SCYR Committee Meeting

SUB-COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH AT RISK OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

SOUS-COMITÉ SUR LES ENFANTS ET JEUNES À RISQUE DU COMITÉ PERMANENT DES RESOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Wednesday, November 24, 1999

• 1538

[Translation]

The Clerk of the Committee: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a quorum. The meeting can now come to order.

[English]

Your first order of business is to elect a chair.

[Translation]

I am ready to entertain motions to that effect.

Ms. Folco.

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): I move that Mr. John Godfrey be elected Chair of the Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk.

The Clerk: Ms. Folco moves, seconded by Ms. St-Jacques, that Mr. John Godfrey be elected Chair of the Sub-Committee.

(Motion agreed to)

The Clerk: I declare Mr. Godfrey elected and invite him to take the chair.

[English]

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): I'll have a very short half-hour victory trot around the track. Thank you very much.

I'd like to welcome Cliff, a member I see in various committees. It's nice to see you here today, representing Mr. Lowther.

As I understand it, Madam Clerk, we should perhaps spend the balance of our time—and not a great deal of it, because I know people have other engagements—looking back to what the main committee expects us to do and ahead to what we might be reasonably expected to do, really in the next three sessions.

• 1540

As I understand the rules of the game, we're allowed to meet only once a week, and not at the time of the regular committee. If you subtract today, we actually have...?

The Clerk: Three meetings.

The Chair: In other words, we have meetings December 1, 8, and 15 at this time, 3.30 p.m. If we were to use the last meeting to draw up a recommendation of some type, that would still allow us to get it, as long as it wasn't a long report from the point of view of translation, to the main committee by their last meeting, which would be on December 16.

When we set up the committee, again going back to the expectation of the main committee, we really had two ambitions, the first of which we've had to go at in another way. We had hoped that today we would be set up in time to mark, in a formal way, the tenth anniversary of the all-party resolution on the elimination of child poverty. For technical reasons, that was not possible. We had to get ourselves set up for today, which didn't allow us to call in witnesses. We did do it informally at lunch. Indeed, several of us were there, meeting with Campaign 2000 people. So we achieved informally what we failed to achieve formally.

The main committee agreed that we really had three tasks. The first proposed direction for the subcommittee was to provide a parliamentary forum for public input into the identification of key, substantive features of a national action plan.

Just to remind you, the national action plan refers to the promise in the Speech from the Throne that the government would work to have an agreement with the provinces for a national action plan on early childhood development at the community level by December 2000. It was referred to specifically in the Speech from the Throne and expanded in the Prime Minister's subsequent remarks on the Speech from the Throne.

The second item, and this is really why we're anxious to get going, is whether we see, in the context of that national action plan, something we would like to identify for the budget in February that would help the national action plan come into being and that we would have to identify and signal to the government, through the main committee, before we leave here in December. Is there something we would want to suggest to the government in almost a formal sense?

The third issue is to identify long-term priorities. That is an activity that would take place, should this subcommittee continue its life after making a report to the main committee on where we are going, no later than February 16. In other words, if we wish to be a national forum, and we wish to contribute with public input to the development of this national action plan, which we hope will lead to an agreement with the provinces in December 2000, we should be thinking of identifying, by February 16, some of the work we need to do.

Indeed, I might just say that when we have a chance to examine in detail, for instance, the Campaign 2000 suggestions that were put to us today, that may well form part of an action plan, part of a study. But we'll have to have a look at that and allow the researchers to give us their views on it.

If one accepts that in this short period of time we have only three sessions other than today, and one of those sessions would be to frame up a recommendation to the main committee, then we really have two sessions for a substantive discussion.

• 1545

I don't know whether the researchers have given some thought as to what might take place in those two sessions.

[Translation]

Ms. St-Jacques.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, PC): I have a comment. When we met last spring and agreed to hold eight meetings, I argued that this wasn't enough time. Now, we are proposing to have only two meetings, which leaves us even less time to achieve our objectives.

The Chair: That's correct.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Are we possibly thinking about scheduling meetings in January? That doesn't leave us a great deal of time, in my opinion, to come up with something concrete. I'm concerned that we might overlook some priorities and fail to arrive at some concrete solutions. I have to wonder if it is even worth it for us to undertake a study of this nature, given that only two meetings have been scheduled. In any event, I don't see how we are going to manage. Mention was made of staging a public forum, but we won't have time to hear from a great many witnesses.

