling that we're being brushed with the same stroke as the few organizations that have been involved in wrongdoing. We've been very sensitive about wanting to make public statements on the issues, because we didn't want to look as if we were self-serving. Saying “Oh, it's really important for the federal government to spend that money, because without it I wouldn't have a job” doesn't sound very good.

Proportionately, the emphasis has been so much on the few examples of abuse and not so much on the strengths and weaknesses of the overwhelming proportion of the department's grants and contributions spending and how that can be rejigged. The negativity about the HRDC funding is starting to spill over into other areas, so we are seeing negative reactions from the public towards supporting organizations such as ours, and we're really worried about what that's going to mean for the future.

The Chair: Thank you.

Bonnie Brown, then Paul Crête, and then Larry McCormick and Rey Pagtakhan.

Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.): I have several questions, but some of them won't take a long answer.

I'm interested in Ms. Richler's comments about the social policy development capability of the department and what she sees as the overemphasis on the whole employment side and the lack of emphasis on social development and social policy development.

Did I understand you correctly when you said that?

Ms. Diane Richler: It's not just the emphasis on employment; it's an emphasis on an old model of employment. What I know is the field of disabilities, and the reality is people with a disability want to work. The problem is the current models are models that were designed to deal with issues such as regional disparity and issues that don't touch on why people with disabilities aren't working. So what's happening is funding programs exist that don't necessarily respond to what's happening.

I participated in a meeting yesterday with officials of HRDC, and I think there's recognition on the part of both the community and officials of the department that despite investments in this area, we really haven't made a difference in the number of people with disabilities working.

So my problem is not that employment shouldn't be an issue. The problem is we need people who understand social development and who are coming from a particular perspective to help develop the kinds of programs that are going to have an impact, rather than simply thinking we can use a model that works for the fisheries or another economic sector and apply that to people who are disadvantaged, such as people with a disability.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: In your view, Diane, do you think the department is too big? In other words, would you prefer to see it split? Say the part of the department that deals with the private sector would be on its own, with special responsibilities that way, and the part that deals with the non-profit sector would be over here. Or maybe it could be according to client groups, and we could have a department that deals with seniors and all their needs, which would include all the entitlement programs, such as CPP and OAS; another section for children; and another section for the general workforce.

In a general sense, do you think the department is too big to handle these large questions of general employment for the able-bodied workforce, which is the vast majority, and then try to deal sensitively with other groups, such as seniors, who are never going to be employed, or the disabled, who are not going to be employed in the traditional sense of the word but in another particular way?

Ms. Diane Richler: There are a number of potential answers to your question.

First of all, the department is very big. One of the problems for people with a disability is certainly getting lost in the department.

I don't have a new organizational chart to present to you in terms of what possible splits would be, but one thing I would definitely advise against is this. We don't want to see disability as an issue put into a silo so that people with a disability are just treated separately. If we're talking about employment, there has to be thought about how people with a disability can be employed. If we're talking about children, then there have to be issues affecting children with a disability. If we're talking about foreign affairs, then we need to be thinking about the impact on people with disabilities.

• 1210

Ms. Bonnie Brown: But my question is, if I may interrupt, do you think children with disabilities would be able to negotiate the system better if there was a section that was just for the needs of children, able and disabled, or employment, able-bodied or disabled?

Ms. Diane Richler: I do think there is a problem with the size of the department. I think there's a problem with the emphasis being on human resources development, which is specifically an employment focus that detracts from the social development focus that might be put on issues like those affecting children and families in a different structure.

Mr. Al Hatton: Bonnie, can I respond to that?

Ms. Bonnie Brown: I had another question for you.

Mr. Al Hatton: That's fine. Then I'll respond to it after I answer your other question.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: You can put it into your next answer.

