SCYR Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Subcommittee on Children and Youth at Risk of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

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1540

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.))

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ)

The Chair

Mr. Doug Norris (Director General, Census and Demographic Statistics, Statistics Canada)

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1545

The Chair

Mr. Doug Norris

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1550

The Chair

Mr. Doug Norris

The Chair

Mr. Doug Norris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Stone (Acting Director, Division of Childhood and Adolescence, Department of Health)

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1555

Ms. Suzette Jeannotte (Programs  Coordinator, Quebec Children's Unit, Quebec Region, Population and Public Health Branch, Department of Health)

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1600

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1605

The Chair

Mr. Gary Ledoux (Regional Director, Manitoba/Saskatchewan Region, Population and Public Health Branch, Department of Health)

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1610

The Chair

Mr. Richard Budgell (Manager, Division of Childhood and Adolescence, Aboriginal Childhood and Youth, Centre for Healthy Human Development, Population and Public Health Branch, Department of Health)

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance)

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1615

Mr. Gary Ledoux

Mr. Larry Spencer

Mr. Gary Ledoux

Mr. Larry Spencer

The Chair

Mr. Richard Budgell

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1620

Mr. Larry Spencer

Mr. Gary Ledoux

Mr. Larry Spencer

Mr. Gary Ledoux

The Chair

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ)

The Chair

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

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1625

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Libby Davies

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1630

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Stone

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Kelly Stone

Ms. Libby Davies

Ms. Kelly Stone

The Chair

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1635

Ms. Kelly Stone

Mr. Richard Budgell

The Chair

Mr. Gary Ledoux

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

Mr. Doug Norris

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Doug Norris

Ms. Anita Neville

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1640

Mr. Gary Ledoux

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Gary Ledoux

Ms. Anita Neville

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1645

Mr. Gary Ledoux

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.)

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Richard Budgell

Mr. Alan Tonks

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1650

Mr. Gary Ledoux

Mr. Alan Tonks

The Chair

Mr. Richard Budgell

The Chair

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1655

Mr. Richard Budgell

The Chair

Mr. Richard Budgell

The Chair

Mr. Richard Budgell

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Stone

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

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1700

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

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CANADA

Subcommittee on Children and Youth at Risk of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

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NUMBER 004

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, January 29, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

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

[Translation]

    First of all, on behalf of the committee, I would like to thank Monique Guay for her participation. She has been of great assistance to us and we are really sorry to see her go.

    Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Mr. Chairman, I really enjoyed working with the entire team; nevertheless, I am pleased to introduce you to the new member of the committee, Sébastien Gagnon, who has just been elected. He has an aboriginal reserve in his riding. He also has a young baby. He is, therefore, very interested in the issue.

[English]

    The Chair: Merci bien.

    While Ms. Neville is settling herself, let me give everybody, including Monsieur Gagnon, a quick overview of the work of the committee.

    As you can see by the title, we are not restricted to looking at aboriginal children. In fact, we are not restricted to children. We deal with youth as well. We decided over a year ago that we would undertake a series of studies dealing with aboriginal children. We see this as a four-parter, of which we've already done one, which was a study of aboriginal children between the ages of zero and six on reserve. That study, which came out in June, has already had a significant impact, I think, on public policy. We've seen official responses, very positive ones, from the government. It went extremely well.

    The study we're launching with your help today focuses on the same population, zero to six, but off reserve. Of course, we're now going from the known to the unknown. Whereas on reserve there was far more direct participation by the Government of Canada through Health Canada, DIAND, and HRDC, now we're into a more nebulous zone, as you all know.

[Translation]

    For Mr. Gagnon's benefit, I will now switch to French. I am hoping that we will complete the current study by June. We have scheduled two other studies on children, one which deals with children between the ages of 6 and 12 and who live on reserves, and the other on children in the same age group, but who live off reserve. Our work is well under way.

    I am very happy to have you with us and I would like to congratulate you on your election.

[English]

    Let's start, then. Today we begin with the big picture, and then we start to get into more of the detail.

    I would ask Mr. Doug Norris, the director general of the census and demographic statistics section of Statistics Canada, to make some opening remarks about the population we're beginning to look at.

    Mr. Norris, welcome.

    Mr. Doug Norris (Director General, Census and Demographic Statistics, Statistics Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    What I'd like to do in the next few moments is to give you some context and background on the demographics of young aboriginal children living off reserve. These data come from the most recent census information collected in 2001, which was released just last week. At this point we basically have the information on the demographics. Other information on the families of these children, such as labour market, income, and education characteristics of family members, will be coming available over the next three or four months.

    I will be going through five or six charts, which I believe members have, and I'll just touch on some of the highlights. The first one shows that the census counted just under 150,000 aboriginal children between the ages of zero and six. You can see that about a third of these children, about 50,000, were actually on reserve, while two-thirds, or 100,000, lived off reserve.

    I've given you there the breakdown between urban CMAs... I apologize for the acronym. CMA is census metropolitan area, which is our large cities of 100,000 or more. Smaller urban areas are what I've called urban non-CMAs, and then the smaller rural areas are the remainder. You can see the breakdown for those three areas, with a reasonable spread across all three.

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    The Chair: Just one point of detail so that we're operating from the same set of definitions. The census speaks of aboriginal children. Give me the definition of that.

    Mr. Doug Norris: Thank you for that question. The data I'm using here refer to children who have been reported as identifying themselves or whose parents, in this case, have identified them as an aboriginal child; that is, North American Indian, Métis, or Inuit. All three groups are included in the numbers. I have not broken down those numbers. That's something we could do. But for today it's the total.

    I'm going to focus mostly on the 100,000 off reserve, although for comparative purposes I've included some information on the on-reserve population as well as on the non-aboriginal population.

    The next chart shows the concentrations of young aboriginal children in the provinces. As we would expect, the highest concentrations are in the north, particularly in Nunavut, where 93% of children are aboriginal children. I think what's noteworthy is that in Manitoba and Saskatchewan over one in four children is an aboriginal child. That number has been increasing over the last number of censuses because of the very young aboriginal population, and I would expect that to continue to increase in the future. So a sizable proportion of the population, particularly in the western provinces, is made up of aboriginal children.

    The next slide shows that we have three different characteristics of children we're able to look at. The first is the proportion of the children age zero to six who were born to a teenage mother. We're able to do that because we have the age of the child and of the mother and can indirectly get back to the age at birth. If we look at the fourth bar, you can see that about 14% of the off-reserve aboriginal children age zero to six were born to a teenage mother, which is a much higher proportion than for the non-aboriginal population. There are some differences across the different regions, urban and rural. The numbers are slightly lower than the on-reserve count, where about 17% of those children living on reserve were born to teenage mothers.

