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, June 14, 2000

• 1541

[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Welcome all, bienvenue, to the Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk. We're delighted to see our guests from across Canada.

[Translation]

It is truly wonderful that you have all come.

[English]

The committee has been following two major themes this spring. One is the whole question of family work balance and how we can get it better in Canada, whether it's at the level of the federal government or in the private sector. The other is the whole issue of the role of the community in supporting families and children for better outcomes. Both of these themes have arisen from the Speech from the Throne. Both of these need work and thinking about because they have yet to be put into action by the federal government, although recent events, including the meeting of social service ministers Thursday and Friday in Toronto, seem to be encouraging.

[Translation]

I am delighted to see the range of communities represented around the table. This is really quite something, and I hope that you will introduce yourselves to each other as we engage in good discussions.

We will begin with our witness from Quebec, Ms. Claudette Pitre Robin. I have a few details about Ms. Pitre Robin. She will be speaking to us about the Concertaction inter-régionale des centres de la petite enfance du Québec. Her task will be to explain, in greater detail, what this is all about.

Welcome, Ms. Pitre-Robin. Go ahead.

Ms. Claudette Pitre Robin (Vice-President, Concertaction interrégionale des centres de la petite enfance du Québec): Good afternoon. I'd like to thank the members of the committee for inviting us here.

Concertaction is an organization that has been in existence now for 15 years. It brings together all of the regional clusters of child care centres in Quebec. We used to refer to these child care centres as non-profit daycare centres. They are clustered together by Quebec region and Concertaction brings together the various regional clusters.

This is why we are called Concertaction. This is a place where we work together jointly, but we also take action, exchange information and do advocacy work. This is why we selected this name.

Concertaction is, of course, the organization that was a strong advocate for a policy that dealt with the needs of all families, a policy that would result in much broader access to daycare than what we had prior to 1997, namely rates of $25 per day per child, an amount that parents often could not pay.

Currently we are very satisfied with Quebec's policy, because it resulted in significant change. We usually said that daycare centres were places for caring for children, but that they were also educational. Now, the entire policy is truly focussed on pre-school children, who need and are entitled to educational services. Hence the child care centres provide educational services and, at the same time, serve as daycare centres for the children.

• 1545

This is a significant change in terms of development and in terms of the way we see services. First and foremost, these are services for parents, and in order to do this, we regulated an educational program in order to ensure the quality of the services provided within each of these child care centres.

Obviously, the $5 policy enables all families to have access to these services. For those families who are receiving what we call welfare, the services are provided free of charge for a total of 23.5 hours per week. These services may even be free the entire week if the child has been placed in the centre as a result of a psychosocial referral. There are, therefore, many children who receive free care in the child care centres. This enables us to intervene with our clients that are at high risk. These children are in educational centres several hours per week and, at times, even the whole week.

Obviously, this reform is currently forcing us to develop services rapidly. In 1997, we had 64,000 daycare spots. Now we have 114,000 spots, and we still have waiting lists. I do not have to tell you that.

The objective of the government is to create 200,000 spots by the year 2005-2006, which means that we have to create 15,000 spots per year. Currently, half of the spots are being created in daycare facilities and the other half are being established in what we refer to as home daycare.

The development of services and the types of services take into account the data compiled from a survey which will be conducted, once again, next August by the Quebec Statistics Bureau in order to identify parents' preferences as to the types of daycare services they prefer. The creation of spots must reflect what the parents want for their children.

Naturally, we have not carried all of this off without a hitch, given how fast we have had to move. A large portion of the network is developed, and this is where Concertaction intervenes. There have been significant financial changes because parents pay no more than $5.

Each child care centre is managed by a board of directors where two thirds of the directors are parents. This is important in the dynamics. In our opinion, it is very important that parents control the type of service provided to their children. The services must not be run by the State, even if the State does provide significant financial investment, especially since—you have probably heard about this—on April 1, the government invested a significant amount of money to increase the salaries of staff working in the daycare centres. This enhancement was necessary. I believe that everyone recognizes, everywhere in Canada, that this is very important when you want to ensure that the educators working with children have specific training in early childhood education.

As of next year, two out of three people working in the child care centres must have specialized early childhood education training. In order to do this, we have launched a major training initiative, funded by Emploi-Québec, to the tune of $3.2 million over three years, to train people working in the child care centres so that they can obtain what is called a college certificate in child care.

