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, May 10, 2000

• 1536

[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Order, please. Welcome, in a more formal sense.

[Translation]

Ms. Gagnon, you missed out on a Kodak moment when I arrived accompanied by two red-coated Mounties. What a sight to behold!

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): Are you trying to make me ill?

The Chairman: Of course. However, there were no horses.

[English]

We're just delighted to welcome you. As you probably know from those who have been telling you about these things, we're attempting on the subcommittee to look at two different aspects of a kind of coordinated national children's agenda, if you like, the first of which has been how we can better understand the work-family balance and what we in the federal sector can do about it, both as employers and more indirectly. The second is to understand, in the context of, we hope, the deal that will come by December 2000 on a national action plan for early childhood development services at the community level, what is the magic of communities in promoting healthy outcomes for families with young children, which goes beyond the whole income part—what is that whole story on social cohesion.

We're particularly delighted to, welcome from the Department of Human Resources Development, Jean-Pierre Voyer, who's the director general of the applied research branch; Allen Zeesman, who is the director of the income security and social development studies of the applied research branch; and Margo Craig Garrison, who's a special adviser on what you're about to hear about.

But I don't want to pre-empt what you have to say.

[Translation]

Welcome, Mr. Voyer. If you like, you can introduce the members of your team and begin your presentation.

[English]

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer (Director General, Applied Research Branch, Department of Human Resources Development Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting us and giving us this opportunity to dialogue with you about the research program on the issues you've just mentioned, especially the role of the community in children's development.

You have introduced our group. We're all from the applied research branch. And perhaps I can spend a second just to tell you where we situate our current work.

[Translation]

The Applied Research Branch of the Department of Human Resources Development was established in 1994. The Branch engages in all kinds of research with a view to aiding policy development and to resolving problems associated with the labour market, employment, human capital development, income security, social development, manpower adaptation - in short, all matters under HRDC's jurisdiction.

Incidentally, to tie in with your last comment, we have begun to look at the contribution of social capital, working in cooperation with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD.

One of the main research themes we are exploring is investment in families and children. In recent years, we have played a key role in this area through our efforts to provide community policy makers, at the federal as well as provincial levels, with the information they need to deliver child development and family support services.

• 1540

We focussed our research on one aspect in particular, namely readiness to learn.

[English]

Readiness to learn has been a big focus of this research program.

[Translation]

A key component of this research program is the sponsorship of the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth, which you're all familiar with. We are working closely with Statistics Canada to conduct all of these analyses. The survey is a unique resource that enables us to keep track of the work undertaken, It is the source of most of our basic data. We are especially interested in dissociating various factors that impact child development, that is in dissociating conditions within the family from conditions within the community. Our experts are busy probing the different influences with a view to identifying the most prevalent factors. In so doing, we can concentrate on formulating appropriate policies and we can recommend more investments in communities, families or schools. Our focus has been on the first six years of a child's life, and on the factors that can lead to positive outcomes, both in terms of child development and schooling.

On that note, I will turn the floor over to my colleague Allen Zeesman.

[English]

We've distributed a short presentation, but it requires a few comments to go along with the pictures, so I'll invite Allen to go on with this, if he would, please.

Mr. Allen Zeesman (Director, Income Security and Social Development Studies, Applied Research Branch, Department of Human Resources Development Canada): This presentation is about understanding early years. That's the objective of the presentation. John, the short answer to your second question is that we're not really sure about the magic of communities, but we are going to tell you how we're going to find out what the magic of communities is all about.

In order to understand why we're there and how we got there, you need to have a little bit of background, which I think you'll also find very interesting, on the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth itself.

I'll just call out the page numbers since we weren't able to make an overhead kind of presentation here.

Page 2. Not even ten years ago a lot of people were trying to establish how many Canadian children were at risk. They would say a child at risk is a child who's poor, in a single-parent family. They would try to add up the number of kids at risk by using those kinds of definitions. But we all knew, even then, that even children with multiple risks can sometimes do very well and children who are apparently not at risk don't necessarily do well at all. We also know that all children live with some level of risk. What we're really interested in, we realized, is in finding out how well children are actually doing developmentally. In other words, what are the developmental outcomes we are interested in for children, and how do we measure them?

If you move to slide 3, that's what the heart of the NLSCY was about. We develop health, social, emotional, and cognitive outcomes, and then at the same time we try to capture the environment around the child. So once we know what the outcomes are, then we can start looking at the factors that are risk and project the factors on the child's outcomes.

Page 4. The other important aspect about focusing on outcome is that it allows us to ask and research a more general set of policy questions. By looking at children's outcomes, we can see how children compare to children from community to community, province to province, or country to country. We can ask how well our children are generally prepared for the future, and not only talk about children with problems. And that's an important aspect. But today I'm going to focus on the children who are experiencing difficulties.

On page 5, you'll see there is a slide saying “What is Vulnerability?” I myself no longer use the term “child at risk”. There are some who use it to label children, and it means a lot of different things. I prefer to speak about children who experience episodes of vulnerability. This reflects the kind of model where, although we know it's the child who's having the problem, it might be the child, the school, the family, the parents, and the interaction of all those things that might actually be the source of the problem, and this allows that kind of broad view.

• 1545

We define a vulnerable episode as a period in which a child's developmental progress falls below a set of age-appropriate norms. We call that a vulnerable episode. J. Douglas Wilms has worked with us and has actually provided an empirical measure of vulnerability, which I will turn to now and show you what the results are in the NLSCY.

The Wilms index is composed of two elements, a learning index and a behavioural index, and both of those contain several different age-appropriate learning and behaviour measures. If you look at page 6, those are the results for Canada in 1996: 27.6% of Canadian children in 1996 were experiencing an episode of vulnerability and 72.4% were not.