    The next chart looks at the family status of those children at the time of the 2001 census. We've broken up family status into four groups: children living with two parents who are married; children living with two parents who are in a common-law relationship; children living with a single parent, and a great majority of those are with their mother, but there are a small number living with fathers in there; and children living with neither parent but rather with a grandparent, another relative, or a non-relative.

    If we focus on the purple-coloured bar, the first bar, we can see that 35% of the children are living with two parents who are married and an additional 23% with two parents who are living in a common-law relationship. So about half the children are living with two parents. Those living with a single parent total 37%, and 5% are living with some other relative or a non-relative.

    There aren't large differences between the on-reserve and off-reserve, although there are some, but there are big differences between the aboriginal children and the non-aboriginal children. For example, 70% of the non-aboriginal children are living with two married parents, with an additional 15% living with two parents in a common-law relationship. So 85% are living with two parents versus the 50% or so for young aboriginal children. The numbers there were included to give you an idea of the number of children involved in this kind of family situation.

    On the next slide I've broken down that data by the three areas: the large cities, the smaller cities, and the rural areas. If we focus on the single parent columns, we can see that it's in the large cities where the highest proportion of young children are living with a single parent. Forty-five percent of all children living in our big cities are living with a single parent, again generally their mother. An additional 5% are living with neither parent but rather with another relative or a non-relative. So it's split about 50-50. Levels are a little bit lower in the smaller urban areas. The rural areas have the highest proportion of children living with both parents.

    The final characteristic we're able to look at at this point is the mobility of aboriginal children. The aboriginal population, as we know from other studies, is very mobile, with a much higher rate of moving around than the non-aboriginal population. Here I've displayed the proportion of aboriginal children age one to six who have moved in the year prior to the census. That's one of the mobility measures.

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    For example, if we look at the first set of bars for the big cities, if we combine the blue and the green, we find that some 35% of aboriginal children--that is, one in three--have actually changed their residence in the 12-month period. The blue part shows that one in ten have moved from one city to another or perhaps from a reserve to the city. The green part shows that people have moved within the city; that is, within the urban area. You can see that compared to the non-aboriginal population, there is a much higher level of mobility. There are slightly higher levels of mobility in the smaller urban areas, where nearly 40% of children aged one to six have moved in the 12 months, with levels of mobility much lower in the rural and non-reserve areas. So there is a high level of mobility with aboriginal children and more generally with the aboriginal population.

    We looked at the flows; that is, where people are moving from and to. I haven't included that chart here. It turns out that there's a high level of people moving in various directions to various other areas. When you net that out, there is relatively little change. There was a little bit of gain in the cities and on reserve, interestingly enough. The actual numbers showed more children moving to reserve than from reserve, although it's a very small difference. I think what's striking is the turnover, or what is sometimes called the churn, of aboriginal young people moving around. Of course, that has implications for service delivery, schooling, and the delivery of programs.

    I think I'll leave it at that for now. Hopefully that has given you some of the basic demographic information. I'd certainly be happy to answer questions on that later.

    The Chair: I have one technical question on the last point you made. If there were a regular movement from reserve to city that was seasonal, how would that be reflected in your statistics?

    Mr. Doug Norris: That would be hard for us to pick up. We know where the child was on census day, May 2001, and we know they made a move in the year before. So we know that they were in a different location 12 months before. It's possible that there could have been several moves within the 12-month period. We can't pick that up. All we're picking up is that there was at least one. If, for example, a child left the reserve, went to the city, and went back to the reserve, all in a 12-month period, we're going to miss that because we're just looking at the beginning and end points, which in that case would still be the reserve. So it may actually underestimate the mobility.

    The Chair: On the other hand, if it were seasonal that would be a scrub, because you'd pick in the same season.

    Mr. Doug Norris: That's right.

    The Chair: We welcome, from Health Canada, Kelly Stone, Director, Division of Childhood and Adolescence, Population and Public Health Branch.

    Ms. Kelly Stone (Acting Director, Division of Childhood and Adolescence, Department of Health): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I'm sorry that my boss, Claude Rocan, was unable to be with us this afternoon. He certainly would have appreciated the opportunity to address the committee.

    Anyway, thank you for inviting us to speak to you about Health Canada's programming for aboriginal children, age zero to six, living off reserve. I have also invited today Suzette Jeannotte, program manager from the Quebec regional office, and Gary Ledoux, the regional director in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. I'm also joined by Richard Budgell, the manager of the aboriginal head start program, who has previously addressed the committee. I also have an evaluation analyst in the audience, Amy Bell, a specialist in this area, who should be able to answer any questions I cannot answer on the community action program for children or the prenatal nutrition program.

    Today we're going to describe what Health Canada is doing in partnership with other governments, federal departments, and aboriginal communities and organizations to coordinate our delivery of programs for aboriginal children off reserve. I'm going to present only a brief overview of our national children's program, and then turn it over to Suzette and Gary. They will give short presentations on how these Health Canada early childhood programs are delivered at the community level within their respective regions.

    As you well know, the Government of Canada has long played a major role in supporting Canadian families and their children through a variety of mechanisms, including investments in early childhood development and income supplement and community-based programs and research. Health Canada has a number of preventative, community-based programs that are designed to reach children at risk. These programs support the healthy development of children, including off-reserve aboriginal children age zero to six. The programs are delivered through partnerships, which are established at the community level, often through a coalition of a number of service providers.

    The Health Canada programs specifically aimed at vulnerable children are the community action program for children, the Canada prenatal nutrition program, and of course the aboriginal head start in urban and northern communities.

    Our community programs are designed to support the healthy development of children. Projects under the community action program for children, or CAPC, as we call it, provide parents with the support and the information they need to raise their children. The Canada prenatal nutrition program, CPNP, aims to reduce the incidence of unhealthy birth weights, improve the health of both infant and mother, and encourage breastfeeding.

    In these cases, administrative protocols set out all the terms and conditions of how CAPC and CPNP are managed in each province and territory. It's a partnership between the provinces, territories, and the Government of Canada.

    Aboriginal organizations, including friendship centres and Métis organizations, are often an important part of the coalition of community service providers at these CAPC and CPNP project sites. Our CAPC and CPNP program evaluations are providing us with really valuable information in a number of key areas, including the extent to which aboriginal organizations are involved in service delivery. Our recent data suggest that a number of CPNP programs are delivered from agency band council offices, or are located at friendship centres.

    As you can see in slide 7, significant CAPC and CPNP funding is going to aboriginal populations in several provinces and territories. For example, over 22% of the 35,000 participants in off-reserve CPNP projects were aboriginal, ranging from 94% in the Northwest Territories, 81% in Saskatchewan, 57% in Manitoba, down to 23% in B.C.

    The committee members are, or course, very familiar with aboriginal head start and the programming for urban and northern communities. It was recently awarded an additional $12.5 million through the ECD strategy for first nations and other aboriginal children, bringing its total budget now to $35 million.