I have a second question which is of greater concern to me. Will the meetings still be scheduled for Wednesday at 3:30 p.m.? I have a scheduling conflict because I sit on another committee that meets on the same day at the same time.

The Chair: You want answers to two questions, and perhaps you will have others.

As I understand it, the motion agreed to by the main committee leaves the door open for meetings to be held in January. Therefore, that's entirely possible. Once we know more, we can consider this option.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Could these meetings potentially last longer than an hour and a half?

The Chair: As usual, there are minor political considerations involved. At the very least, we need to let the government know what direction it must take. Practically speaking, if we delay, it won't be able to act. If we want the Finance Minister to allocate so many dollars in the budget to children and youth at risk, he has to have some idea of where he should be focussing his attention. In January, the budget will be more or less set. That's the only reason why I am pressuring you a little on this matter. I want us to have some broad proposals to put to the Finance Minister. That's all. We have to recognize that our agenda has already been disrupted somewhat by the fact that Parliament didn't convene until the middle of October.

Secondly, you mentioned the scheduling of meetings. The clerk has advised me that this is the only time we are assured of getting a room. This time slot seems to be rather inconvenient to most everyone, including some Liberal members. Unfortunately, the situation is less than ideal, but when we consider our other options, particularly Thursdays and Tuesdays when everyone is otherwise occupied, then this solution seems to be the most palatable of all. Furthermore, the standing orders prohibit a sub- committee from sitting at the same time as the main committee.

Cliff.

[English]

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz (Yellowhead, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and congratulations on assuming the chair of this subcommittee.

I'm looking for some points of clarification. First, I don't know anything about this, because I'm just sitting in for Eric, but I guess the committee meets once a week, then, and usually at this time.

The Chair: That's correct. That's the time that seemed to fit people's schedules. I even talked to Eric about it.

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz: My colleague down the row here mentioned something about sitting in January. Does that assume that the House might be sitting in January?

• 1550

The Chair: No. The question is, do we have the formal right to do it? Are we street legal if we sit in January? The answer is yes, although I think we shouldn't come to that determination until we've had a bit more of a discussion—and I recognize that Madam St-Jacques has other engagements. So we have the possibility to do it, but we're not committed to doing it yet.

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz: Okay. I don't know how Mr. Lowther would feel about this, but I would suspect that if the House isn't sitting, he wouldn't want the committee to meet. It might be okay if you live within a 100-mile radius of Ottawa, but if you're 2,000 miles away and the House isn't sitting, you kind of wonder about the economics of it.

The Chair: That's a very real concern. I think as we reflect on that, we would have to bear that in mind, in terms of a reasonable representation from all parties and members.

Mr. Cliff Breitkreuz: Thanks.

The Chair: It's a real issue.

Is everyone else okay to move on to Sandra Harder? She may not be known to Mr. Breitkreuz, but she has been our faithful researcher—a great expert in this field.

Ms. Sandra Harder (Committee Researcher): You've received the note we prepared for the main committee, to get agreement to establish the subcommittee. Given that we only have two meetings, we tried to think about what we could conceivably accomplish if the committee were of a mind to make some kind of recommendation by the 15th, to have an impact, as the chairman has said, on the budget.

If it's the wish of the committee to proceed on that track, then there are a couple of possibilities. One would be to have a session that looked at the Social Union Framework Agreement, some of the mechanics of the agreement and how that might fit in terms of the national children's agenda.

I've also taken into account the Speech from the Throne and the Prime Minister's response in trying to think about this. The Speech from the Throne has indicated that there's movement on the income side in terms of some potential on tax cuts, the third leg of the national child benefit—I guess maybe “leg” for third is not the right word to use—and some extension of the maternity parental benefits, etc., so some of those issues are covered.

What seems less clear at this point is what's going to happen around services. So if it's the committee's wish to have some input around services, which I think the Campaign 2000 report talked about, and some other policy institutes have weighed in on the debate around the importance of addressing income and services simultaneously, then you might want to focus on the Social Union Framework Agreement and services.

We would propose to have two sessions. One would hear from experts who could give us some finer details on the Social Union Framework Agreement and services and children. It would obviously be up the committee to decide, but the second session could perhaps involve some of the grassroots groups like someone from Campaign 2000; someone who's done some writing already around the issue of children's services, the budget and the Social Union Framework Agreement; somebody from the Caledon Institute; or somebody like Martha Friendly, who's done some writing on this already.

That would give you two sessions where you could kind of tease out some of the details. Then you might be in a position, if you chose, to make a one-page report with a recommendation akin to what Campaign 2000 and Caledon have talked about on the national child development services fund, or something like that.