I'm going to go on and give you a little bit more information, and I will explain to you why I'm talking about this in terms of communities in a minute. In the chart on page 7, you can see that behavioural problems, at about 18%, are more prevalent than learning problems, at 11.8%, in 1996.

Chart 8. Vulnerability doesn't vary too much by age groups, although further research is going to be needed to determine exactly what part of these variations is in the measures and what part of it is real, because of course these measures change as the child changes, because they're age appropriate.

Chart 9—

The Chair: Can I just ask, are those the terrible twos?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: They might be, but they might not be. That's why I talked about this one and future research on that one. What we're doing is measuring a concept, but of course it has to be age appropriate. So if you want to know what the social skills of a child are, you're not going to look at it the same way when they're two as when they're eight. So our empirical measures have to change and we have to sort out what's the change in the measure and what's real.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: The answer is no.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: The answer is I don't know.

Page 9. More boys than girls have learning and behaviour problems; and this is a very significant difference here. Overall 30.8% of boys are vulnerable, 24.4% of girls. It's 20.6% versus 15.2% on behaviour and 13.1% to 10.5% on learning. As it turns out, the difference in behavioural problems is highly associated with single parenthood. So single parenthood has a large effect on behavioural vulnerability among boys.

Chart 10. Vulnerable children are distributed unevenly across provinces. This is a very important area, but also an area for future research, because we feel we need at least three longitudinal panels to really be able to create reliable explanations of the differences among provinces.

Here's a very important chart on page 11. Now I'm going more into the kinds of determinants of vulnerability as opposed to the description of it. I've actually shown you a scatter plot of incomes and something called the Peabody picture vocabulary test, which is a highly generally accepted measure of cognitive development.

You can see the scatter plot by family income and you can see that there's no real pattern in this scatter. Then when you chart income on here, you can see that there's the relationship that you would expect between income and cognitive development, that is, the children from families with higher income have higher levels of preschool cognitive development, but the relationship is not that strong. In fact, generally we find that's the case with income so far. It seems to be related to just about any income you want to talk about, but the relationship is not necessarily that strong.

• 1550

On page 12, we have a graph that looks at one of the consequences of this, which is the fact that most vulnerable children live in middle-income families. What you have here is the distribution of the population in fourths, per capita. You have the lowest 25%, the next 25%, the next 25%, and the highest 25%. In the lowest 25% of the population, we have 36% of the vulnerable kids. That's bigger than the poor population, by the way. Then of course, in the two middle groups we have about 50% of kids, and we have 21% of vulnerable kids in the high income groups.

On page 13, we say that warm and caring parenting can protect children from vulnerability. One of the strongest outcomes we had were our outcomes on parenting style. This was probably the single strongest determinant in the vulnerability in kids' outcomes that we found.

One more, before I get to UEY, is on page 14. This is a very important graph. We've done some of the analysis for 1994 and 1996. When we see that the child experiences an episode of vulnerability, we can ask the question, will they get out of that next time, or does the child who is not experiencing vulnerability become vulnerable? This graph gives you that information.

The top line shows that 56.2% of children were never vulnerable in either year. In 1994, 71.1%—just below the line—were vulnerable, and of those, 14.9% became vulnerable.

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Can I ask a question now?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Please do.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: If you analyse the family and let's say the family remains the same—that is, the father, mother, and the conditions of life are the same—what makes a child become vulnerable at one point and not at another? I suppose that's a question you must have asked yourselves.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Yes, of course, that's a very important question.

We've basically documented the way vulnerability changes. We're currently doing research on the factors that determine the changes in vulnerability. Changing family structures is one of many things. There are all kinds of possibilities with respect to why a child is not vulnerable and becomes vulnerable, and why a child is vulnerable and becomes no longer vulnerable. So basically the mandate of the NLSCY is to figure out these patterns over a longer period of time. As you can see, if you look at the bottom of that graph, 13.2% of the children were vulnerable in 1994 and in 1996. So now we're talking about a longer-term vulnerability.

We're really looking to get one more year in there, 1998, and it will be really very interesting because we'll see two changes, one between 1994 and 1996, and one between 1996 and 1998. At that point, we'll be doing a lot more specific research in order to look at some of these factors. At that point we'll be satisfied we have the information we need to draw stronger conclusions.

Given all that information, here's why I told you what I did at the beginning, John, about the communities. We have discovered that there are very large differences in children's outcomes by community. That's controlling for everything we can basically think of and have. So communities appear to be almost identical in terms of their socio-economic structure, parenting styles, and all kinds of other things, but there's still huge differences among the kids' outcomes. Why does this happen?

Our ability to explain those large differences is very small right now. But that's what brought us to the understanding that we needed to go into the communities to research this issue and be able to compare across communities to try to find out the answer to that question.

That's where we come to the understanding early years program. On top of the NLSCY research program we have added an enhanced national sample, a sample on aboriginal peoples, and a community sample.

• 1555

Page 17. You can see we have enhanced the sample for children under six years old. This is the number of five-year-olds we have sampled in every province. Basically this tells you, referring back to the results I showed you before, we will be able to do that very similar kind of work in every province in Canada. So in effect, every province in Canada will have a comprehensive monitoring system of the outcomes and much of the analysis of why those outcomes have occurred for the early years.

By 2002, we'll have a complete longitudinal sample of one-year-olds, three-year-olds, and five-year-olds, because we started in 1998 with the five-year-olds and the one-year-olds. We're not going to follow the five-year-olds, and the one-year-olds will be three. Then we'll have one-year-olds, three-year-olds and five-year-olds by 2002. That will be the national sample.

We are currently working on the aboriginal sample, but the strategy has been to bring everything into the aboriginal persons survey, and that's in progress.