    We currently serve 3,500 preschool aboriginal children and their parents. With the new funding, we hope we can make space for an additional 1,000 children, bringing the total participation up to 4,500 children and families. This is at a per child cost to the Government of Canada, or to the federal system, of $7,700 annually.

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[Translation]

    We would now like to give the committee an opportunity to hear the regional perspective. Presentations from two regions, Quebec and Manitoba, will enable us, among other things, to touch on the issue of harmonizing federal programs with those of the provinces and territories and will provide examples of partnerships that are forming in the communities.

    I will now turn the floor over to Suzette Jeannotte, who is the representative from our regional office in Quebec.

    Ms. Suzette Jeannotte (Programs  Coordinator, Quebec Children's Unit, Quebec Region, Population and Public Health Branch, Department of Health): Thank you, Kelly. I am going to be giving you the perspective of certain children's programs in Quebec. I will be talking about the CAPC, which is the Community Action Program for Children, the CPNP, which is the Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program and, finally, the AHS, which is the Aboriginal Headstart Program.

    In Quebec, we have a memorandum of understanding which provides for joint management of both the CAPC and CPNP programs. These programs are run by community organizations and the local community service centres, referred to as the CLSCs. We cover all of the territory, with the exception of Nunavik and the James Bay Cree conventioned territory. The CAPC and the CPNP are therefore provided throughout Quebec.

    Speaking specifically about the CAPC, I would first of all say that in Quebec, 95% of the time, the program is provided by community organizations. About 5% of the program, which entails 207 projects, is provided through the CLSCs. As Kelly was saying, these programs target vulnerable children under the age of 6. What is special about Quebec and Manitoba, however, is that, as a result of a federal-provincial memorandum of understanding, children aged 6 to 12 have also been included.

    What is also unique about the CAPC in Quebec is that we have two specifically aboriginal projects that provide programs to aboriginal people living off-reserve. The In Unison project covers the greater Quebec City region whereas another project, which will be covering the Val-d'Or territory, is currently being developed. These projects are aimed at aboriginal children under the age of 12. In the Quebec City region, this project serves approximately 120 aboriginal families living in an urban setting.

    And again, in Quebec, the Canada Prenatal Nutrition Program, or the CPNP, is provided to complement the provincial postnatal program that is offered in the CLSCs. There are 121 projects in all and, in this case, 95% of the CPNP programming is provided through the CLSCs, namely the network organizations, and 5% of the program is provided through community organizations, which is just the opposite of what occurs with CAPC.

    There is a link between fetal alcohol syndrome prevention and related effects. Indeed, by having an integrated postnatal program, women with drug addiction problems are referred by the system to the drug addiction program as such. In this matter, the network assumes responsibility for the care of these women.

    As regards the aboriginal headstart program, in Quebec we have five projects serving 21 communities, including 14 Inuit communities located in Nunavik.

    Most of these projects are provided through the early childhood centres, the centres de la petite enfance or the CPEs, which are the daycare centres that have been established in Quebec and funded by the provincial government. So our AHS projects are part and parcel of the daycare services. It should also be noted that licences are issued directly by the Quebec government when we are dealing with off-reserve aboriginal children.

    The aboriginal children attend the CPEs for the daycare services provided to parents who work, study and so on and so forth. Through the AHS, these children benefit from specialized programming tailored to their particular needs.

    We provide services to 840 children in Nunavik and 155 children in urban centres, for a total of 995 off-reserve aboriginal children.

    In Quebec, school is compulsory for children once they turn five. For this reason, we provide our services to children aged zero to four years. Once they reach the age of five, the Quebec education system takes over.

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    With respect to the profile of children we see as part of the AHS program, the main problems are often attributable to delayed development as a result of malnutrition, a lack of stimulation, health problems such as auditory and visual disorders and also problems related to fetal alcohol syndrome and the effects related to fetal alcoholism. We also have many children who are speech delayed and who are lagging behind in psychomotor development.

    I would now like to talk about the involvement of aboriginal people in the projects that are tailored to meet the needs of aboriginal people. The Aboriginal Headstart Program and the Community Action Program for Children are run entirely by either a board of directors or aboriginal parent committees. The main challenge we have with these programs is the involvement of parents in the decision-making process. In addition, it is sometimes difficult for parents to participate in the activities. This all depends on the particular crises that parents are going through.

    I've given you an overview of the programming designed for off-reserve aboriginal people in Quebec. I would be pleased to answer any more specific questions. I will now turn the floor over to my colleague from Manitoba, Mr. Ledoux.

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    The Chair: Thank you.

[English]

    Mr. Gary Ledoux (Regional Director, Manitoba/Saskatchewan Region, Population and Public Health Branch, Department of Health): Good afternoon. It is a rare privilege for someone from the region to come to Ottawa and have a chance to present to the committee, so I'm quite honoured to have this opportunity.

    Like Quebec, we also manage our three Health Canada children's programs in Manitoba and Saskatchewan: CAPC, the prenatal nutrition program, and aboriginal head start. Over the past ten years we've worked long and hard with our provincial colleagues in both provinces from approximately nine different departments who have some responsibility for children. We've also brought HRDC, Indian Affairs and Northern Development Canada, and Justice Canada into our existing federal-provincial partnerships, as well as first nation organizations and Métis groups.

    Our overall goal is to break down the silos to try to work more effectively in collaboration, and make sure our programs have the maximum impact on the children in our two provinces. Provincial government representatives, often very senior ones, sit on all our program advisory committees along with aboriginal representatives, and we try to work exclusively by consensus.

    In Manitoba, we try to integrate our programs as much as possible for the community. For example, a single sponsoring organization like a friendship centre can hold agreements with Health Canada for a combination of CAPC, prenatal, and aboriginal head start programs. This results in a much better coordination of program delivery, and creates a continuum of services for aboriginal children. It also leads to economies of scale for the Government of Canada. Most often, one sponsor will have two programs, perhaps CPNP and CAPC, but we have examples of a single sponsor delivering all of our programs on one site.

    At the local level, each project has an advisory structure consisting of relevant service providers in the community. Representatives of aboriginal head start, CAPC, and CPNP projects often sit on each other's advisory committees, along with all the other involved people in the community. There's a tremendous amount of networking between service providers. It is a standard feature of all of our programs, and something we insist on.

    These activities and the networking all result in much better service coordination, better partnership arrangements, and more effective collaboration efforts in communities. In small communities a CAPC project, a prenatal project, or an aboriginal head start project will often be the key factor leading to better coordination among a whole bunch of service providers in that community.

    Health Canada also provides a fair amount of training on emerging issues relevant to all of our early intervention programs. As an example, training on fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects has involved project staff from all three of our children's programs, both on and off reserve. We also invite provincial colleagues as much as we can.