The Chair: Raymonde, and then Carolyn.

• 1555

Ms. Raymonde Folco: My question deals with this social union. Considering that Quebec is not a signatory to the social union, if we were to go that way, how could we include social union services and Quebec in our brief at the same time?

The Chair: When we asked this question of the deputy minister of human resources yesterday, we got an interesting answer. While Quebec is not a signatory to either the national children's agenda or the social union framework agreement, certainly in the case of the national children's agenda they have been present at the discussions and have indicated a great deal of sympathy toward the objectives.

Furthermore, as the deputy minister pointed out yesterday, we actually have a kind of example before its time of the social union framework in action, which is the way we dealt with the national child benefit. Quebec was not a formal signatory to the national child benefit, but it accepted the notion that it could receive money under this arrangement. It also accepted the idea of accountability, because when asked what it had done on the reinvestment part with its money, Quebec gave a very full account of what it had done.

One might point out that on the services side, another existing model is the community action program for children and the Canada prenatal nutrition program, which were signed in 1993—this time they were signed with Quebec—where we have seen a very useful level of cooperation on the ground with Quebec. So there are examples on both the income side, through the child benefit, and on the service side, though both CAPC and the reinvestment framework.

It's a very delicate discussion, but the other element to be pointed out is that under the rules of the social union framework agreement, there is the notion of la course au sommet. In jurisdictions that are leading jurisdictions, as Quebec happens to be in the area of children's services and family policy, you not only are not penalized for being a pioneer, you are actually rewarded and given money to even further develop your advantage.

That means Quebec would be a major beneficiary of an early childhood development services fund because it would recognize its leadership role. So we have both precedents and a very practical application of the rule, which I think could work in a rather different fashion than has been the case, where we actually honour and respect Quebec for its leadership in this field.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I would suggest then, if we did go that way—which seems to be a very interesting way—some mention be made somewhere in the brief of Quebec's special situation and the fact that all we have said can also apply to Quebec in a particular way. The word “accountability” is a very important word here, because we've seen administrative understandings between the two governments where there was no accountability, therefore we never knew where the money went. We gave the money, the services were farmed out, and we just never knew what happened. I'm not saying anything happened to it, but we just never knew.

The Chair: Absolutely. I should also point out that in our interim report, which was delivered in June 1999, we footnoted with great care.... I'll just read out the business about the national children's agenda:

We acknowledge the fact that although Quebec agrees with the objectives of the NCA, it has decided not to participate in its development. This fact rests with their desire to assume full control over programs...

So we're being very sensitive, and I think we must continue to be so with Quebec.

Carolyn.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett (St. Paul's, Lib.): I guess my question would be that we need a thorough canvass of services. If we were actually going to figure out the Canada food guide of a children's program, I'd want to make sure this committee—particularly in view of its name—informed that we wanted not only universal programs but also some identification of children at risk. What are we doing on readiness to learn? What are we doing on learning disabilities, fetal alcohol effects, and kids with disabilities? I'm not sure. I think the report certainly said what could be there, but are we, in two meetings, able to say what must be there?

• 1600

The Chair: I think that's the distinction.

[Translation]

Are we heading more or less in the right direction?

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: Would it be a problem if I left?

[English]

The Chair: Okay.

A voice: If you want to take a decision and you can't.

The Chair: May I ask if we are moving in a generally acceptable direction?

[Translation]

Is this more or less acceptable?

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: The deadline is very short, but perhaps we have no other choice in this matter.

The Chair: Fine. That's all I wanted to hear.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: I'm sorry.

[English]

The Chair: As long as we have general agreement on the direction, we're going to be okay.

I think what we have to keep clearly in our minds is the distinction between the short-term task, which really will come to say...maybe in January, but probably by mid-December. I mean, it comes to something as brutal as this: do we think that in order for there to be a deal, even if our understanding is fairly sketchy, we have a better chance of getting the provinces to take it seriously by putting money on the table in February? I think that's about as much as we can do in the first cut.

Once we have done that...because we're really just trying to fix on the budget now, we're trying to give members a sense of how the social union framework could work and a sense of what we mean by services at the community level, but not the full panoply. That seems to be the longer-term discussion, which we can take forward for the balance of year 2000 to help get to the agreement.