As you know, this situation we're trying to live through is actually, in my view, a microcosm or a snapshot of the larger political debate that is beginning to take place in this country, which is between those who feel government should be smaller and therefore citizens should pay fewer taxes to sponsor that government and government should do less; and those who feel government has a strong legitimate role to play, particularly in redistribution of income and redistribution of opportunity to those who just naturally weren't born with all the abilities everybody else has.

So that's why it dismayed me when you said your members, who are many, have been silent during this debate because they didn't want to get caught up in all this talk about accountability, which you believe in. When government spends money, people should be accountable for it. I think it's one thing that unites us around this table.

But the fact is this debate is now emerging as an example of the larger debate. Do you think your members will continue to be silent during that debate, in fear of losing funding from perhaps a smaller government that might emerge? Or do you not feel they should be participating and pointing out to people that it isn't just the Wal-Mart example, which everybody would be against, but rather, it is the services in their own communities to the disabled, to the illiterate, to all these various groups of people who would not get services if government did not participate? What is your prediction about their silence or vocal participation in the debate that's coming?

Mr. Al Hatton: I think as the hysteria—which may be too strong a word—has subsided, now people can be thoughtful and I think deal with some real issues. In fact I think what citizens are saying, what a lot of the groups are saying, is we want good government—not smaller government, not bigger government, we want better government. We want the same thing from government that government wants from people, that corporations and stockholders want from business, and on and on. So accountability is important. That's one thing.

The second is that I think more and more, as the effect of this on organizations is hitting, because we went around and said the impact of this... Some of us are closer to what's going on in government than are many, many organizations, which in fact are not dependant on government, which don't need government except if bad regulations come. They don't get a lot of money from government. A lot of the big health charities get almost nothing from government. Many organizations have found a myriad of other ways, either self-funded things, foundations, donations, whatever.

So we have been trying to say the impact of this is going to be significant on you over time and on your community. Now that's starting to hit. The example that Diane has—there are thousands of them. But people are still trying to work within the system because they don't know what to do about it. It's such a big—I don't want to use the word I was going to use—machine that they don't know how to tap into it and find out what's really going on. So you make a pile of phone calls. Then you get desperate. You might phone your MP.

So I think in fact this is going to change. You're going to see us weighing in on this debate. It's going to be about the effect on people and on services. Up to now, do you know what? The press haven't wanted to hear about the effect on people and services. It's been about some political stuff and some media stuff, and I think that's going to change.

• 1215

One other little thing, Peter, is I think we made a big mistake in the changes in government, because what we did was lose the social. We took Health and Welfare, we took EI, Employment and Immigration and Citizenship, which were together, and put Citizenship in Secretary of State. We had Health and Welfare. We went to Health and we dropped Welfare. Where did it go? It was tucked in under HRDC. Frankly, it was lost in the shuffle.

There's no big debate in this country about the future of social programs and social development. It isn't happening. It's about economics and about tackling individual problems. A holistic approach we're not dealing with. So that is a challenge, and whether this department is big or small is less germane I think than what is the social vision we have and what's our community vision about healthy communities in the future.

The Chair: I appreciate that.

We're going to go to Paul Crête. Can I guess what the word was that you were going to use instead of machine? Was it monster?

Mr. Al Hatton: Yes.

The Chair: Thank you.

Paul Crête.

[Translation]

Paul Crête.

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): I agree with you when you say that the media focused only on the money that was frittered away under the job creation programs. When you find that $700,000 was given out and wasted instead of helping to create jobs, you just cannot get away from that. It is not by sweeping it under the rug that you will be able to rectify this type of situation.

I would like to ask both of you what you would do if, tomorrow, you were Minister of Human Resources Development, in order to restore the department's credibility without weakening the prospects of the organization that you head and for which you are presently working. What actions would you take as Minister in order to be able to say, within six months or a year, that changes have been introduced, that a radically new approach has been taken in order to put behind us the inefficiencies brought about by the fact that the results of the 1991, 1994 and 1999 internal audits were not completely implemented?