The one where you would really be interested, of course, is in the community section. In the community section we've gone into six different communities. North York is the prototype, and five more communities were announced by Minister Stewart last November. They are Coquitlam, Prince Albert, Winnipeg, Stephenville, and P.E.I. In each one of those places, we have put in these three instruments: the early development instrument, the community mapping study, and the NLSCY community study. I'm going to describe those to you now.

The early development instrument is a measure of early development in kindergarten that shows preparedness of children as they enter school. It measures social competence, language and cognition, emotional health, physical health, and communication. In other words, it's a broad-based measure that measures many things. It's a very cost-effective and not labour-intensive measure that's quick and easy to administer, with therefore the potential to expand nationwide in order to create a monitoring instrument for communities all over the country. It's already in use in several places.

Page 20. I've given you an example of what the early development instrument tells you for one of the aspects in real schools in North York. This report is not yet completed, but we are in the process of completing it. If you look at these three schools, which aren't that far away from each other, by the way, we have scores here of social competence. The higher the score, the larger the problem of social competence. So school A has a very good average score on social competence. School B has a very high one, and school C has a very high one. The best performing one-third of kids in school B are basically performing at the level of the worst kids in school A. Now, that's a tremendous difference for a school to try to deal with, as the children come into the school system.

On page 22, we've given you an example of a community map. Here you see a map of North York, and it shows you the location of social housing and the location of parental resources in the EAs in North York. If you go to the next page, you can see what happens when you put these two things together and you can see how you start understanding what the research tells you.

With the combination of the mapping study and the early development instrument, when you look at school A, they have preschool programs, play groups, child care, and day care. School B has none in the vicinity, and school C has none in the vicinity. What about drop-in parent and family resource centres? School A has them, but school B and school C do not, etc. You can see this very specifically with the respective communities and go right down that list. This is the kind of information they are now receiving in that community in North York.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I think it's interesting that there are schools A, B, and C in each of your samples. There are schools A, B, and C in Winnipeg, in Prince Albert, in Coquitlam, etc.

• 1600

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Yes, we're using three schools. These are real schools, but we're not at the point of saying exactly which schools they are. We want to keep that as confidential information.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: But in your sample, obviously—

Mr. Allen Zeesman: We have many schools in all the different samples.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: In each one of the regions.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Absolutely.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Okay.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Every school board—all the schools, actually—was involved in North York. This is only a sample of three of the schools. There are many schools in the sample. In fact, the early development instrument was administered to about 4,500 children, which is basically every five-year-old in North York.

Now, on page 23, we look at the NLSCY community study. And here's the thing that pulls it all together. Basically we go into a community and we do two things.

First of all, we administer the whole NLSCY on a large sample in that community. In North York it was about 1,000 kids. That's enough kids to be able to do a very detailed analysis about what's going on in North York.

The second thing we did is enhance the NLSCY with a series of theories about why communities affect kids' outcomes, for example, social resources, physical resources, community leadership—social capital theories. We asked the right questions in order to test these different ideas about how it is that the community affects children's outcomes.

So we're studying how well those kids are doing in those communities. We will also be able to conduct a national analysis at the community level. In other words, when we first set out this plan, when we went to cabinet with this plan, approval was given, in principle at least, for 40 communities. At 40 communities, we would have enough communities right across the country to draw national conclusions about communities, and probably enough types of communities so that most of the communities in Canada could see themselves, at least to some extent, in the outcomes of some of those 40. So far, we've done six. We hope to be able to do more in order to be able to get a better cross-section of communities.

Then finally, moving to understanding how the community affects child outcomes—page 24—we have developed certain partnerships on child development research in order to generate and consolidate knowledge and make new efforts on disseminating knowledge. To do that, we've just completed creating the NLSCY research network, which has five sites across the country, four of them in universities and one of them at applied research. They will be working very closely together to create a complete package of research on the different aspects of child development, both early and later years.

We also have two important partnerships under development. One is with the University of Montreal, the Canadian Child Care Federation, and the Canadian Institute of Child Health for a centre of excellence on early childhood development. We hope to be successful in that competition, to be announced by Minister Rock from the Department of Health later on this month, we hope. This would be a dissemination vehicle for research on early childhood development, not only from the NLSCY network but from right across the country.

There's another large competition from Industry Canada and the MRC on the network of centres of excellence, which we have also created a partnership on and have sent in a letter of intent.

The Chair: Is that different? What is that?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: That's a different one, yes.

The Chair: What's it called?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: It's called the network of centres of excellence.

The Chair: No, I mean the actual thing you're going to go for within the... I'm sorry, will it be on early childhood development, or are we getting confused?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: No. This one is more general, on childhood development and the impact on the future prosperity and wealth of Canada. That is the theme of that one. It's partly SSHRC, partly MRC, and partly Industry Canada.

• 1605

So then on page 25, basically you see the picture of all the parts. We started with the NLSCY, and on top of the NLSCY we built up the early years. It allows us to go in four different directions in terms of functions: policy, evaluation, research, and outcomes monitoring.

The Chair: Great.

[Translation]