I don't think we could possibly deal with the entire complexity that you've talked about in one of our meetings, but I think what we have to do is give people a bit of a feel for what it would look like on the ground if we were able to create an early childhood development services fund—what it would mean. Maybe we can bring in, for example, some of the Success by Six folks from Ottawa-Carleton who are working away on that piece, or the North York folk or something.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: Say we have Martha Friendly here, who has thought about this early childhood development fund that the communities apply to. Is that what you're saying in terms of bringing these people in and having a look at what a budget line item would look like?

The Chair: Yes, I think we have to be satisfied—

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: And then the Caledon people come and tell us what they think a children's budget should look like—both parts of it, the tax-cutting one and the one that looked at children with disabilities.

The Chair: Oh, for sure. What I'm trying to say is if we get—

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: And CACL, too, because if we're going to actually look at kids, and if we don't say something about children with disabilities, we're going to get screwed.

The Chair: Okay, what we need to do, though, is balance the need to do a good job and a full job with the need to get out a big message in time for the budget. If we think this, after we've looked at it, then if there's going to be a real children's budget for the year 2000, it had better have something in there about the community level and how we're going to help communities with services and so on.

The exact form that might take is going to take more of a discussion. But I agree with you, I think it would be very important to make a specific reference to the disability community, even in that preliminary.

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: And I think Raymonde would agree that what we have heard strongly about the Young Offenders Act is that we need resources applied to these young offenders to make sure those programs aren't optional in the various provinces that say they can't afford it. So Quebec decided to put in good resources attached to the courts. And also the minister's.... On child custody and access, we've said we would help in terms of mediation and all those things. A children's budget, to me, cannot focus on only the early childhood education piece, and if this committee talks about only that, we've missed the boat.

The Chair: No, obviously we can't. But the problem we have is that what we're trying to do is, in a sense, call our own government's bluff—not to put too fine a point to it. That is to say, this is the enabling theology that's been put in place by the Speech From the Throne and the Prime Minister's speech. Our first task is to make sure we don't miss that boat. That's a real opportunity, so we have to grab that one. And if we think that means putting money up for an early childhood development services fund in the February budget, that's important. That doesn't exclude other elements, either then or down the road—

• 1605

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: But if we don't fight for them, who will? What about aboriginal kids? What are we going to actually say in terms of what would be on our shopping list? There's no group of kids at greater risk than they are, right? Air quality and children's asthma is one of the worst things we've seen in terms of that increase. So how do we get a piece of any package of money that's going for kids?

The Chair: What I think we might be able to do, one way of covering it, would be to revert to what we might call the whole-of-government piece. That is to say, if we're going to say to the government...and I think this committee might, given its composition as I speak right now. If the government were to take seriously the notion of a children's budget, we could, it seems to me, apart from anything we may have specifically to say about the early childhood piece....

Oh, quorum returns. That's wonderful. We can make all sorts of wild decisions here. Welcome.

It seems to me we could conceivably come up with two recommendations, one of which relates to the very specific challenge of early childhood development, which is what we would call the whole-of-government piece. Under this we would say to the government: if this is going to be a true children's budget, we would urge all departments with an interest in children—we can even give examples, or we can resuscitate that study we've done—to examine what contribution they can make in a coherent manner toward a children's budget.

It would take into account, for example, CIDA and our international commitments. The government says it's going to do more for international development. Why would we not focus in this budget on children internationally? In other words, you can't get into the detail.

I guess what I'm saying is I don't think we're in a position to get into the details on the entire list, but.... Do you see what I'm getting at?

Ms. Carolyn Bennett: But I think the whole-of-government piece is interesting in terms of showing each minister how they can be part of a children's budget. Isn't that what we were...?

The Chair: That's what I was saying, and in fact we have the research done already.

Sorry. Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): I just had my hand up to get on the list.

The Chair: Okay. What I'm also mindful of.... Happily, there's been some research done on this. We have a list. It was done in another place, but it's public information. We've established a list, some of us working within the Liberal caucus, at least a first cut of all the ministers with programs for kids. We've listed the ministers and the programs. It's not a complete list, but it's not a bad first pass.

So what we might want to do is share that list with members.

Mr. Bill Young (Committee Researcher): Treasury Board did that outcome... [Inaudible—Editor] ...to the performance indicators. It was done for the subcommittee, actually—

The Chair: That's right.

Mr. Bill Young: —as an example. I'm sure they could update that relatively quickly.

The Chair: Okay. I'm just trying to guide the conversation in a way that will allow us to get to where we want to go, given the resources we have and the time that's available.

Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies: That was actually going to be my first point, that I don't know what the absolute deadlines are for the budget. Maybe it's too late already. But if we're to get something in before the session ends, I think you said earlier that we were looking at three meetings.