This is, therefore, very important. Yes, we need to develop these services at a rapid rate, and we need to develop them on a broad scale, but not just any way and not under just any conditions. Parental control of the boards of directors is a guarantee of quality.

Much of the development is being done within existing daycare centres or existing daycare agencies. Parents who are concerned about meeting the needs of the children in their community participate in projects to develop a second or third facility. Many corporations are in the process of developing a third care centre to ensure that the children and their community all have access to daycare spots. This is a very dynamic sector, as you can see, because we are currently in the process of developing 15,000 spots per year.

• 1550

The daycare centres also had to diversify, meaning that they had to provide spots in a home care setting, and the home care agencies also had to provide places in their facilities. By doing this, we want to avoid the continual debate about which type of service is best and we also wanted to determine which service best met the parents' choices. Some parents prefer one type of service over another. We must make sure that all of the services are of high quality. Child care centres are places that provide both types of services, including broader services to the community: drop-in centres, respite centres, etc.

I will close with that.

The Chair: Very good, Ms. Pitre Robin. It is extremely interesting to hear about the Quebec model, which is, I would say, a pioneer model, especially since emphasis is being placed on education, which is the most important aspect of daycare centres.

[English]

We'll now move to what I would call the home team—that's Ottawa—Carleton. There's an advantage to being the home team; they bring their supporters. Would the supporters like to wave? There they are. They really are very impressive.

It's interesting that when we look at early childhood development, we can come at it from various aspects. We can come at it educationally, we can come at it from health, we can come at it from social services, and it's all the same, in some sense, or it's all part of the same story.

Our lead presenter is Dr. Robert Cushman, who is, to make the point, the regional medical health officer for Ottawa—Carleton. He's brought with him Dianne Wilson, who is the executive director of the Ottawa Senators Foundation, which is not only a sporting organization but a business organization, and Michael Allen from the United Way.

This is an interesting model as well, so we welcome you. My understanding of the batting order is it's Dr. Cushman, followed by Dianne Wilson, followed by Michael Allen.

Welcome.

Dr. Robert Cushman (Regional Medical Officer of Health, Success by Six (Ottawa—Carleton)): Thank you, on behalf of all of us, Mr. Chair.

I've been asked to start by providing an overview of the initiative in Ottawa—Carleton of Success by Six, six ans et gagnant. It's hard to define Success by Six because it's all-encompassing. We want to live up to the slogan. We want to make sure that all our children in this region arrive in grade one well prepared for the tasks ahead.

Why is there such concern about this? We're talking to the converted, but I think there has been an interest in this issue in Ottawa—Carleton for some time before certain other initiatives and interests surfaced. In our region, 20% of the children grow up in poverty. There are the issues of family and work balance you mentioned earlier, time, and quality time for parenting. There's the environment. Do we live today in a child-friendly environment? Some will argue we don't. Finally, there is the very important issue that parenting is the most difficult job in the world. We are never trained for it, and by the time we learn something we're usually finished.

Basically, this is an early intervention and prevention initiative consisting of a number of programs designed to ensure that all children enter school ready to learn. It's based on the recognition that we're not doing a good enough job. It's based on the recognition that there's very little investment in these first five to six years of life, when you look at educational and health expenditures for the rest of society.

It's a community partnership. It's a community initiative. It's not just one agency, just as you see from the representation before you. In fact, the United Way was the catalyst to get it going in our neighbourhood. The United Way has provided the secretariat structure and the governance structure for Success by Six.

We've developed a community action plan. We've had the voice of the community—ongoing communication with the community. It's an initiative that's constantly evolving. The membership is legion at this point and is continuing. I'd be talking for more than 10 minutes if I told you about all the partners. Suffice it to say there's a broad mix of private and public sector partners.

What have we learned with this initiative? It takes time. We've been at it two years, but we think it's a necessary investment. You need dedicated individuals. Luckily the agencies involved have allowed their people to work hard on this initiative and have seconded them for hours and hours of time—some paid, some not paid—and overtime hours people will speak about. But there is a commitment and an enthusiasm. We've had the support we need from all partners: time, and financial and moral support. We've kept the community involved and informed. There's a sense of community ownership here.

• 1555

Also, what we've learned in the process is that you really have to get to know your community. Some areas do better than others. There are certain gaps, and there are certain specific needs.

What has worked? Certainly the United Way was helpful in terms of their experience in the Success by Six notion to bring this issue to town and to act as the catalyst. From there we went on with a partnership, a buy-in from funders and community stakeholders, the sharing of time and resources, and consultation with the community.