Do you have any questions, Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Yes. You have identified certain factors that put certain children at risk, notably single parenthood. I seem to recall reading a study conducted in Quebec which found that single parenthood was not necessarily a predominant risk factor. Of greater consequence was the affection and support the child received from the parent. The mere fact of growing up in a single-parent household headed by a woman did not mean that the child was a greater risk than another. I believe this study was conducted by researchers at Laval University and that some of the findings contradict those of the longitudinal survey which lists single parenthood as one of the leading risk factors. This study, which was carried out by either a sociologist or a psychologist from the university, looked at a poorer neighbourhood in my riding. Researchers found that having a single parent was not a risk factor for a child. Rather, children were more at risk when they failed to receive the support they need to grow and develop.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: I can't comment on that particular study, but I can tell you that we identified as a major risk factor nationwide the fact that a child lives in a single parent family. The study findings to which you're alluding can be interpreted various ways. Quite possibly the findings were different because the study focussed on one community in particular, and not on a sampling of communities across the country. That's precisely why we believe it's vitally important to conduct research at the community level. It's quite conceivable that this is not as major a risk factor in some communities as it is nationally. It's quite possible because circumstances can be very different in different communities. It's understandable that the variables may not be the same everywhere.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: On page 20, under the heading “Social competence varies from school to school”, we see that because of the numerous resources available within the community in which school A is located, for example, preschool programs, daycares, parent resource classes, skills development programs, the average social competence score is higher. Is that what you were trying to demonstrate?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Yes, it was.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: However, in looking at the support that the federal government has provided in many areas that fall under provincial jurisdiction, we see that it has slashed budgets dramatically over the past six years, what I refer to as the six years of social deficit. These cuts have certainly not helped various communities to help school age children. When I visited regions in the course of my study of poverty, community groups told me they needed the help of educational psychologists to resolve some of the often complex problems with which families in the community are grappling. The same has happened to our schools. Provincial budgets have been slashed and this in turn has led to communities cutting back on services at the precise time you were conducting your longitudinal survey. Someone somewhere is going to have to take responsibility for the situation. The provinces need more financial support in order to provide more support to the community. It's all well and good to say this, but the government needs to commit to providing greater support to communities.

I realize that you're not here to get into a political debate. Having worked for three years in the field of sociology, I can understand your findings, but there must also be a willingness to act.

• 1610

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: We fully agree and these findings can prove tremendously useful in shedding light on the real situation. The data collected from school to school can vary, depending on the methods used by school principals or the province in question. No standardized method was employed. However, we do believe that the findings will help us identify certain trends, which will serve as the launching point for the political debate that is sure to ensue.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Every single riding and community has pockets of poverty. The problem is even more acute in some areas. I'm thinking here about the metropolitan Quebec City riding. I would have liked to see the Summer Career Placement Program contain an internal directive calling for the hiring of students of social work. Everyone knows full well that during the summer, children are left somewhat on their own because their parents must go off to work. Parents don't necessarily get two and half months of vacation time. This is one area in which we could provide more assistance to our communities. Community organizations looking to hire young persons studying to be social workers or educational psychologists to organize activities at playgrounds cannot apply under the Summer Career Placement Program. Children are left to their own devices and parents don't know what to do with them. They can't afford to send them to summer camp or to enrol them in some other program. I think we need to look at this issue more closely and consider what we could do to support them more. That's my conclusion. If we introduce a series of small measures, people will feel that they are getting more support.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: The findings from our study on communities and the services available to them will foster some political debate in that we will identify differences between communities that provide summer recreational programs for children and those that do not. Differences will be singled out and governments will be encouraged to pursue a common goal, namely ensuring the positive development and health of our children.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Have you established a connection between the quality of housing and child development? I think the two are related. Very little has been invested in social housing since 1993. Existing stock has simply undergone renovations. Because of a lack of action on this front, we're left to pick up the pieces six, seven or ten years later. And even though the economy appears to be buoyant, considerable damage was done in the past. Because of family breakups and tensions, children are left to fend for themselves.

Communities must be given more tools with which to help parents, who sometimes grapple with serious psychological problems after a marital breakdown. Living single is quite different from living as a couple. As I see it, we need to bring in a program of social measures.

That is my political view of the situation, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: I know that Madam Folco wanted to say something, but she has been called away for a moment.

Mr. Jackson, you come from a community. Don't we all?

Mr. Ovid L. Jackson (Bruce—Grey, Lib.): I'd like to ask our guest about the testing, how accurate the tests are, how valid they are, and how you make them consistent. Once you have the testing, what about the feedback systems to get best practices, and how do you assure continuity? Have you got that far?

The Chair: This is on what we used to call, and what I would still prefer that we call, the readiness-to-learn instrument. It now seems to change names with the speed of summer lightning. It's the readiness measure, as we used to call it in the good old days, and now we call it the EDI.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Are you talking specifically about the EDI, or are you asking a general question?

Mr. Ovid Jackson: With regard to the study you're doing here, you said that you're into these schools now and that you're doing these tests. I wonder about the tests. I think we did see some of them and the wording, the consistency, and the mechanisms you used, and I would assume it's consistent in every school so that the tests are valid and the measurement is. Children and people will have differences, and certain things will show up at different levels, notwithstanding that in the sampling. After you've done that, I'm wondering about the feedback, because I think that's important.

• 1615

Mr. Allen Zeesman: The early development instrument was actually developed through a process of interaction with the teachers in the schools. The first set of the instrument was developed by Drs. Offord and Janus with teachers. I don't know what the first place was. It wasn't North York; it was some other place before that. I've mentioned that the understanding early years program as a whole is in six different places, but the EDI is in closer to 15. Through that process the EDI has been developed with a lot of feedback in different places across the country.

One of the things about the EDI is that it has been, and continues to be, validated by the NLSCY, which is asked in the communities. Basically the EDI is your simple NLSCY outcome measures. That's the idea of it, something you can do in a couple of days with teachers, and something that everybody can afford to do if they're interested in doing that kind of thing, as a general point. The early development instrument costs $10 to $12 per child. The NLSCY costs $150 per child. That's the way it's validated, and that's the way it was developed.

There are a couple of things we're doing now with the results. In the community, we have linked the EDI measures to the NLSCY data. We will first be showing the community what the development outcomes are. Then we'll be using the NLSCY to explain to the community why there are differences in different places. Then we continue to put the EDI in the community year after year, so that the community can monitor the progress of the next cohort of children as they come into the school system to see if they're getting better or doing worse as a group on the different scores. So it's a monitoring system that's linked to the NLSCY.

The Chair: Madam Folco.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Merci, John. I have a lot of questions, because it's such a fascinating study we're doing.