    The 2001 census data that Doug was talking about shows that about one-third of aboriginal persons live on reserve. But there is also evidence that approximately 50% of status Indians or first nations people live off reserve either permanently or for specific times of the year.

    The aboriginal population is very significant in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, as Doug noted in his presentation, and represents about 30% of our country's total aboriginal population. Aboriginal persons also have the highest birth rate of any group in Canada, with approximately one-third of the population under the age of 21 in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

    Health Canada's joint management committees around our programs are based on protocol agreements between the federal and provincial governments, and they're meant to manage both these initiatives in a joint way. In addition to federal and provincial departmental representation, aboriginal people have always been members of these committees and had an equal voice. This contributes to aboriginal participation in the design, the direction, the approval process, and the ongoing monitoring evaluation of the program.

    For aboriginal head start, provincial committees are composed entirely of aboriginal people. Many sponsors of our CAPC and prenatal programs and all sponsors of our aboriginal head start program are aboriginal organizations who are responsible for the implementation. Each project's management committee or board of directors also includes representation from the aboriginal community itself, including many elders and parents.

    Many staff on these projects are responsible for the direct delivery of program activities, and they tend to be aboriginal people in a number of our CAPC and prenatal programs, and certainly almost exclusively aboriginal people in our aboriginal head start programs. Aboriginal people in the community also contribute a tremendous amount of volunteer time to these programs, as either board members or project assistants.

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    Doug's trumped me a bit. I have a report from Manitoba on the 1996 census report on aboriginal people, and there were some interesting things. Doug will give you a copy of the report later.

    In Manitoba, HRDC and the Province of Manitoba have looked at the data for that province from 1996 and found that the patterns of aboriginal person migration are actually not that different from the rest of the population, but there are certain patterns of mobility that are different. I'll mention a few of these, because it's an interesting report, hot off the press.

    The highest migration levels relate to aboriginal people with status who are living off reserve in the north and south. Specifically, there is significant migration between southern off-reserve localities. In other words, people are moving from town to town to town in southern Manitoba.

    Mobility rates were influenced by the movement of off-reserve aboriginal people with status from one rental accommodation to another in urban settings. For example, people are moving, as Doug has mentioned, one or more times within Winnipeg in a 12-month period.

    There is also, of course, migration both to and from urban centres by aboriginal people with status from reserves. However, interestingly, most migration of aboriginal persons is a movement to locations outside the city of Winnipeg to smaller towns and villages.

    We also have data from our Manitoba programs to show that 84% of CAPC participants are aboriginal and that 62% of that group have moved at least once in the last 12-month period.

    The mobility of aboriginal people has a certain number of impacts on our programs, as could be expected, and I'll note a few of them in closing.

    There can be huge implications for aboriginal people in light of this migration, whether it's within or between municipalities or on and off reserve. The first can include creating serious barriers for the availability and costs of transportation to come to our programs, or to provincial programs, or to other types of services if you move from one neighbourhood across town to another neighbourhood.

    Frequent mobility also results in the interruption of the program engagement and continuity of people who are in our programs and can lead to the disruption of established social support networks in our neighbourhood or community and trusted service relationships. We all know the problems of trying to get a primary care physician in Canada. Imagine the problems if you're moving from town to town to town.

    I'll end there.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    I don't know whether you, Mr. Budgell, had some things you wanted to say--or are you just here to pitch in if needed?

    Mr. Richard Budgell (Manager, Division of Childhood and Adolescence, Aboriginal Childhood and Youth, Centre for Healthy Human Development, Population and Public Health Branch, Department of Health): I'm just here to answer questions, if there be any directed my way.

    The Chair: Fine. Thank you very much.

    Thank you all for your presentations. I think it's wonderful to have the detail that supplements the statistics that have been brought. It's given us some flavour and texture for what we've gone through.

    Welcome, Mr. Spencer. Would you like to start out and have any questions for our guests or observations?

    Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance): Sure, I can come up with a question or two, especially to Mr. Ledoux, because I'm from Regina, so that makes us neighbours there, Saskatchewan and Manitoba being part of his territory.

    Over our Christmas break Miss Davies and I visited the aboriginal services in east Vancouver, her riding, and also in Regina. We were on site at a number of locations where some of these services were provided, especially the prenatal services, the head start programs, and that sort of thing.

    Interestingly enough, when we got to one of the locations we got some mixed vibes, depending on who you talked to, about how accountable these programs are. If there is a complaint within the native community about misappropriation of funds by one of these groups entrusted with Health Canada money, what would you do about it? What would be the procedure? Would you be the person to talk to?

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    Mr. Gary Ledoux: The procedure has been, because it has happened in the past, that we will initiate an audit using government funds. We will obviously look at our financial statements that come out quarterly, we will look at our annual statements, we'll look at the audited statement from the group, and if we're still not satisfied we can call for audits.

    We tend to use Consulting and Audit Canada a lot because they know government systems, they know our accounting processes. And if we find any fault with the project there are things we can do to correct it.

    In almost every case we've had in the last three years, though, it's not been so much that there's malfeasance in the projects, it's that people are trying to stretch their dollars. They may purchase items, for example, for the program that aren't on the original financial statement, yet those items and materials are still needed for the program. So often it's a matter of communication between us and the projects.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: As you do an audit, would you go so far as to examine claims of misdirected cheques, for instance, made out to a person, endorsed by that person supposedly, but having never been issued to that person?

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: The people who are conducting the audit would follow through with the usual audit procedures, and if that includes tracing cheques, they would do that.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Why I ask is because I know of two persons who have indicated to me that this has happened to them by their name. And there have been Health Canada audits of this particular program and this problem has been pushed aside. So I'll talk with you a little bit more afterwards, and we'll see what's going on there.

    The head start program of course was one of the things we were most interested in, because it relates directly to the youngest of those at risk. Of course, others do too, but I mean after they get mobile and start learning something on their own. We were in Vancouver. There is, as you know, a large aboriginal community there. There was only one head start program going on in Vancouver. Six applications for new head start programs had been offered. Five of them have already been refused, sometimes within days of them beginning operation. Is there an intent to cap the number of head start programs in any city--i.e., Vancouver or Regina? Regina has only one. Vancouver has one. I find this interesting. Is there any goal or intent to increase the number of head start programs, and what is the procedure for that?

    The Chair: Everybody's looking at Mr. Budgell.

    Mr. Richard Budgell: With the increase to the budget we just received of $12.5 million that came from the first nations and other aboriginal children ECD strategies, we're projecting that should allow us to serve an additional 1,000 children over the 3,500 we serve now. So what that can mean, depending on the location, is that existing cites may expand, which is usually the most cost-efficient way of doing it, because they have a certain amount of resources, a physical plant, already in place, but in cases where that's not possible we will be establishing new sites, including in cities that are underserved. The cities you've mentioned as examples, Regina and Vancouver, are certainly in that category. But I would say on a national basis most, if not all, of the western Canadian urban centres are underserved, because our budget is not at a point, or anywhere close to it, to serve even 50% of the population.