The Chair: Absolutely, that's it. We're allowed only three.

Ms. Libby Davies: So I think the approach we have to take is to really build on what's already there, instead of trying to rehash it all.

I don't know how far the Liberal members want to go. What I've noticed is that basically all of the main groups now are adopting these four key issues that they've been pushing forward as part of this agenda. One is the early childhood development program. The second is the whole maternity/parental leave thing. The third is the child tax benefit and how it needs to be improved, and the fourth one is housing. They all mention housing, and certainly Campaign 2000 today makes a major point. They talk about education as well.

• 1610

It seems to me that we could do some useful work if we could even spell them out and say what kinds of figures we think should be looked at, because there's quite a variance. The National Council of Welfare said $3.5 billion, I think, for an early childhood thing. Martha Friendly and company generally say $2.5 billion is the minimum. So there are various numbers out there, and then we have the housing numbers.

I don't know whether that's further than some members are willing to go, but that's what I'd like to see. I figure we have one shot at it, so we might as well get something in that has some numbers attached to it and say this is the minimum. Don't make us choose between A and B. This is the minimum plan that's going to produce a substantive impact to deal with child poverty and children generally.

The Chair: I think we may be part of the way down that road. Part of the challenge for us is to ask what we can assume is locked in, and then you're just really dealing in detail. For example, I think the parental leave is a commitment. There's detail to be worked on, but basically that money is locked in. The last third of the budget coming up, starting in January 2001, will have to have roughly $400 million attached to it for that. So I wouldn't think it would be useful for us to spend a lot of time on that right now. It's the unknown part, it's the bit that might not be touched by the budget unless we say something.

It may be that it's a part of a longer-term strategy to figure out whether it's $2.5 billion or $3 billion or $4 billion. However, from a budgeting point of view, we know the agreement isn't going to be in place until December 2000. What we're talking about minimally is something that is going to kick in perhaps on January 1, 2001, or be an incentive to come to the table, as it was with the child benefit, when we put $850 million on the table. That's the way in which you have to do that part of the equation.

Ms. Libby Davies: That's what they were saying this morning, right?

The Chair: Yes, and it's something that I kind of endorse, because it's really an important issue.

But then the other thing is that there may be other stuff coming out on homelessness that will have some.... That's the whole-of-government piece again, which we may know something about even before we leave this place.

Now, who's next? Raymonde.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: It's going to be short anyway. I'm not going to talk very long.

First of all, what I wanted to say was just a detail in terms of means. Amongst the groups that are going to come to present to us, notwithstanding the fact that the time is very short.... You know what I'm going to say. I would really like to see representation from at least one Quebec group, please.

The Chair: Oh, for sure.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: The second thing is that in terms of means again and in terms of services, we met with the minister today at lunch at women's caucus. At least two people around this table talked about community projects and the importance of using civil society as a partner to government. If possible, I would like to see this reflected in the kinds of means that we are going to be suggesting. This would be a way of making sure all of the money goes to the right places, and of also making sure that groups already working in that direction are given additional help, rather than creating new groups that are going to take a long time and a lot of money to just get started. So I would really like to emphasize at this point that the NGOs and community-oriented groups that are already in the field, already working, should be given all the help that we can give them in our recommendations.

The Chair: That's very useful.

Diane.

Hon. Diane Marleau (Sudbury, Lib.): I really feel you can't just focus on youth. If they are poor children, if they are children at risk, it's because of the family. We really have to look at what's happening to the family in this at the beginning of the new millennium.

The support groups for family aren't there any more. Most young families are single-parent families. Single-parent families are always poorer than their counterparts.

• 1615

There really is more to this than just putting more money in the hand for children. There have to be other supports as well. I can't begin to tell you how important it is for families to have a place to go when they have problems.

You talk about fetal alcohol syndrome. You talk about all of these things that are best dealt with before they happen. When I was Minister of Health, I started the prenatal nutrition program. That's a program that intervenes hopefully before the child is born, before the problems really come in.

But, yes, we have that program, we have a community action program, the CAPC program, but we frankly don't have anything else. Once they start school, basically there's not much else out there.

Have we even considered how we can help families deal with the day-to-day problems that come up when you're raising families? That can touch on anything. We can push Paul Martin to do tax cuts if he wants to, or to reindex the Income Tax Act. These are things that would help poor families. Without actually saying this is done directly for children, it would help children far more than a lot of other things. These are things that I'm really serious about.