[English]

Mr. Al Hatton: The first thing I'd do is sit down with the key stakeholders and say “We have a problem; we need more emphasis on results. How do we begin together, officials in my department, the parties in government, and this standing committee, to come up with a much better way to solve this problem?” And I think the minister and the department would get very sound, practical advice.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane Richler: I agree entirely, but I do not believe that this is something that can be solved in six months' time. I believe that changes have occurred over the last few years and that the public sector needs to be strengthened. This, however, will require both time and money.

Mr. Paul Crête: Do you think that the department is under- funded?

Ms. Diane Richler: We have had cuts in staffing. We currently do not even have enough staff to review the files. Under the circumstances, we should not blame people for not doing their job since it was simply impossible for them to do so. Say, for example, that you have ten large projects to review. It just cannot be done.

We have people who have master's degrees occupying positions of great responsibility but having to type up draft letters on their computers, to make copies, to prepare check requisitions, in other words to do everything by themselves. You cannot expect people to perform miracles.

Mr. Paul Crête: I would like to go back to an idea put forward by Ms. Brown, an idea which, I believe, bears further reflection. I am talking about dividing the department.

The department of Human Resources Development has been given a number of very different mandates which, before 1993, were entrusted to several departments. There have been repercussions such as when the department was pressured to bring as much money as possible into the employment insurance account. We have focused on the investigations into this matter, perhaps to the detriment of a number of other service streams.

• 1220

Should we not try to resolve this situation by making sure that our administrative units do not exceed a certain size and, most especially, that they come under the appropriate department? A job creation program whose aim is to help diversify the economy in a given region is entirely different from a program whose aim is to help handicapped people.

Do you not think that this approach would yield more interesting results? Would you yourself be in favor of such an approach?

Ms. Diane Richler: I think you are right. But I also agree with what Mr. Hatton was saying earlier on how important it is for the people working in a given field to have some input when it comes to analyzing the problem. What we have seen in the past, since the creation of the department of Human Resources Development, is ad hoc planning.

I remember a dinner we had with the Minister of National Health and Welfare to discuss the cooperation between the two departments. He was not even aware of the issue. A week later, a new department was being set up. You would have to examine the various possible avenues and I think that in that regard this committee has a role to play.

[English]

Mr. Al Hatton: And perhaps the only other thing, Paul, is that in a sense we need to decide what it is we want to do and then figure out the instruments, the structures, the departments, that are going to carry that out. I think what we had in HRDC was the bringing together of many cultures for many different purposes, and even though now they have a general mission statement and a business plan, it's like horses running in different directions.

That's huge. It's a huge structure, and I think it has to be reassessed on the basis of what is it we want. As we move into the next millennium, what are our priorities as a country? We may change the structure, but I think it's still unclear where we're going. I'd be very nervous about building a new structure or breaking it up when we're not clear about where we're going. That may work for Microsoft, I'm not sure it's going to work for the government.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Hatton, what you say is interesting. I think it serves to illustrate the fact that at the beginning no such analysis was done and no one even questioned whether the way the department of Human Resources Development was being structured was suited to the needs of its target population. Various activities were merged to reduce the number of departments in response to budgetary constraints. Now we should begin by defining present needs and then look at the kind of organizational solutions that are available.

This, however, comes about at a time when the department's credibility greatly needs to be restored. The people who are most suffering from the current situation are probably those who depend on the department's services and who are presently working for organizations who bear no responsibility for any of this. There have been quite a number of situations that are unacceptable and that need to be straightened out.

Ms. Diane Richler: That is an important point. This department is the result of a very explicit political decision. That is exactly what Ms. Brown was saying. The first indication that this department was to be set up occurred in a speech given by the Minister of National Health and Welfare before the OECD. The aim was clearly to pare down social programs in order to focus on a policy that would be geared more to economic development.

It would be worthwhile, I believe, to reexamine the reasons underlying the creation of this department. The issue was never publicly debated. The decisions that have guided this country's programs since then were made behind closed doors.