º  (1620)  

    Mr. Larry Spencer: They seem to have a problem with not being able to satisfy Health Canada's timeline on a new head start. Consequently, without warning or even explanation sometimes they've been literally stopped within days, as I've mentioned, of being open. Why would there be such a cut-off all over a timeframe when they had done all the necessary work, and had informed people, and had the committee meetings and the facility? Why, when they'd dealt with all these problems and difficulties, would it then be stopped without there being any opportunity of consideration at all? Why would that be?

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: Because I don't know what you're referring to, I can't comment on it. It's not happened in my region, to my knowledge, where a project's been given the okay to go, there are contribution agreements signed, and we stopped them two days later.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: No, I'm speaking specifically of the Vancouver area.

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: Sir, I can't comment on that.

    The Chair: May I make a suggestion? I'm not anticipating what Ms. Davies may have to say, but this may be a good time to be doing, as Mr. Spencer is, a review of what we saw when we did site visits. It's probably just as useful to have a discussion with you at the present time as not. So, with your permission, I'm kind of smooshing the two sections of the meeting, if I may be allowed to so smoosh, which means asking if you wouldn't mind staying on a little longer, having kept you waiting in the first place. On that point we can do a follow-up. That would really be important. I think it also may be a little more comfortable just having an off-line conversation with names and specifics. I think it's important to follow up on this, because this is why we do site visits.

[Translation]

    Mr. Gagnon, do not feel obliged to ask any questions. You can still ask questions later on, but if you would like, you can ask one now.

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ): I will skip my turn this time so that I can have some time to become familiar with the file.

    The Chair: Do not hesitate, do not be shy.

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: I am not.

    The Chair: Good for you.

[English]

    Ms. Davies, we're kind of mixing and matching here. We're combining the presentations we heard from Health Canada and Stats Canada with the possibility of incorporating what we actually saw in our site visits. Rather than holding off and just chatting among ourselves, if you feel comfortable in sharing what you saw and in doing as Mr. Spencer has done and asking questions, the time is yours.

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

    As Larry has said, he came to Vancouver on January 17, and then I went to Regina. It was actually very successful, and I think we both felt we learned a lot by visiting programs and talking with people. I do have notes from the Vancouver meeting. Unfortunately, they're not translated, so I won't hand them out. I'll just use them for my own reference right now.

    We convened a meeting of about 25 people from the aboriginal community who were providing services to children. I thought it was a really interesting discussion, and there were several things that emerged. If I could just summarize them, there was a great amount of concern about federal dollars that go to provincial governments with basically no strings attached. For example, for early childhood development, in B.C. it's $8 million. I already knew this, but to have it confirmed by people on the ground is very important. There were questions as to why the federal government doesn't provide for clearer accountability and issue guidelines for how this money is to be spent, because the groups feel that they don't really get to see it.

    For example, in Vancouver a number of the groups came together and formed a consortium or a coalition, because they decided they didn't want to compete against each other. They figured that for the children who are at risk, in terms of these early childhood development funds, at least 50% are aboriginal, yet I think they got 20% of what they had applied for. So they really felt that they didn't get a fair deal. So there are definitely issues around working within the provincial realm, even where there are federal dollars involved.

    We've been looking at the social union framework agreement. It's very real. People are facing it.

º  (1625)  

    The Chair: Can I just ask this question for clarity? The money you're referring to, is that the early childhood development initiative money under the September 2000 agreement?

    Ms. Libby Davies: I think so. They just referred to the $8 million from the feds for early childhood development.

    The Chair: Larry.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Let me also clarify another statement she made about the 50% and the 20%. Fifty percent of the aboriginal population of the province is located in Vancouver--

    Ms. Libby Davies: Yes.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: --and they only got 20% of the funds. So that seemed to be a formulation problem.

    Ms. Libby Davies: The other thing is more specific to the aboriginal head start program. As Larry said, there were people there and groups who really, to be quite frank about it, felt like they'd had a terrible experience with Health Canada locally.

    There's one project there called Sheway, which is funded directly by Health Canada from Ottawa. They feel that they have a wonderful relationship. It's four agencies that work together for prenatal, through pregnancy to postnatal. It's actually a very good model of collaboration and services.

    We heard quite a few instances of where proposals had been made for aboriginal head start that had not gone anywhere. I think there was a recent one where they were actually ready to go and had the permits from the city, and then, for whatever reason, the whole thing got fouled up and didn't go ahead.

    I think we both flagged that as an issue: what is the relationship? Maybe I can ask the officials who are here from Health Canada, because the desire and the emphasis of people in the aboriginal community there, who I think are very experienced people in terms of program delivery, is to develop accountability within the community.

    For example, they've been setting up models around child protection authorities that are within the aboriginal community. They've been doing that with the province. So there's definitely a move to do that and to say, when we talk about accountability, it has to come from within our own community in terms of how we work together and the services we provide. But on that basis, there's sort of an expectation that the relationship, then, with the funder or funders is more of a peer relationship, more of a partnership. We heard that over and over again.

    I remember one fellow from the Vancouver Aboriginal Council asking, why isn't there more of a peer relationship? There were comments about Health Canada only coming to visit when there are problems, and in fact they don't make site visits. It's only when there are perceived problems that they would show up.

    Interestingly, I don't think we heard the same thing about HRDC.

    I'm just bringing this forward. This is what we heard from people. This is my riding, and I actually know all these groups. I consider these folks to be very credible, and they know what they're doing. It was sort of a common theme.

    I'm curious to know what's going on there and how we could develop relationships, either specifically with aboriginal head start programs or more generally, where people feel like it is more of a partnership and not just the funder, if there are problems, coming and lowering the boom on you. I did want to pass that on.

    A third thing, as Larry has said--and the officials can't answer this so well, because it's a budgetary question, it's the government--clearly there is a great need for more aboriginal head start programs. In fact, a lot of people said, in all this stuff about zero to six, or six to twelve, that there really needs to be a much broader continuum.

    Anyway, there's no question that more funds are needed for aboriginal head start, and it actually needs to be expanded in terms of the age group so that there's more of an involvement in terms of the children's services, and so on.

    It's not really a question; it's really just some feedback that we got. I don't know if anybody would like to take a stab at responding to it.

º  (1630)  

    The Chair: Ms. Stone.

    Ms. Kelly Stone: I guess I could just offer briefly, first off, thank you very much for the feedback. That's always helpful for us.

    Ms. Libby Davies: I'd be happy to send you the notes when we've done them up.