The first one has to do with the fact that you're in applied research, and applied research can mean a lot of things. It may mean that you are going to get some results of your research and you're going to apply it to something. Is this what it means in the case of this particular study?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: The outcome of the understanding early years study is an informed community. When we ask for understanding early years applications, we ask for them in communities that are willing to organize across a broad base of many community organizations looking to change policy and program in that community. Then we say, what we can offer you is the information you need to understand what's going on with your children and to be able to make reasonable decisions with regard to how you want to go.

The last part of the understanding early years program is what we call the community knowledge strategy. We work with what we call a research coordinator in the community, and the research coordinator's job is to make sure people in the community understand what our reports are telling them and integrate that information into their work. That's the outcome. There's no other outcome.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Can I ask another question?

The Chair: Go ahead.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: In terms of this, first of all, when do you think you're going to have enough information that you can give to the community? Secondly, how does the department fit into this? I think it's absolutely wonderful that you're giving back the information to the people who have helped you gather the information, but by this time, from what I understand, their own kids are going to be a little older and you're looking at practically another generation of kids. Is that the case?

• 1620

Mr. Allen Zeesman: I'm not sure what you mean by that.

Let me start at the beginning. For North York we're a little bit delayed. We'd hoped to have it out by now, but we'll probably have all the reports out by June or July.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: How long does it take between the time you start and the time your report is out?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: On North York?

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Yes, North York, for example.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Too long. If I talk about the five pilot communities, we hope to have those out by January, which is about ten months.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Okay, that's my question.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Yes, it's about ten months.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: So we're still talking about the same kids and the same parents, then. It's ten months from the time you begin your study until you're ready to give the information back to the parents.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Yes, but remember, this is a population measure directed at a community. We're not taking a child and telling the parent that their child has this problem or has this problem. It's none of that. What we are providing for the community is a score about how well their children are doing before they reach school, which would form the basis of broad-based community action for parents and organizations. Then, for the next year, we continue that monitoring so they see if they are doing better or worse.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: The second part of that question is about the department. Where does the department fit in, apart from paying your salaries while you're doing the study?

The Chair: How does it apply the research?

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Yes, exactly. Thirdly, where do we as a committee fit in as regards the results of your research? I'm going step by step here.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Clearly, the mandate of the applied research is to advise the department on priority policy issues. We are in a regular process of advising the department about our findings. Our findings will be taken into account in terms of what the department does, just like the research we do in many areas in applied research feeds into the department and to the Minister of HRD.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: But not that only. We always say we have three bosses: our minister; the government in the large spectrum in the sense that we work a lot with other departments on horizontal files—the key word being horizontal—and the federal-provincial community. Allen, Margo, and I are very active. We're sitting on three types of federal-provincial community groups where we share those results.

[Translation]

We get together twice a year to share our research findings with our colleagues. No one person can know everything. Our colleagues are avid readers. In some respects we are a public good, much like Statistics Canada, although our role is not limited as such. Much of what we do is geared to enlightening Canadian citizens. Moreover, all research projects are made public.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: It's one thing to distribute documents, and quite another to genuinely influence government authorities.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: Absolutely.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I understood you to say that the three levels of government were involved: the federal government through the department; provincial governments through the education system and, in the case of the Government of Quebec which funds daycares, through daycare services; and the municipalities through their parks programs and so forth. I'll come back later to the provincial government and its role in the education system. When the question arises as to whether a park or a school should be built, it is your responsibility to pass this information along to the other two levels of government, including the municipalities which play an important role in the process.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: You're right.

[English]

Allen, do you want to speak on our role and the link with the municipality?

[Translation]

Mr. Allen Zeesman: We disseminate our research findings in various ways. Admittedly, this is only one aspect of our work.

• 1625

Perhaps we should also have mentioned our bulletin. It is produced in a format that is highly accessible to a great many people and reports on our research findings. As Mr. Voyer also mentioned, we rely on federal-provincial networks on a regular basis, whether this means talking to deputy ministers or to the various provincial social affairs ministers.

It's very important that Understanding the Early Years targets an organized community with many participants. Our research coordinator is working with school boards, public health nurses and municipal health and social services. In North York, for instance, 55 groups are associated with the Early Years Action Group and all are involved in research initiatives.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: Let's say that our approach...

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I still have many questions, but I wouldn't want to spill over into Ms. Gagnon's time.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: I don't want to go on too long and thus deprive you of your chance to ask questions. Basically, though, we do not adopt as systematic an approach as when we conduct some research with an eye to future discussions that might result in the adoption of a particular federal-provincial policy framework. Eventually, it might come to that. However...

Ms. Raymonde Folco: It's the “eventually” that interests the members of this committee.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: I understand that. Our work can be effective in two ways. First, it can have an immediate impact, given the mechanisms that Mr. Zeesman talked about, and be of immediate interest to members of the community. However, we're talking here about six or seven communities. This is not yet a national program, although it already has had an immediate impact. It has made people aware of new information in this field and enabled stakeholders to have discussions like the ones Ms. Gagnon mentioned about the need for special services, recreational services, and so forth. Therefore, we do have an impact by virtue of the information we disseminate. It's going to take a few years before we can systematically apply best practices. Mr. Jackson spoke of

[English]

best practice. How do you get the best practice out of this? There will be a time when we'll have enough evidence to devise what works for best practice. We will have guidelines or guides. Then will be the time when governments, especially at the provincial and federal levels, can enter into more systematic intervention, a national program or a provincial program.

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco: One final question.

The Chairman: Go ahead.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: When I look at the graph on page 10 of your handout and read that “Vulnerable children are distributed unevenly across provinces”, I'm struck by two things where Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia are concerned. First of all, to my knowledge, these three provinces are the most urbanized of all. Coincidentally, they happen to be the three provinces with the highest number of recent immigrants.