As well, I mentioned the community support. Somehow, can we build some kind of community support? Oftentimes it isn't even the additional money. While that is nice, often it's the feeling of hopelessness, that there's no place to go and there's no support for you when you're having problems with your child or with your own life.

The Chair: May I just read something here that might be helpful? Campaign 2000 gives a series of budget benchmarks, and I like the first one very much. It might indeed be a recommendation, because I think it would cover off what Carolyn and everyone else has been saying. It says that the federal budget “Present a five-year social investment plan for Canada's children with clear national objectives and targets”. And the fuller version says a five-year plan will recognize “that children and their families require a mix of income, service, housing and labour market initiatives to enhance their...well-being”. And then there's a list of core objectives.

I'm trying to think of something that is doable in the time available, and to which we can actually give a sort of direction. I know the finance minister, before the Speech from the Throne, had been toying with the idea of some kind of five-year strategy. The Speech from the Throne picked up on the logic of it for part of that, which is the five-year investment framework for the early childhood service piece. Who can disagree? That's good, but in order to put all of these things together, if you're really going to do a whole-of-government piece and work in concert so that government's does not have a bunch of different programs....

To take but one example, there's the community action program for children out of Health Canada, and then you have the early crime prevention program out of Justice. Often it's the same kids, often in the same communities, often looking at zero to six. That doesn't seem like a very coordinated strategy to me.

Perhaps what we need for next week are two things. Maybe we need a sort of two-part meeting, or at least we need to be able to bring to members some of that information, if possible, from Treasury Board on just the range of stuff that we're doing already, and then a discussion on the social union framework agreement.

Ms. Diane Marleau: The social union framework agreement is one thing, but frankly we have premiers in this country who won't do it, who don't believe in it. We had Mike Harris come out today and say he doesn't believe in all this, it's wrong. So while that's well and good, if the premiers don't play, our kids are in trouble anyway.

Could we get statistics on how expensive it would be and what the impact of reindexing would be? My feeling is that the poorest people at the bottom of the scale would have the greatest benefit. It would impact across a number of fields, including the GST rebate. They would get a higher rebate. I'm wondering whether you could have that kind of figure, because my feeling is that the benefits are very much felt by the poorest people at the bottom of this if you start indexing the different income tax rates.

I don't know whether Paul is actually considering this, and he probably would have a fit if he heard me say this, but I really think it is time for us to start looking at that.

• 1620

The Chair: On a factual note, both Richard Shillington, who lives in the Ottawa area, and Ken Battle have done work on the cost of partial indexation.

Ms. Diane Marleau: Reindexing.

The Chair: Whatever. Those figures exist.

Libby.

Ms. Libby Davies: I was just looking over the report from the researchers, and a very key issue is that we have to decide quickly whether or not we're going to make the upcoming budget a focus.

The Chair: An initial focus, understanding that we have lots of work to do after that.

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes. There's a tonne of stuff to do, but it seems to me we have this immediate opportunity. Unless we seize it and just bang it through....

Maybe you'll say it's too difficult to put the numbers to it. I think we should try. At least we have to put forward the main planks of what we think has to be in that budget. Maybe we could even give a low and a high of some of the figures we've seen.

If this committee came forward with that, we would be really furthering the agenda of a lot of the groups we've all had contact with and that supposedly all of us on this subcommittee have some sort of commitment to. That's the most pragmatic and concrete thing we could do. Then we could get into the longer-term priorities, as identified here, but right now, I think it's the budget.

The Chair: Can I make a suggestion? We could work towards a report that has two recommendations.

Recommendation one would be an elaboration of the Campaign 2000 first request for a five-year social investment plan for children and families, which would touch on income, service, housing, and labour market stuff. In other words, we could lift that and say “We need to have a sense that this is not a flash-in-the-pan, one-year deal. We want a sense of a long-term framework, with commitment by you in February.” That's a general term, which will then cover off the concerns of the disability community or whatever else.

Then, because it's a tough part and it needs to be targeted to the December 2000 agreement on the early childhood services piece, we might conceive of a second recommendation, which is to put some money on the table for that particular element to get that—

Ms. Diane Marleau: What about the other issues, though?

The Chair: All I'm saying is—

Ms. Diane Marleau: Premiers don't necessarily take the money and spend it where they said they would.

Ms. Libby Davies: That's why you have to have some guidelines or a program that would—

The Chair: That's right.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Isn't that where the community comes in?

The Chair: Right.

Ms. Diane Marleau: Yes, but the agreement is always with the provinces, remember.