    Ms. Kelly Stone: Thank you. That's really what we need in this circumstance. We'd be pleased to follow up. We would need to know the specifics of the situation involved, because it's rather difficult for us to go into it here without knowing that. But we can certainly look into it for you.

    We are obviously, as federal officials, and with a considerable amount of money at stake, very cautious about accountability and setting the right kind of framework for accountability in this environment and in the others we are involved in. As such, we also realize there's a certain amount of risk management involved, too, with perhaps sometimes inexperienced partners. We mentor them along, and we do a lot of work with them. Occasionally it's not a success, for whatever reason, and it happens.

    In the case you're speaking of, we would have to look into it in real specific detail, but we'd be happy to do that.

    Ms. Libby Davies: Could I just add one other thing?

    You could try to follow up with specific questions on what happened, and maybe there is a situation in Regina that requires that, but I think what needs to happen is for Health Canada, locally, to hold the kind of meeting that we held. It's much broader. It isn't like, here's problem A, with people feeling that they're under pressure. I think it needs to be a more general meeting where people can actually talk about relationships and general issues, and from that could maybe come a better dialogue and understanding between the local groups and Health Canada.

    If there were any way you could help facilitate that in Vancouver, I think it would be worth while. People would appreciate it. That would be the road to having some better understanding.

    Ms. Kelly Stone: Again, thank you. That's something we could take up with the B.C. region.

    The Chair: I'm going to suggest that none of these meetings are ever meant to be “gotcha” moments or confrontational. Where we end up, the endpoint, will be to try to understand, from a systemic point of view, how things work and how they can be improved. Just as in our first report, when we saw all these silos landing separately, from Health Canada, HRDC, DIAND, and various reserves, we decided that there was clearly something to be done about that.

    I'd like to be able to continue the dialogue, I think informally, first of all, so that we can exchange the notes. I'd be interested in the sort of systemic reaction. In other words, we're with you, but these are the sorts of problems we're running up against. Because we're going to need to know that if we're going to make some recommendations. We want to get your own frank view, and maybe we'll have you back or you can send it in writing, but I wouldn't want to lose the moment, particularly since I think it's been extremely useful to get that sort of reaction.

    The problem with things is one has to sort of chunk out, for example, the early childhood development initiative dollars, which go one way to the province--where frankly, the accountability in some provinces has not been great, and equally not great on child care--from the CAPC and CPNP agreements, which mostly go back to 1993 and are a series of bilaterals, with the provinces being the partners. They seemed to me to be different--although you didn't really get into that, so maybe you could help us out here--from the aboriginal head start programs, which I don't think are deals with the provinces the way CAPC and CPNP are. They're more direct deals with Health Canada and community organizations.

    Can you disentangle that for us a little bit? Because from a Health Canada perspective, they are different deals, I think.

º  (1635)  

    Ms. Kelly Stone: Yes, indeed they are, and with respect to the arrangements for the head start program, I think Richard is certainly best placed to describe those intricacies.

    Mr. Richard Budgell: Of course head start came after CAPC and CPNP and there was that precedent already in place, but the direction we as public servants had from the government was that the head start program was to be aboriginally driven and aboriginally directed. So the way it's administered is that in each province or territory, in some cases lumped together as a region, such as Atlantic Canada, they are under regional aboriginal advisory committees that make recommendations about which community should get a site and such.

    There's been work done more recently to ensure that there is participation from provincial and territorial governments in those regional advisory committees, because there is also a principle that the program is not supposed to duplicate any existing provincial, territorial, or other service already in place. In order to do that, you have to talk to the people within the governments that are the other major funder of this kind of thing.

    I think my regional colleagues could speak about their examples, but I think it's typically the case now that across the country, while there is not an administrative protocol in the same way there is for CAPC and CPNP, there is provincial and territorial involvement in aboriginal head start regional committees.

    The Chair: Mr. Ledoux.

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: There are a number of ways we do it with head start in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, involving the province, and making sure they know what's going on and how we're collaborating.

    The first is that their representatives from northern or aboriginal affairs—or the equivalent in Manitoba and Saskatchewan—sit on our advisory committees. So they're part of the process and hear what's going on. They don't have the same voice as the aboriginal representatives, but they're part of the process.

    Second, we have bilateral FPT committees on early childhood development in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. We bring to the table all of our programming, all of our operational activities, and all of the things we're doing with children. The province brings its activities, its plans, and its strategies to the table, and we plan from a global point of view. So although we don't have a protocol with the provinces about aboriginal head start, they know exactly where we are, what we're doing, and where we're heading.

    The Chair: What a nice segue to Winnipeg.

    Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Mr. Norris, I was struck by your comments on the migration of aboriginal families and children. I think the chair asked whether you could measure it. My original question to you, which you answered, was whether you could measure the migration within the year. We know anecdotally that many families move six, eight, and ten times during the course of the year. One can only imagine what that does to learning, community stability, and family stability. Do you have the capability of measuring this?

    Mr. Doug Norris: We did do a survey, the so-called aboriginal peoples survey.

    I look at my colleague here, as I'm not sure if we actually asked in the survey how many times someone had moved during a period of time. I think this information is there, will be analyzed over the next few months, and will be available.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Would it be for the urban setting?

    Mr. Doug Norris: We would be able to do it for the urban setting. I'm not sure whether we would get a good fix on Winnipeg, because this is a sample survey, as opposed to a census. But for large cities, say, in the west, we certainly would be able to say something about this.

    I'll certainly look into exactly the detail we have. I don't have the way the question was posed or the exact measure we used, but I believe we can get at this problem.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Yes, I'd be interested.

    I'm pleased to hear what Manitoba and Saskatchewan are doing. From another vantage point, I know much of what is going on in the Manitoba scene relating to aboriginal children.

    I guess what I'm wondering is, in terms of the new dollars for aboriginal head start, how are you prioritizing dollars for the urban setting? You may have answered this question when I was on the phone.

    I have one aboriginal head start program in my riding. I know how effective it is and the needs it's meeting. It's really a model for what a community can do in the West Broadway area, as you well know, Gary.

    When you are developing the aboriginal head start program, or any programming, are you developing them with an idea of the continuum of programming—not just for provincial programs but also for school divisions? In our province we have nursery programs in the urban setting funded by the taxpayers of Winnipeg—not the province. Do you develop the programs so there is some kind of continuum? Do you develop them where there are day care facilities available, so that parents are well served where there are training programs? How do you build in the issue, which you have referenced, of migration and transience in the community?

º  (1640)  

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: In terms of a prioritization of the money, our first priority and certainly the major priority of our aboriginal advisory committee is to stop the rust-out of the existing programs. They haven't had increases for a number of years. Inflation is eating away at their ability to pay rent, to pay for utilities, to pay and attract staff, and to keep staff in these programs. So we have to make sure the existing programs are going to be strong enough to survive into the future.