In selecting communities for your study, do you take into account the language spoken in the home when it's not one of the two official languages, whether it be a language spoken by aboriginals or recent immigrants, as well as cultures other than those of the majority of Canadians?

While I'm on the subject, I'd also like to ask you a sub- question about the pilot project. I realize that I'm stealing the thunder of my colleague opposite, but I was immediately struck by the fact that when you conduct pilot projects, you select small towns and regions that present very interesting features, but that are all English speaking. Am I right? Not one single pilot project was carried out in Quebec or in a francophone community outside Quebec.

• 1630

Mr. Allen Zeesman: The first question relates to language and culture. This particular chart is part of the national longitudinal study. While certain provinces do have higher immigrant populations, immigrants accounted for only a small percentage of the sample. Some of the differences noted may well be attributed to immigration, but we don't yet know for certain if that's the case. It may well be a determining factor.

As I was saying, it's an extremely complex task to draw comparisons between provinces, given that different provinces apply very different policies. We would need to compile statistics covering three years, say 1994, 1996 and 1998, to observe a change and to research these differences thoroughly.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I learned at university that when you do research, you start by formulating hypotheses. For example, factor x is a variable and may prove to be an important factor. You then put the hypothesis to a test to see if it checks out.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: That's quite possible.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: What surprises me is that the language-culture hypothesis involving the aboriginal or immigrant children was not one of the first hypotheses used in your research.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: I'm not certain that I understand. We did a great deal of work on immigrants during the first stage of our research. I gave you several examples of the findings we produced. We used 40 research subjects during this initial stage, did several research projects on the children of immigrants and published our findings. I don't have time to show you everything that we have done.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: We did a random sampling and ended up with a slightly higher immigrant population in Quebec, and in particular in Ontario and British Columbia. We knew beforehand that these provinces would likely have more immigrants and the random sampling reflects that fact.

Your hypothesis is very interesting. A multivariate analysis can isolate factor x from factors y and z. Mr. Zeesman didn't have time to get into this today, but clearly, considerations such as immigration, the language spoken at home, second language, culture, socioeconomic status and education will...

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Anything else would have surprised me because this is an extremely important factor, in my view.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: It should also be mentioned that according to our findings, the children of immigrants score very well in general, particularly on the behavioral scale.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Would you kindly answer my last question?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: We were limited to setting up five pilot projects. We targeted interested communities across the country. Communities in Quebec as well as in other provinces were given the opportunity to submit proposals. We established certain criteria, based on which we selected the best proposals, regardless of which community was involved. As we are not yet a national program, our objective was not to include all provinces in our sample.

We received approximately twelve proposals in total, including one from Quebec, which unfortunately did not meet our criteria.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: That is indeed unfortunate, given that the early childhood education system in Quebec is quite different from anything found elsewhere in Canada.

I note that Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, British Columbia and the Maritimes were included in the sampling. Ontario was left out, but then you have North York, which is fairly representative of Ontario. The one glaring omission is Quebec. Even though the one proposal you received did not meet all of your criteria, in terms of variables, it would have been nice had you selected another from the province. That would have completed the picture by providing data on the situation in Quebec. I think that's fundamentally important.

• 1635

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: Absolutely. As Mr. Zeesman mentioned, we're launching a series of new projects this year and we want to ensure proper geographic representation. The last thing we want to do is launch a questionable initiative. If our proposal isn't sound, then we won't proceed. Unfortunately, the first time we sent out any feelers, if I can put it that way, we failed to get even one response. On the other hand, we'll have an opportunity once again this year to take your views into account and we will endeavour to ensure better geographic representation in our sample.

One more thing: Quebec researchers have expressed much more of an interest in this initiative than Quebec communities. We have people like Richard Tremblay who is trying to set up one of the research centres mentioned. He is working with two or three other eminent professors. In fact, they were the ones who told us they were interested...

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Are they affiliated with the University of Montreal?

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: Yes, they are. We can build on the research they will be doing. However, we need to find a way to get communities interested. When we send out our next proposals, we will pay particular attention to...

Ms. Raymonde Folco: If I can help you in any way to reach various communities, please let me know. I was once very involved with Quebec's education system, particularly with immigrant communities in Quebec. I would be happy to help you.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: Thank you very much.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: I have no further questions, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: I have a couple of questions. One comes a little bit from... well, I was going to say right field, actually.

I want to know about the word “meta-analysis”, because there's a research institution in Calgary that put out something called A Meta-Analysis on the Effects of Daycare on Children. In the absence of my friend from Calgary, I would invite you to swing hard at the ball, have some fun, and then we'll get into a couple of other questions.

Basically the proposition was that child care for more than 25 hours per week had a negative effect on children's attachment to their parents, their feelings of security, and their ability to form attachments later in life. Can you just tell me, should I be terrified by a meta-analysis? It sounds very big.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: We are familiar with this piece of analysis. We haven't had a chance to review it on our own. It has been reviewed, though, by someone we have worked with and we have a lot of confidence in, and that's Gillian Doherty. Gillian has raised very serious concerns with the analysis.

Now, while we're on the subject, I do want to say that we do have a piece of analysis on the NSLCY coming out of the first cycle that indicates that under some circumstances, especially in families with high incomes and well-educated parents, some of the kids do not do as well in terms of their cognitive development when they are in day care as opposed to being at home. But that's a very specific subset of the children who are in regulated, quality day care. That's one of the studies we have done, and something we're going to follow up longitudinally to see if that effect maintains itself over time.

The Chair: Okay, if I may just ask it now, coming back to the subject at hand, one of the things that happened in the North York study as the prototype was that you financed over a three-year period the research that led to the instrument—and I think it certainly seems to have been money well spent. But there was the second component to which you referred, which I think you may have also indirectly financed, and that was the coming together of the early years action group. They're applying the research on the ground, as it were, because they're mobilizing the community around the information with the explicit intention of improving the score, right?