Ms. Libby Davies: That's why you have to have some strings attached.

The Chair: Part of the work of the committee down the road—and we can start doing this now....

All we're saying is, in order to help the discussions out, do we think it's a good idea for the federal government to put some money on the table, as we did with the national child benefit, before we sign the agreement? We could put it out there, saying “We're serious. Now we want you to be serious in your budget.”

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes, but John, from what I gather you're saying, you're suggesting we only do that on early childhood development stuff.

The Chair: No, I'm saying we do two things.

Ms. Libby Davies: I heard the first one, the five-year—

The Chair: The first one is to say in this budget coming up in February, we want a five-year social investment plan.

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes.

The Chair: We want it in this budget.

As a subset of that, because we have this very specific opportunity—and I'm picking up on your idea of being opportunistic, frankly, and grabbing this particular bus as it goes by—in order to get to the agreement specifically referred to by the Prime Minister in the Speech from the Throne, the December agreement on this subset, which is not, by any means, the complete children's agenda....

To pick up again on the Campaign 2000 folks, this really comes down to the one on a national infrastructure fund for early childhood development services. That's a specific subset of that. It's not to the exclusion of anything else, but it's just because we have this other deadline looming, which the Prime Minister has referred to.

So I'm saying do two, if it helps the process, if we collectively think it would advance things to put some money on the table in February to get to a deal in December. That's not very far away, and it's specifically—

Ms. Diane Marleau: [Inaudible—Editor].

The Chair: Well, it's a discussion we have to have, but—

Ms. Diane Marleau: You may do it, but I'm—

The Chair: Until we've actually reviewed what would be involved in that, we can't come to a conclusion.

• 1625

Madame Folco.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: First, considering what Diane has said about premiers, in particular Premier Harris.... You have a problem with Premier Harris, which is a particular problem. We have a problem with the Government of Quebec, which is not the same problem, but in terms of accountability it is the same kind of problem. We mentioned before you came in in fact...and this is why I mentioned going through the communities. It's a continuation of the talk we had at lunchtime.

Notwithstanding the federal-provincial agreements, if we could bypass in some way—I hate to put it this way, but that's what's it really is—the legislative powers and the executive powers and go straight to the communities, this is really what I would like to see. Insofar as we can, because we won't be able to do it entirely, present accountability as the cornerstone of the financial relationship between the federal and the provincial on this, it's not going to be the end of the problem, but it's going to help us at least in that. That's the first thing I wanted to mention, just going back to what I said before.

The second is that I've been a reader of minds and I also read the minds of research staff, and I wondered whether it would be possible—I may be the wrong person to say this, mind you—considering that we only have three meetings, to have at least the first two, the one on the 1st and the one on the 8th, as prolonged meetings rather than short ones.

The Chair: There's no reason not to.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I would like to put it on the record that this is something we might mention to people, and we could get a big chunk done on that first evening.

The Chair: I agree.

Let me try this on, this ever-floating population of folks. If we then said that for next week the task might be, first of all, to present to the committee some of the background information on the whole-of-government part through Treasury Board and through that other report we've done, just to give folks an indication of the range of departments that have children's programs, so that when we're asking for a kind of framework agreement we understand how a lot of ministers might participate in the children's budget and might share the glory by the way.... And then we could look at the social union framework agreement as the other part of the meeting. Then the second meeting would be about community and about on-the-ground services, the sort of thing you were referring to.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I'm not going to be there for that second meeting.

The Chair: We would appreciate your guidance in what we ought to do in your absence, but we would certainly make sure we had representatives of Quebec. What we really need is some sense of the vitality of what's going on out there that we can build on.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I can try to find somebody for you, maybe.

The Chair: There are people like

[Translation]

Richard Tremblay, who could talk to us about the 1,2,3 GO! Program in Montreal. He'd be an interesting person to meet.

[English]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: But are you saying that you would like me to find somebody to sit in this chair at that meeting?

The Chair: I was thinking we need suggestions also for examples on the ground of things that are really working, and that if we as a federal government were able to—and we still have to work with the provinces—work with the provinces at the community level to support those things, it could be even better. In other words, there are things happening out there we need to know about, and we need some representative examples of success so that we have a real feel for what we're talking about here.

You have something to say, Sandra?

Ms. Sandra Harder: I wanted to say that since you only have two meetings, you really have to focus pretty carefully so that we're not.... If it's the committee's wish to make a recommendation on the 15th to the main committee akin to what we've been talking about this far, if we go too far off-track I think it'll be difficult to rein everything in to that point.