The United Way has accepted the responsibility of providing funding support along with other foundations. We've developed a framework now, a council, basically, where we can accommodate partners around the table, and we think we're on the way to some bigger and better things.

What are the gaps? Clearly there are a number of wonderful services in our community. There are deficiencies. There are a lot of places where services aren't accessible. In terms of community-building, we want to energize the whole community on this issue so that we're all looking after our children. There's a major public awareness component that goes with that, and obviously coordination of services.

Looking at one-stop shopping initiatives, we've seen examples in this city where we have the physical plant, maybe provided by the school board, and a number of other providers come in and provide services under one roof.

We want to keep score. We want to measure the outcomes, and we want to be accountable. We have an evaluation framework that looks at everything from our community development to our governance structure.

We've developed a report card to actually keep track of measures of child development. We have a subcommittee that will be evaluating certain projects. The United Way is our legal entity. Our secretariat is responsible for the annual report and the audit.

I think at that point, I'll turn it over and pass the baton to Dianne.

Ms. Dianne Wilson (Executive Director, Ottawa Senators Foundation; Success by Six (Ottawa—Carleton)): Thank you.

Business is here for an obvious reason, and that is that it's good business to have a good, healthy community where children are comfortable, where families can move to from other centres and we can produce a good workforce for 20 years down the road. But business is also here for another reason. We care about our community and we care about the kids who are in our community.

One of the things that have become obvious with a lot of the studies that have been done is the costs of taking care of these people in their early years versus the costs of taking care of people who have not had access to early childhood development programs down the road, when they find themselves unemployed or in secondary training programs. And that's of great interest to business.

But we have a moral interest too. Just as, as a country, we wouldn't allow holes in our roads, we wouldn't allow our infrastructure to crumble, so should we not allow these problems or these deficiencies to sit with the child in Canada. I say “the child” because children are a class, and it's easy to take a look at a class as a group. Rather, I would encourage us all to look at it as “the child”.

I guess what we'd like the Government of Canada to do is take a proactive role and be an advocate for the child in Canada. Just as the Government of Canada has done with health care—it doesn't pay all of the money to health care, but it sets the standard, it controls. The Government of Canada, the federal government, has allowed us to keep our national health care program. We ask that the Government of Canada take the same interest in the child in Canada and make the agenda for the child a priority.

Michael.

Mr. Michael Allen (President and Executive Director, United Way Centraide Ottawa—Carleton, Success by Six (Ottawa—Carleton)): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I bat clean-up. I love that part.

The United Way mission in our community and in most communities across this country where United Way exists is to bring people and resources together. We're very, very proud of this initiative in our community. It is a model we have borrowed from the United States, where it has significant reach and breadth. We're very pleased that it has manifested itself in the way it has in this community, with business, the public sector, and the voluntary sector participating so actively.

Dr. Cushman has outlined the roles that the United Way has locally, so I won't add much to that. Let me just add one point, so I can bridge into something that speaks to the national capacity of the United Way movement. That is that the provincial government has recognized Ottawa—Carleton in the context of their early-years work as a demonstration site.

• 1600

We are working very closely with the ministry responsible for children, the children's secretariat there, and we would very much urge the federal government to deal with the issues that need to be dealt with vis-à-vis clarifying roles. But I think it is fair say that the sentiment exists very strongly, amongst you, I know, and within the provincial government as well that anything we can do to further share responsibilities is very much a key component. So we would urge you on in that endeavour, despite the challenges you face around jurisdiction.

I do want to add one word about the United Way movement nationally. We are 125 United Ways strong as a movement across this country. There are at least seven United Ways with Success by Six or that type of model operating within them, and they are in major centres: Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal, and of course here in Ottawa.

We have, as a collaborative movement, developed a piece of research and guidance for our colleagues across the country—it is in your materials—called Making a Commitment, and it's on that basis, independent of the role of government, that as United Ways we believe leadership is important for us to exert in our own communities, and we are urging our colleagues along that way.

However, the federal government would be a very welcome partner. I know from our discussions with both the public sector and private sector partners here in Ottawa that we would be very anxious to see the type of impact the federal government's participation could bring to the table.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

It's exciting that we have such a dynamic example of community mobilization right at our own doorstep. We can just walk down the street and see it. So we'll be... And it doesn't cost much to fly you in, either—not that we minded bringing Robert Paterson in. I didn't want that to go down the wrong way.