• 1225

[English]

The Chair: Next will be Larry McCormick, Rey Pagtakhan, then the chair.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and to our witnesses for being here.

I want to ask Diane a specific question. You mentioned that you've gotten a little bit of money for this year, your fiscal year, but you have a lot of money owing from last year. I may have missed this, but someone else mentioned $500,000 and you've got $50,000. Was this money from the previous year approved, as far as you know, by HRD?

Ms. Diane Richler: I'll give you an example. This is all on approved grants, for which normally we would get an advance. We do some work, send in a report, and then get another advance. But because of the backlog now in the system, I can think of one project, for example, where we sent in a financial report, and it wasn't even looked at for six weeks. Then at that point, because of some of the new regulations that were being put into place, we were asked for additional financial information.

We had projected in our cashflow about $150,000 in February. We still haven't received it. We've spent the money.

Mr. Larry McCormick: I appreciate your clarifying that for me. I know one of the opposition parties has left... We all want transparency and we want people to be looking after our tax dollars. I've repeated this before and I'm sure I will again, but I hear the same questions almost every day in the House asking for some invoices on one particular file, and we repeat it and repeat it, and then after question period is finished you see people from that same party come over to lobby the minister to process something. And who's suffering? It's the innocent people and, of course, the people with great needs.

When you talk to HRD, what do you hear about when funding will return to normal?

You even mentioned that you had a round table with some other people. But at any round table you might have today, I would think this could come up, the funding, where it normally wouldn't, because you're tied in such a straitjacket here today.

Ms. Diane Richler: It's a little bit like living in a Kafka book, because things keep changing. On one initiative, before all of this happened, we had been working since last September to make sure there would be no gap between March 31 and April 1 and funding would continue. But it seems that every time we satisfy a requirement, there's something new that has to be done, and so there's a further delay.

So I don't know, and I can't get anybody to tell me.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Mr. Chair, I believe the Minister of Human Resources Development is appearing in front of this committee two days from now, and I'm sure I may repeat the same question as I had before, and that is, when are we going to return to some normal type of funding?

We had student summer employment programs. But with the small hat I wear on the government rural caucus... Again, I'll stress that there are great needs, as you people know, and I'm frustrated that we can't move along on some of this.

Al, have you any comments on this that I can use for ammunition when I lobby HRD?

Mr. Al Hatton: I think we're talking about a split personality that has been created in the department. What I observe is that at the upper levels they really want to try to continue a relationship with organizations, and they want to make sure people are in fact operating as closely as they can to business as usual.

The problem on the front line is that this is not the way it is. On the front line, we can't do anything until we get this stuff satisfied, and there are several questions that are now being asked of every organization for every project, some going back many years, and this is creating a huge problem.

So I think the intent of the department at the top is the spirit we're talking about. The reality is something very different on the ground. So there isn't one answer to that question, Larry; there are at least two.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Mr. Chair, I wonder whether our witnesses may not apply the same... but the six-point action plan that the minister has put forward. There's a lot of work being done on it. I know it's holding you up. But I wonder if you have any comments on that, as to whether you think it's framed at all well or fairly in regard to your facet of HRD?

• 1230

Ms. Diane Richler: If I can make a comment, first of all, I do want it on the record that the project officers with whom we're working are really trying their best. People have been working long hours; they've been working weekends. They're trying to help us. It's not as if they're deliberately putting up roadblocks, but they're being asked to fill out certain forms and to do things, and they need to comply, and things are being stopped as they go up the ladder if that doesn't happen.

But I think one of the problems—and this goes back to my earlier point about whether we're considered to be partners and working together or simply purveyors of service—is that I'm not sure there has been real thinking within the department about what's going to happen to the organizations that normally receive support from us if we suddenly stop. Thinking about our staff, if I suddenly decided not to pay people for six months and didn't tell them, there would be problems with mortgages and putting food on the table and things like that, and I would probably have to have some conversations before doing that.