Now, where this is taking me is that as a department, HRD has, I would say since its creation, tended to be a banking department. It has tended to either bank individuals by cheque or bank institutions by cheque. It has not up to this point seen itself as being in the social mobilization business. That's been more the purview of Health Canada—the community action program for children—or even Justice, with the National Crime Prevention Council.

• 1640

But here is this subversive group within the shop, the applied research folks, who are kind of getting the department into the social mobilization business, sort of willy-nilly under the cover of... I'm being naughty here. I guess my point is that your minister, wearing one of her innumerable hats at all of these various tables, is in effect responsible for getting the deal with the provinces by the end of the year on a national action plan for early childhood development services at the community level.

I would very much like to know, to the extent that you can tell me, what is... It would seem that what you're doing is just the absolute preparation for that deal. That is to say, you're providing the research and the understanding, but you're also presumably providing the tools. I'll let you have fun with that—or not, as the case may be. Am I seeing something here? Or am I seeing too much here? It sounds like a Voyer question.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: We'll respond in stages, but I think I would disagree somewhat with your analysis of HRDC as strictly a subsidizing unit of some sort. We do have in the department's vision statement an emphasis on community capacity-building. Perhaps we've been a bit slow in engineering it with a national perspective, although our regions have been very active in each area of Canada locally, they've been part of these communities, and in a way they have, by their networking, done a lot of community capacity-building.

This in a way is the type of intervention that is welcome in the new vision of the department. We'll see more. We have experimental projects right now in Cape Breton involving EI and social assistance recipients. We're also trying to be on the ground a bit more.

Regarding the link on early childhood, Allen may share some insights, but I think it's for the better if our work informs the debate. I think the debate would take place without this work. We're confident that whatever we do will be inspiring. If there is a systematic link, there will be reference to this in the discussion, but it's not been systematically put on the table or presented as the core of the intervention or block two of the intervention whatsoever. Our work precedes the SFT and the other commitment of the government in that regard.

The Chair: Allen, do want to comment?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: I think that's the answer. Our work does precede it. Our work goes back to 1991-92, in fact.

The Chair: I guess the part I'm interested in is that in the prototype, stage one is to start working on the instrument, but at the same time to help the group come together. I'm not quite sure how much cash went in, but there is this sort of, one, getting the information, and then giving the community the tools to apply the information. Is that the plan as well for the other five pilots? And is there something going out—

Mr. Allen Zeesman: No. With understanding early years, the only money that goes to the community is for the research coordinator whose job it is to help us organize the collection of the data on the ground, because there are three different things going, and whose responsibility it is to make sure people in the community organizations understand the results of the research and can incorporate it into their work.

Also, where the community is capable of doing it, we will support the community-mapping study by people in the community, as opposed to, say, contracting it ourselves with someone. But that's all we do in the community.

• 1645

The Chair: What are you going to do, though, as you gather the information, for example, on the schools? You want it not to be used as a slam on the schools, or on the neighbourhoods, or anything else. You want to be able to make that a tool of special development. So is there a kind of strategy that grows out of even the pilots leading to the forty next, or whatever else, as to how you even put the information out in a way that helps mobilize?

Mr. Allen Zeesman: In our view, the extent that we're helping mobilize is the extent that we're allowing people to understand what's happening to their children and therefore get a sense that there are things that can and should be done. But that's the extent of the support we're giving in terms of mobilization. In fact, in all the UEY communities that we've gone in to date, it is actually a prerequisite that they be mobilized before we go in to do the research, so that there is somebody there to receive it.

The Chair: That's one of the criteria. For example, the problem with Quebec was that you didn't find a sufficiently mobilized or—

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Actually, as it turns out, that was exactly the problem of the proposal that came into Quebec. It wasn't really a mobilized community; it was just a couple of people here or there who said they would like to see the report in that one particular area.

Some of the other proposals had different kinds of problems. There was a series of criteria.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: How does your research data differ from the data gleaned from research done in the various communities, notably in Quebec, given that early childhood is a provincial matter and that the provinces are responsible for delivering front line services?

Similar research must be carried out in other provinces... Some research has been done in Quebec and we have data on actions that are warranted. I'm thinking here about certain initiatives developed and funded by the Government of Quebec, sound projects which provide much support to the community.

I'm wondering how a longitudinal survey like this on a matter under provincial jurisdiction can produce different findings. I'm referring, of course, to the situation in Quebec.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: In developing the NLSCY, we worked not only with Quebec researchers, but with people from all provinces and countries already committed to this study. The longitudinal study is by far...

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: That's the first time I've heard anyone use this acronym.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: I'm sorry. NLSCY is the National Longitudinal Survey on Children and Youth. It is easily the most advanced and sophisticated survey of its kind in the world, developed on the basis of work already done in Canada, Quebec and elsewhere in the world. The information is highly sought after across the country. Right now, we have no problem venturing into the territory of Quebec researchers and indeed of researchers elsewhere given the interest shown in our project.

As both Mr. Voyer and myself have indicated, one of our four research centres is located in Quebec. Many Quebeckers are part of our network of researchers.

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: We are familiar with the authors of the studies conducted in Quebec, with people like Fortin. We have worked with them for a number of years. They are happy to know that a survey like this exists. They have their own analysis tools, but we are offering them something first-rate. We can achieve significant economies of scale by pooling this expertise and by including within a broader survey provincial research findings that can help us do more detailed analyses.