Robert Paterson has an interesting career, which has intersected with mine in the past. He started out, unlike me, in the world of business as a banker, then swam—or whatever the verb is—into the vortex of Fraser Mustard, as so many of us have, one way or another, and worked, as I have, at the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. He then put all that behind him... well no, he didn't put it behind him, he then moved on to Prince Edward Island, where he's doing both business and community mobilization around children.

So you see, we have this community bench strength. It's just amazing.

Welcome, Rob Paterson.

Mr. Robert Paterson (Member, Child Alliance Advisory Committee of P.E.I.): Thank you, John, and thank you very much for allowing us from the other side of Canada to come in today.

I don't want to talk about children and all the good reasons we should be doing a better job, nor do I want to talk about families. I'm going to assume that those are givens.

What I'd like to talk very briefly about is structure. One of the questions I keep asking myself is, since we've known all these things for a long time, why isn't it working very well? Why isn't there a new way of helping families and people do a better job? So I'd just like to make three comments about that.

First of all, in the context of the struggle to find some kind of federal-provincial community engagement, Prince Edward Island, being a small place, is often used for pilots, and when I look at the community I live in, what I see is a foundation of federal, provincial and community activity going on in the world of parents, children, and the workplace that really describes an almost ideal system. It's not ideal, but the patterns are there. So what we have covering the entire island is the CAPC program. We have six family resource centres in all the major communities. So there you have Health Canada and the community.

We have a pilot Best Start program that covers half the population of the island. It assesses all newborns in the context of risk in their own family, and offers home help to mothers as well. It is an extremely powerful early intervention, and it's being piloted in a couple of other communities in Canada as well.

Nearer to the five- to six-year-old level, we are one of the pilot communities for the readiness to learn program. So they're developing a measurement system with HRDC, the provincial government, and the Early Childhood Development Association. I should say that the Best Start work is being funded by the federal government, the crime prevention people at Attorney General; by the community; by the provinces' public health; and it's nested into the CAPC system as well.

• 1605

Two other things are going on. We've recently come back from Industry Canada with some support from them to link up all the CAPC sites on the island. Most of the four hundred and something CAPC sites across Canada operate as unique, distinct, isolated entities. We're running a pilot with Health Canada, with Industry Canada, and with the provincial government to fully link up, in terms of technology, all these centres.

The issue really isn't about technology. I mean, on the surface we're seeing lots of hardware going in, but the real issue, what's started to happen there, is that all these centres are starting to talk to each other a great deal about a number of things. So there's another governance structure starting to emerge out of this. They meet regularly to manage all these things, and they didn't do that in the past.

The last intervention that's happening on the island that I'd like to comment on is the work and family. In Atlantic Canada, of course, government is the biggest employer in town, the most prominent two parts of government being the federal and the provincial government. We've been very fortunate in having Mr. Murray, who's the deputy minister of DVA, which is the only federal department based in Prince Edward Island, sponsor a whole search around work and family within his own department. This is not a policy-driven type of thing. It really is an investigation of what stresses are going on and what some of the shifts in culture are that are going on there.

I think, with us, if we're successful in really deepening the understanding about these issues there, it will affect employment in every part of the island. So from a structural point of view, what I'm seeing on Prince Edward Island is that we have a living example of federal, provincial, and community support. I think, with all the ding-dong that's going on between the parties at the moment, we do have this in most other parts of Canada as well.

I'd just like to finish with this. I was fascinated to hear about the United Way. One of the things I think is missing, which we're trying to do with the Child Alliance Advisory Committee, which is really a lobby group, is to provide some kind of force and power, some form of unifying structure, behind all of this work. I think without something like that, it's very difficult to make progress in the community. I'd love to talk to the United Way.

The Chair: That's one of the side benefits of being here. You can have off-line conversations about these things.

Now, from British Columbia, we have Lois Yelland. Lois came here two years ago when the main committee of HRD had a major round table on the subject of community mobilization and the readiness to learn measure. We also had representation from CHANCES. I think Ann Robertson was here from P.E.I. as well. It's a real pleasure to welcome you back.

Lois comes from a public health background as well, and represents... she's wearing several hats; she'll tell you about them. In Vancouver it's Windows of Opportunity which is again an integrated approach, but there's also a B.C.-wide coalition called First Call.

Lois, we welcome you back. It's time for an update.

Dr. Lois Yelland (Member, Project Coordinating Committee, Windows of Opportunity for Vancouver's Children and Youth): Thanks very much, John.