If there was agreement to extend a meeting and have a round table session where you had perhaps five or six participants and you brought in somebody from Campaign 2000 to talk about their framework.... Perhaps you could bring in somebody like Martha Friendly, who's looked at the social union framework and children. You could bring in some representative who could talk about one of the programs that's working. You could get a sense of the breadth of the issues without going too far afield.

• 1630

If you want to make a report, you have to have a chance to talk about what it is you want to say and filter through some of the information you hear. And then in your second meeting you give the committee an opportunity to talk about some of those issues and then come up with your recommendation. My fear would be that if the committee doesn't remember that this is a short-term goal and then there's the longer-term plan, you could easily find yourself not accomplishing what you want in your first couple of meetings.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: In your couple of meetings, not your first couple.

Ms. Sandra Harder: Your two meetings, period, yes.

The Chair: So I think we have a good sense of the challenges that lie ahead, which are great. We know that our initial end point is the budget.

Ms. Libby Davies: Following up on what Sandra has said, if we did have the first meeting, which was a round table, maybe we could pose a couple of questions to people and say, what are the components of a longer-term strategy for investment in children? And then we could ask people to identify that so at least we're getting the longer-term stuff we want, and then ask them, what are the critical components that need to be identified now to be part of the first commitment in this next budget so that we can immediately start getting people focused on what needs to be done now?

We could use that information. We don't have to cull it all now; we could decide that we're going to focus on a couple of issues for the budget or we're going to put forward a menu, whatever. But at least if we ask those questions we're making it clear to people that there's the immediate thing that's before us, which is part of a longer-term strategy. I don't know whether that would help, but I would just like to pose those questions.

The Chair: I don't know if we have enough to go on for a first session. I think the refinements that Libby has suggested might.... Ms. Harder, how do you feel about this as a pure researcher?

Ms. Sandra Harder: A lot of it could depend on who we can contact and who we can have available. We have less than a week to notify people. The Treasury Board people, who have already done an accounting of the results on commitments on children across all departments, could probably provide us with that information relatively quickly, which would help in the whole-of-government piece. But in terms of getting other people, I have a couple of phone calls in already and I'm not getting responses, so we are dealing with that handicap, and as Danielle will tell you, it's hard to get everybody together quickly.

The Chair: So I think the best we can do is try to cover off as much as possible next week, understanding that we may have a spillover for the following week, depending on what we can do both on the.... So we're really looking at almost three different sets of folks, or three different bits of evidence. One is the whole-of-government piece. That's not going to require witnesses so much as—

Ms. Sandra Harder: Not necessarily.

The Chair: —that's just background information on what we're doing.

There's one on the social union piece to some extent, and one on the community piece, but not restricting it uniquely to the early childhood part, but also to understand what a short list looks like and what a long list looks like. So those are the three things we're working on. We may, if you will indulge the clerk and the researchers, give them a little latitude so we can try to craft something and do the best we can in the short time available, understanding it may be a little messy.

Ms. Libby Davies: When are we going to be meeting?

The Chair: Wednesdays at 3.30 p.m.

Ms. Libby Davies: Okay.

• 1635

The Chair: The only other little element, which may be possible but I don't think we should count on it, is that it may be that on days when the main committee of HRD is not meeting, we would then have the right to meet that day as well. We could use their slot. But that's not a guarantee by any means. It would still be in lieu of, not in addition to. We may have to add time on to accommodate this.

Will you then leave it to us that we will attempt to come back next week with as many of these elements as we can, without flooding you, and try to be coherent about it? Then we can use the following week for both discussion and additional elements.

Ms. Diane Marleau: But I'm really adamant. You can't just look at children by themselves; you have to look at what surrounds them. If children are poor or at risk because they're living in risky situations or have other—

The Chair: Or they live in families that live in houses, and they.... I quite agree.

Ms. Diane Marleau: There's no such thing as a poor child by itself.

The Chair: No.

Ms. Diane Marleau: There's something around it.

The Chair: Right.

All right. Is that a direction with which you feel more or less comfortable? I'm sure everyone feels comfortable but the poor researchers and the clerk. If that's okay, we will meet one week from today with our surprise guests, whoever they may be.

Ms. Sandra Harder: If it's okay, I may just make a couple of phone calls to members' offices for suggestions.

Ms. Diane Marleau: Good luck.

The Chair: Is that for Quebec?

Ms. Sandra Harder: I have contacts in Quebec.

[Translation]

The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.