• 1650

They are therefore delighted to have this tool at their disposal and they want to participate in the project. Of course, each province is at liberty to do its own analyses based on administrative data collected, often on the services delivered by the provinces. However, in order to get more information, the survey is even better, since it covers a broad range of issues.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Quebec has done more than the other provinces, with the exception of Ontario, in terms of surveys. It has done province-wide surveys into areas also covered by the national longitudinal survey. We are working very closely with these researchers and with the surveys they did.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: You referred to the national survey as the cadillac of tools. I'm trying to grasp your meaning. Is it a first class instrument because it enables us to draw comparisons between the provinces in terms of the support provided to children? It's not obvious to me that it's a cadillac.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: To begin with, we took a very comprehensive approach. No other survey takes into account learning, social development, health and social and emotional problems.

We don't stop at one or two hypotheses in trying to identify factors and variables. Rather, we employ many hypotheses. We compile information on the parents, on their behaviour in the labour market and on their income. We compile information on the brothers and sisters of children and on their friends. We use questionnaires intended for teachers and school principals. We have questionnaires that are filled out by the children themselves. This is no ordinary survey.

The Chairman: At the same time, it's a longitudinal survey.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: That's right. We plan to follow these children from birth to young adulthood.

[English]

The Chair: As time draws to a close, may I ask this question? I would suspect that the more the word gets out on what you're doing—I'm talking now about the early years study—the more one would expect communities to want to be part of it. There would be a lineup at the door. So one question is kind of the rollout and whether you have enough resources.

The second question relates to your page 24, which is really—

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I'm sorry, but I have to leave to attend another meeting.

[English]

The Chair: Okay. We didn't see you leave; you're here in spirit. Otherwise we have to stop the meeting. Leave your purse, at least.

The thing that flows from that is that it seems to me you have a potential. I hope you have a tiger by the tail here. I hope you're suddenly going to find that not only is there a lineup at the door, but that if our dreams come true—I'm speaking now of some of the remaining dreamers in the room—and we do get some kind of a deal on early childhood development at the community level by the end of the year... We are going to need to know, communities are going to have to know, a lot in a fairly quick manner, in a user friendly manner, in a comparable manner, to be able to mobilize. I wonder if you've thought through that.

Is there an Internet strategy? What happens if you have a runaway success? How will you handle it in terms of getting the information out?

I come back to the point that I don't think you answered entirely, which was the point about even the data on the schools, A, B and C, and all the other ones in Toronto and indeed here in Ottawa-Carleton, that the way in which the data can be presented can be very powerfully good or even potentially negative. So I wonder about, even now, the strategies.

• 1655

Let me just give you one little story. I was in a school in a certain Toronto riding—I won't mention any names, but you can probably guess which one—where I was talking to the school principal. The data on social competence was not too great, but all of the other factors were entirely different. They had everything on your list there. They had day care, parent involvement, and lots of things. When I asked the principal about it—everything else was fine, by the way, cognitive skills—the answer seemed to be that the kids don't get out much, that is to say they don't get on the subway. They're in a very—dare I say—white bread community. They may be in the care of others, not necessarily even in day care in some cases, but they live kind of isolated lives, in a way. They don't see a lot of challenge.

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Let's put it this way: white rich kids.

The Chair: Yes. That's what you find. They're white rich kids—

Ms. Raymonde Folco: Let's be blunt about it.

The Chair: —in a certain unnamed Toronto riding.

She was saying, “How do I tell the parents? They think they're doing a great job.” So I've given you a kind of communication question.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Yes. As it turns out, specifically on the EDI, we have an arrangement whereby we work very closely with Dan Offord and Magdalena Janus, even on aspects of EDI that are not HRDC-funded. As a matter of fact, next week or the week after they're going to be in our office and we are going to create a standardized EDI report that will automatically go to all communities where the EDI is put in place, no matter who puts it in place.

The Chair: That will be for public consumption, not for the principal.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: That's right.

The Chair: But on the lineups, the people at the door, how are you going to handle the long-term communications strategy?

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Pierre Voyer: It's the story of Perrette and the jug of milk. I'm not certain what this tale is called in English, but Perrette sells her jug of milk to buy a hen that will lay eggs, and so on.

[English]

then she got a castle in Spain in the end. We kind of resisted that in a sense, one step at a time.

I think your questions are all valid. I doubt we are going to be an instant success, because unless there is a strong political will—and this may happen—to move fast, our first duty as researchers will be to not be too keen on giving advice that is not yet formalized. At that time we will probably advise caution and progressive implementation of any initiative that might be decided, but we don't have all the scenarios.

I think we're going in the right direction in terms of the things we're trying. There will be a communication element. Information that people would rather not know will have to be communicated in a very sensitive way. Statistics Canada is in this game too, and they're sensitive about these sorts of things as well.

I don't have clear answers for you in terms of what the plan will be two years down the road. You may be one of the first members of the fan club. We'll see if there's a few more in terms of this initiative. Then we'll have to accelerate our thinking in terms of the specifics. Right now we've been quite global in envisaging a new way of doing policy. We're a bit in uncharted territory, I must admit, and we'll have to give serious thought to the next steps, as you suggest.

Mr. Allen Zeesman: Again, it's not a secret at all that in the context of working with the provinces for the early childhood plan, part of it will be a knowledge component. We are very closely associated with the people who are negotiating or beginning to negotiate this in terms of developing this knowledge component. It's in there that these questions have to be raised and addressed.

The Chair: You've heard of un Canadien errant; this applies to committee members too, as they come and go. But on behalf of all of us, whoever has been here, thank you very much. It's been a real treat.

I think this information, this work, is exciting. It is also terrific because it has the capacity to be empowering information. This is applied research in the best sense.

• 1700

We can see it being popularized in things like the Globe and Mail family series, where they look at places like Port Colborne. Last week they looked at that neighbourhood in Calgary and the decisions people make to move into the same neighbourhood, and even on the same street. The fact that you are now able to give some kind of research validation to the kinds of things people are doing intuitively is terrific.

We're not only your supporters; we're your unindicted, so far, co-conspirators. So we look forward to working with you.

The meeting is adjourned to the call of the chair.