We haven't had any dialogue like that, and there has been no attempt to sit down with organizations and try to work it through. It has been dealt with on a very ad hoc basis, I think with goodwill, with people saying they're going to try to get it through as quickly as possible, but then something comes from left field and there's another form that needs to be filled out, and so the money still doesn't arrive.

What I think we really need is some sense of joint problem-solving. From our point of view, we don't expect everything to be perfect overnight, but we need something—

Mr. Larry McCormick: To get on with it.

Ms. Diane Richler: —to help us, because the numbers are so important in terms of our overall budget.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Rey Pagtakhan.

Mr. Rey D. Pagtakhan (Winnipeg North—St. Paul, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think I have to tell Mr. Hatton and Ms. Richler that they're not alone. Several witnesses before the committee had indicated that damage may have been done to the very programming for this year and that in fact there should be caution, that focusing on the problems really without a comprehensive approach or solution is not the way to go. So you are not alone in that perception and in that assessment.

You indicated that you felt you were being brushed the same way, negatively. The negativity was spreading. You will recall that at one time in the history of the HRDC, last April, an interim report was issued, and the opposition of course made the decision that it would focus only on the negative aspects of the work of the committee. In fact it turned out that almost all the members of the opposition unanimously joined in one so-called opposition report, brushing aside everything on the negativity. There was a consensus in that by all political parties at the time the committee itself was still meeting on another piece of work, continuation of this work. So that's the type of frustration, as well, sitting on this committee.

So my question to you both is, very simply, should grants and contributions continue?

Ms. Diane Richler: Yes.

Mr. Al Hatton: Absolutely.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Second, that there ought to be indeed a focus on child development and social citizenship, and that both ought to continue as co-equal priorities of government.

Mr. Al Hatton: If you want simple answers, yes.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: I like that. I go for simple and direct answers.

You indicated that there ought to be good government. I would like to ask you, should good federal government—just to be clear that we are speaking of the federal government—continue to involve the role of the federal government in defining a social vision for the country, and not only giving money to the provinces without any strings attached?

Ms. Diane Richler: Sorry, the question is, should the government be involved—

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Should there be a continuing say by the federal government?

Ms. Diane Richler: Yes.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Mr. Hatton?

Mr. Al Hatton: Rey, I want to be more cautious on this, because if it's the federal government coming up with a vision that doesn't involve communities and doesn't engage the provinces, I think we have a problem. That having been said, I think the leadership to move for a more inclusive strategy, let's say a vision, for social development is absolutely critical.

• 1235

My other frustration is that the social union framework agreement process is bogged down in politics and money, and unless we can disassociate those two things from the reality of what goes on in communities and find new ways to engage both citizens and groups—

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: What is your prescription for that?

Mr. Al Hatton: Start from the bottom up, not the top down. The top down is going to the provinces and trying to negotiate an overall agreement.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: What is your vision of the bottom up? Should there be a conference of groups—

Mr. Al Hatton: Yes, you can do conferences and you can—

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: What if one political party objects to that, saying it's a waste of money?

Mr. Al Hatton: Such is life.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Okay.

Mr. Al Hatton: We're in a political system. Somebody always disagrees.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: No, no. I like to have it on record.

The other thing is, who should do the value-for-money audit versus the evaluation audit in terms of outcome results? Should the value-for-money audit be done by the department or should it be done by the Auditor General's office, as it is now?

Ms. Diane Richler: I don't think there's one simple answer for that either. I think part of the problem is that we're trying to fit so many round pegs into square holes and—

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: But we already have the Auditor General, the highest independent officer of Parliament, doing a value-for-money audit. Would you not agree that it is duplication of effort for any department to also do the so-called value-for-money audit?