    There are waiting lists both in West Broadway and at Andrew Street Family Centre, and so on, so we have to focus there first to make these programs as strong as they can be. We hope, as Richard said earlier, that we still can create a couple of new programs in Manitoba and in Saskatchewan, but that has to be our priority. We have to keep dancing with the people we brought.

    In terms of the continuum of programming and the related questions you asked about connected to day cares, as much as possible we work with the province and with other agencies in Winnipeg to ensure that the services have some sort of continuum, whether it's head start, CAPC, or prenatal.

    So we will partner with the province on prenatal. We'll pay for the nutrition supplement and the nutrition counselling, and the province will pay for prenatal care through their nursing.

    In terms of day cares, in some cases head start will provide some day care for parents who are bringing older children from zero to six. The service providers who are involved in the projects, if it's the Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg, will also provide referral to day care and provide some supports. It's not a perfect system yet, but in most of our programs we have some capacity for day care for other children who are coming, and children who aren't necessarily involved in the program.

    I think your third question was about programming, and building with the mobility issue. I hope you have some answers for that.

    There are a few things we've tried to do. The first is to make sure our programs are well promoted within the aboriginal community--if I can speak about that specifically in Winnipeg--to make sure people know there are CAPC programs, prenatal programs, and aboriginal head start in these various neighbourhoods, and to use their networks and their connections with other families that are coming on and off reserve to let them know about it.

    Providing transportation is a huge issue for aboriginal head start. It's one of the only programs we've ever had where we've actually bought vans to transport the kids to the programs. If you live on Salter--I'm sorry, I'm speaking Winnipegese here--and the program is around the corner, you might go. But if you live on Arlington, you probably won't go to the Salter program. So having the kids picked up has made a huge difference in attendance and consistent attendance for the children.

    We're trying to work on a seamless approach for on- and off-reserve aboriginal head start. It's a tough nut to crack.

    Ms. Anita Neville: As you know, I know the Winnipeg School Division well. They provide a housing registry. Do you work with them to try to assist families for stability?

    There are different models of that housing registry around the city or in the inner city. Do you partner with bodies other than the province that are working on the ground? You mentioned Andrew Street Ma Mawi.

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: It's more the project sponsors that take that kind of initiative. They work with the other registries and that. As the federal government, we can't get that hands-on with our projects. So it would be the Andrew Street people who would go talk to, for example, their connection with William Whyte School.

    Ms. Anita Neville: It distresses me, I have to say, to hear you say you're using the additional moneys--I appreciate why--to shore up the existing programs. When I heard the announcement I thought, hurray, we're going to expand the programs, but what I'm hearing from you is it's not going to be what we think it's going to be.

    Well, you don't know what we think, but we hoped that it would be a significant expansion. You are saying it has to affect the existing centres.

º  (1645)  

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: Yes, given the existing needs, I think it would be probably imprudent of us to create a whole bunch of new programs that we won't be able to sustain, let alone the older ones.

    The Chair: Mr. Tonks, I don't know whether you want to do a little show and tell.

    Mr. Tonks and I are having a discussion, looking at one of the illustrations in the Health Canada booklet. I don't know how far in it is, about page 5 or 6. It's headed “How are Aboriginal Organizations Involved in Service Delivery?” It shows some kids on a carpet. We think that's where we went, but is this a standard-issue carpet of Health Canada?

    Mr. Tonks and I sat, got smudged, and tried to learn the days of the week in Ojibway.

    Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): It was an enjoyable experience.

    The Chair: We went into Toronto, that great western city of Toronto.

    Ask whatever you like, but I thought you might want to tell them about it.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: First of all, I apologize for being late. I missed your presentation.

    The head start program is located in a church, a very well-worn church, I might add, and I'm not talking about the carpet. There were other programs going on in the church, but they weren't related to the CPNC or CAPC programs, or any other family support programs or programs targeted to first nations people. They talked about trying to do that.

    Are there dollars available, particularly in urban communities, for a sort of more holistic and community-based delivery with a community board? Are those capital dollars available to you? I understand the discussion has been more about operational support, but I'd like to know whether there's a cross-over into the capital, from a Health Canada perspective.

    Mr. Richard Budgell: The short answer is yes. Capital is made available to projects in the aboriginal head start program for equipment, transportation, as Gary has mentioned, and renovation of facilities, so they're properly designed and equipped. In some cases it's available for purchase or construction.

    Most of the construction has been in remote northern communities where there haven't been facilities in place, but the program does have the capacity to do that. Of course, we only have the capacity to do that when new money comes into the program, as is the case right now. So there will be some capital spending across the country where it's necessary.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: In most of the presentations we had from other groups, the notion of family support in its totality has been critical to the success of children's ability to succeed healthwise, in terms of education, and so on. Most indicated that where there was comprehensive planning, with community-based representation on a board defining what the needs and differences were--the unique situation that might even vary in a single city--those models had been most successful.

    I recognize this was a Health Canada presentation, but I didn't see anything about the open-endedness, the nature of expanding programs, and cooperation. You talked about partnerships in the various provinces, but I didn't really see anything in the content that demonstrated there was a strategy, from a Health Canada perspective, to work in partnership with not only communities, but with Indian Affairs--the other silos of support, if you will. Could you just make a comment on that?

º  (1650)  

    Mr. Gary Ledoux: Probably in all regions, but in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Human Resources Development Canada locally have no programs off reserve, so we're the only game in town, federally. But we are working with the other side of our department, the first nations and Inuit health branch, to look at collaborating on reserve. Our part of the department that works off reserve is working with them to make sure there's more of a seamless approach.

    So the strategy is in place to ensure there's better communication, collaboration, and cooperation on issues. But quite frankly, off reserve we're it.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: Pursuant to what we heard in Winnipeg, that's really a huge problem. Anita would know far more about it than I would, but it would appear that HRDC and.... There should be more of an attempt to look at program effectiveness and more strategic planning in developing a broader focus of support. I say that notwithstanding the fact that our programs here are concentrating on children zero to six, and the real support for those children is going to come from a broader support base.

    That's all I'm saying. I think this committee has been attempting to pursue that.

    The Chair: Mr. Budgell, you had a comment.

    Mr. Richard Budgell: I'd just like to supplement what Gary has said. What he said about his province is correct, because I don't think you have any Inuit in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. But in provinces and territories where there are Inuit, who of course live off reserve, there is an HRDC program, the first nations and Inuit child care program, which is closely related to and complements very much what we do in aboriginal head start and other Health Canada children's programs. So in those provinces and territories we do have a federal counterpart department we can collaborate with. Quebec is a very interesting example. In the Inuit communities in Quebec, funding comes in from Health Canada, HRDC, and also from the provincial government child care program. But you partner with whoever is there, ultimately.