Mr. Al Hatton: Normally I would guess yes. It's not my area of expertise, but I think this situation has become so dramatic and public that everybody is worried about it. So I'm more concerned that, as Diane and I were talking about before, okay, now we're through that, and there are lots of great ideas about how to make things administratively better, but how are we going to get to a point where there's more agreement around impact?

One of my concerns about the Auditor General, and even Treasury Board, is they still look at some of this stuff in a pretty narrow way, Rey. What we're saying is that this stuff is much more complicated, and that's why you have to involve people more, and the recipients, to get a better sense of what the total picture is, not just the administrative and bureaucratic approach. That is also necessary, but I think it's out of whack. I'm worried that the Auditor General and Treasury Board and Finance and Revenue all come from the same perspective. The other departments' perspective about development and a new way of doing business is in a sense put aside, and I think that's a critical problem.

So we need something a little more sophisticated, let's say.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: What do you think of trust in government and whistle-blower legislation?

Mr. Al Hatton: What was the last one?

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Whistle-blower. In other words, every employee can just whistle a complaint, anonymous but ad nauseam. In other words, there's complete freedom to say anything without any potential consequence of responsibility for saying that. How do you look at that?

Ms. Diane Richler: I'm really worried about the culture we're creating, both within government and within the country. I think that—

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: So you're opposed to it?

Ms. Diane Richler: I'm opposed to simplistic solutions like that. I think there does need to be much more focus on results, but I think it's not a simple process. I think it needs to be multifaceted.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: What is your prescription for this committee to come up with a consensus report?

The Chair: Very briefly. I don't mean very briefly the report, I mean a very brief response.

Mr. Al Hatton: Actually, it looks like you're getting along pretty well. There are pretty consistent questions of concern. Just keep working on that and maybe focus on some practical things you can all agree on that can move this thing forward, based on some of the things we and some other people have said. It seems to me even the opposition... I was expecting much more heat and hassles, and in fact we seemed to get some agreement.

Mr. Rey Pagtakhan: Should the focus be on the problems or on the solutions?

Mr. Al Hatton: Absolutely the solutions. We've heard enough about the problems. That's ad nauseam.

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

Ms. Diane Richler: If I could say one more thing about that, certainly the public perception is that the focus has been on a particular kind of problem, and I think the analysis really needs to highlight how much broader the work of the department is and that it's important to improve other aspects of the department that may not be under the microscope right now, but that are also very important.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, Rey.

Bonnie, very briefly, if you would.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: If we can go back to the previous conversation we were having, would you say that the public and some of us see HRDC as the social ministry of government, but that it's essentially operating in an economic paradigm with a mandate about getting people to work? If people see it as a social ministry, it seems to me it would be the ministry charged with assisting the most excluded, the most vulnerable of our citizens.

I'm going to give you an example of a vulnerable citizen. Let's take someone who is homeless, is addicted to a substance, and perhaps has a criminal record. Could this ministry, the way it is now mandated and structured, help such a person?

Ms. Diane Richler: Can I respond to that?

Ms. Bonnie Brown: I wanted Al to respond to it. Could I direct the question to you, Al?

Mr. Al Hatton: Yes.

I think what this really speaks to is a horizontal approach to solving problems. This is in fact what we're promoting in the voluntary sector, not to put our little political spin on this. Unless all departments start to work much more collaboratively... You're focused on HRDC. This is about something far more complex than that; it's about building strong communities.

The old Secretary of State had a citizenship department. It's almost bereft of resources and it has almost no staff in it. This is a reflection of what has evolved. Health probably has a huge role to play in support of that individual, and so do two or three other departments, but they don't necessarily work together.

We're in the voluntary sector now, involved in a much larger process with the federal government called Working Together. I'll send people a document we produced a few months ago, because it's going to lead to a whole large thing in the future.

I think we have to start looking at this in a more holistic way. What I would be doing is seeing how the social departments are working together in a new paradigm as opposed to—

Ms. Bonnie Brown: But can they, when one of them has an economic mandate?