    The Chair: I have a question, and I know Ms. Davies has a question as well. We will try to get you out of here by five if we can.

    First of all, the head start program is quite often associated with two- to four-year-olds. That's the classic definition. But when Mr. Tonks and I went to the head start program, which we were very impressed with, by the way, I understood the range of kids to be more like two to six. Is that a little bit up there?

    Mr. Norris' document has identified about 100,000 off-reserve aboriginal kids of all sorts. Your document says that even with the new money we're going to have 4,500 kids in the programs. That's about 4.5%. I realize that I probably have to strip out kids from zero to two, and maybe I need to strip out some at the other end. What I'm asking is, of the 100,000, what's the sub-universe of kids who are potentially in aboriginal head start, and what's your assessment of the true need? What's the gap?

    Mr. Budgell, I'm afraid you know.

º  (1655)  

    Mr. Richard Budgell: I think you asked me that the last time I was here.

    The Chair: I'm always asking you that. It's my favourite question.

    Mr. Richard Budgell: Our thinking in Health Canada is that, realistically, we would never be able to serve 100% of even the target age range of children. Our program description says that while the program can serve between zero and six-year-olds, there's a primary focus on three- to five-year-olds. That's clearly where the concentration of the programming is. But we would never reach 100% of that because some of those children live in communities that are too small to be feasibly served. Some of those children come from families that, for whatever reason, would not want to or would not be able to bring their children to this kind of program, because, for instance, they may require full-time day care, which makes it more difficult to have a child participating.

    A small minority of the aboriginal population can afford to buy their own services, as middle-class people do, and some of those people make decisions that would put their children in other places. But if you take away all those numbers and then say that maybe we could aim to serve 70% of the age-eligible population, we're a very long way from that. Based on 1996 figures--I don't know the 2001 figures broken down by age--we estimated that we were serving about 12%. So we go up by another 1,000 kids, and we're up to whatever. Again, I don't know the 2001 figures broken down by age.

    Finally, no one likes to hear this or particularly to say it, but money is finite.

    The Chair: Of course.

    I guess what I'm trying to do here is... Even subtracting, if your target age is three to five and the group you've outlined is zero to six, let's say it's $50,000. The 12% to which you refer obviously isn't 12% of $50,000; it's 12% after various deductions have been made, right?

    Mr. Richard Budgell: Except for three- and four-year-olds.

    The Chair: Is there research? This is maybe something we'll be asking others. Head start programs are not for everybody. It's a specific population with a specific set of challenges that can benefit from them.

    Do you have evidence as to what percentage of this population of kids would really benefit from head start programs? Is the 12% the kids you think would benefit from it? Is that where we're at?

    Ms. Kelly Stone: If I could just clarify, the 12% figure is for three- to four-year-olds who are living in urban and northern communities. That's where the 12% figure came from in 1996. I hazard to say that given the birth rates, we're probably just going to be breaking even, if we're lucky, to keep that 12%.

    The Chair: Well, I think we should store this question, park it, as they say in meetings, because it's really important. Obviously dollars are finite. At $7,700 a pop, that's a lot of money. But we have to figure out which is the most critical mass of kids.

    Do you have any further information on that? Because we're dealing with a range of children, and some may not need it as much.

    We'll keep asking other witnesses, I guess.

    Ms. Davies.

    Ms. Libby Davies: I guess you could argue that money is finite, but if we wanted to complete the picture, we'd sit down and total up the costs of not having aboriginal head start, or having only 12%.

    In my own community, I can think of the social and economic costs of HIV/AIDS, of not having women involved in the Sheway program, the medical costs, the judicial system costs, and on and on it goes.

    Money's finite, but we're pouring a lot of money into other ends where the people who need help aren't getting any benefit; in fact they're being hurt. So I think there's a strong economic argument that can be made.

    Actually, I'm glad you asked the question, because it was the question I had at the beginning as well; that is, what is the gap?

    At our meeting, aboriginal head start was seen as a very positive model. People talked about it as a model that helped them reclaim their identity in the urban environment, and I think that's really important. But the gap is enormous.

    The question I have actually follows up a bit on what Anita said, which is that there's the old adage that if you're a zoo keeper, you get paid a lot more than if you're a child care worker. Child care is very undervalued in our society.

    We did hear some comments about the national training program. The feedback I heard was that it was wonderful, that people really got a lot out of it and it was terrific that service providers from across the country were able to get together and share. But I'm curious to know whether Health Canada has guidelines about the wages people get paid.

    Secondly, on the question of where the money goes, I'm not clear why with aboriginal head start the money can go directly from the federal government to aboriginal services, yet everywhere else it cannot, unless it's through DIAND. This came up a lot.

    With aboriginal head start, the sponsors are funded directly by Health Canada, right? They might get other money, but it's not going through the province. So in terms of dealing with the issue of other aboriginal children's services, why is it not possible? Maybe this is a question we have to answer or put forward.

»  (1700)  

    The Chair: Are you asking why CAPC couldn't be done the same way?

    Ms. Libby Davies: CAPC or other programs that are there, like this early childhood development stuff... If aboriginal head start is being funded directly and we can develop a good model, why aren't we actually expanding that, instead of doing all this other stuff and going through these provinces that basically do whatever the hell they want?

    The Chair: That may be a political question.

    I'm tempted to answer that, but I think we have witnesses who may... I'm making Mr. Budgell extremely uncomfortable.

    Ms. Libby Davies: I want to raise it and I want it to be part of our discussion. Groups are feeling the impact of that, and I don't think we can ignore it.

    The Chair: Because it's only fair to the witnesses, I think the short answer is that in 1993, during the last months of the Mulroney government, a series of these bilateral agreements were signed, and they were very province-friendly. It was a partnership, and they had some good results.

    Aboriginal head start is a different deal. It's working with aboriginal communities. I think that's the short difference.

    I don't think we can renege on CAPC and prenatal nutrition, particularly since they're doing a good job.

    Because you've been very patient and you've stayed beyond the time you thought, I'm going to thank you for coming today.

    As before, we have high hopes that the work we do will enhance the work that you do. Despite all of what you may have heard, we are essentially fans of what you do. We think, with you, that you should get more money to do it and to do it right. Therefore anything that helps us make our case would be helpful. That is to say, perhaps you can help to identify some of these research questions that I put about the gap and about how we can even talk intelligently about the gap. And we will use it to, in turn, argue on your behalf.

    Similarly, I hope that you have a chance to have an off-line conversation after the meeting with Ms. Davies and Mr. Spencer, again, in the spirit of improvement and of support and of working together. We are your committee, and we appreciate very much what you do.

    Mr. Norris, thank you as well for coming back and giving us the picture. We will hope that, as always, in future years when you come back the statistics will improve.

    On that note, the meeting is adjourned.