Mr. Al Hatton: Yes, I think they can.

Ms. Bonnie Brown: You're a lot more optimistic about it than I am.

The Chair: Colleagues and witnesses, it's not that I wish to... To be fair to all members, if I keep giving people extra time, everyone will have extra time and we don't have that much time.

I want to thank you both very much. We do appreciate it, as you can tell. I liked your comment, Al, about the way the committee is working at the moment. It's a bit less confrontational than it was a few weeks ago.

One comment I would like to make is that we hear about audits of different types, but my concern is that at the moment, in most organizations, audits are viewed simply as some sort of punishment. It seems to me they should be more than that. They should be part of the way an organization develops and operates and improves itself. I hope whatever we do here, that will be the same.

I thank Al Hatton and Diane Richler both very much. We do appreciate it.

Colleagues, we meet again tomorrow. We have an additional meeting at 3:30, when we have the Minister of Labour and other witnesses. They'll be here, and that will be our regular time.

We then meet again on Thursday, and I want to say this with respect to Thursday's meeting. Because we don't have the numbers now, it is my intention to call the two notices of motion that are on the agenda at the beginning of Thursday's meeting. Libby, you should know that we called the others, which were in the name of the Alliance, but we didn't have a member of the NDP here at the time so we could not do so. Today we have not had the members to be able to do it. My intention is that at the beginning of the meeting on Thursday, we will call those notices of motion. Our principal witness on Thursday is the Honourable Jane Stewart.

Ms. Libby Davies: At the beginning of the meeting you're going to do that?

The Chair: Yes, it's my intention to do it at the beginning of the meeting.

By the way, that will be the last of our public hearings on this matter. We then proceed to the report. It is my suggestion that on Monday at one o'clock, at the end of the meeting with Jane Stewart—

A voice: Thursday.

The Chair: Excuse me, Thursday.

[Translation]

I am almost equally at home in English and in French.

[English]

At the end of that meeting, we will go in camera. At one o'clock we will have lunch. We will then spend some time looking at a draft outline of the report.

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Ms. Libby Davies: When is that?

The Chair: This is Thursday. So the vote will be early; there will be the witness, Jane Stewart; and then at one o'clock we will have lunch and we will circulate a draft point-form outline of the report.

[Translation]

Paul Crête.

Mr. Paul Crête: Mr. Chairman, I would like to make sure that we will have enough time to meet with the Minister. I would not like us to spend 30 or 45 minutes on the interesting motions put forward by Ms. Davies, since that would leave only 30 to 45 minutes to hear from the Minister. I believe the committee should devote the greater part of the meeting to the Minister. It will be our final chance to see her before drafting the final report. We have questions to put to her and comments to make. I do believe that this should be the principal focus of Thursday's meeting.

I do not know whether Ms. Davies has any suggestions concerning this or whether we should just make sure that the debate is relatively brief.

The Chairman: Yes, yes.

Mr. Paul Crête: In fact, all the members probably already have an idea on this and know whether we should or not meet with the groups in question. We would probably have been able to deal with the motions today.

[English]

The Chair: Libby Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies: We can't deal with them today, because there isn't a quorum.

The Chair: That's correct.

Ms. Libby Davies: Could we deal with them tomorrow?

The Chair: I would be quite glad.

Ms. Libby Davies: How about first up tomorrow?

The Chair: If there's a quorum and if the NDP are represented, I would be glad to call them tomorrow. It's a very good point.

If we are unable to do that tomorrow, it is not my intention to cut the minister's time short. So if these motions took a long time and we were to deal with them on Thursday, I would cut it off and we would go to the minister in order that we can get to our report before the break. Is that okay?

So colleagues, I'll rephrase it, then. I will call these motions tomorrow early in the meeting if there is a quorum; and failing that, what I said on Thursday. Okay?

The meeting is adjourned until 3:30 tomorrow, Wednesday.