I'm really glad you mentioned First Call, because I think it's very important to discuss our Windows initiative in the context of the broader picture, which is the provincial movement.

First of all, First Call is a cross-sectoral, non-partisan advocacy movement for children and youth. It's grounded in the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It's a coalition of more than 45 provincial organizations and hundreds of groups and individuals from around the province. The purpose of First Call is to create greater understanding of and advocacy for legislation, policy, and practice that ensures that all children and youth have opportunities and resources that they need to achieve their full potential.

About two years ago, First Call launched a campaign called Spotlight on Children and Youth, which was basically a call to action to communities throughout the province to mobilize around a prevention and early intervention agenda within each of their communities. Vancouver in the meantime had gone ahead with this project called Windows of Opportunity, and we became one of the first of the First Call initiative, or mobilization. Just to show our connection with First Call, we used the same kind of colours as they did in our poster, but we used our name, so it would show the link and yet it wouldn't create confusion about whether we were Spotlight on Children and Youth or we were Windows.

• 1610

Just to back up because some of you wouldn't have heard the discussion two years ago, the Windows of Opportunity is basically Vancouver's call to action around a prevention and early intervention agenda. It's for all children right across the age spectrum, not just for zero to six, so right from the time children are conceived until they enter adulthood. It's based on the principle that parents play a pivotal role in the lives of their children, but it acknowledges that it takes the community to raise a child.

Now, the Windows initiative is actually a partnership of many different groups—neighbourhood houses, family places, community centres, ethnocultural and aboriginal groups, special needs groups, child care services, youth leadership and training programs, youth services, Parks and Recreation, Vancouver School Board, Vancouver/Richmond Health Board, the Ministry for Children and Families, and the social planning department of the City of Vancouver.

The first stage of our Windows project has been a community development project. What happened initially was that we saw the federal government had a surplus. We certainly saw a need—all the needs you've outlined and more. We have a culturally diverse city, the second most diverse city outside of Toronto. We have a large, diverse aboriginal population. We have economic disparity in our communities that I think rivals any community in the country.

Out of this need and out of this opportunity created by the surplus and the budget, and out of the school board's need to see something done to address readiness not only for children at school entry, but also readiness to keep children in school and successful at school, came this original proposal.

It was a proposal to the federal government for major dollars. We were talking about $10 million a year for our city for a five-year demonstration project. Now, we didn't get the funding for that, but what it did was galvanize our community around a vision. The strategies that were suggested in this proposal have formed the basis for our consultations, along with the four keys to success that First Call has come up with. Those are investing in early childhood, supporting children and youth through all of the transitions to adulthood, addressing the question of economic inequities, and creating safe and caring communities.

Our consultation has taken much longer than we expected. We thought we would have action plans for our city and for all six areas of our city about six months ago. As it turns out, because our funding has come in bits and spurts and also because we've found in the process of consulting that it just takes a lot longer, it takes time to build trust, it takes time to communicate, it takes time to build consensus, we've got our six consultation reports for the six areas of our city.

• 1615

We also consulted with our ethnocultural and aboriginal communities and we have consultation reports from them as well, but they've also been incorporated in the six network plans. And we've recently done a consultation with the special needs community and also with youth, because youth were feeling that they weren't really as much a part of this as the first window of opportunity, the zero to five-year-old age group.

What's planned for the future is a forum in the fall, and it'll be a two-day forum where all of the networks get an opportunity to present and all of the consultation groups other than networks get an opportunity to present, and then we're going to sit down to the hard task of coming to consensus around a city-wide action plan. This action plan needs to be very concrete. At the moment it hasn't been concrete enough for us to feel we can go to business and engage them, but clearly that's an area we need to pursue.

We're excited by the movement around the national children's agenda. We feel it's absolutely critical that new resources be brought, and major new resources be brought, to the area of prevention and early intervention. Certainly there are things we can look at within our communities, and it does take community interest and commitment to make a difference for children and youth, but resources are absolutely essential and we feel there's a role for provincial, federal and municipal governments in this way.

There's also a role for our public partners, and one of the things we've done—just to wrap things up—recently is implement the early development instrument in all of our kindergarten classes in the public school system in Vancouver. The results are just being collated right now, and they'll be available by the fall.

We're also embarking on a community mapping project, and this too will give us the opportunity to see how uneven the playing field is in terms of school readiness for the children community by community, and it'll also give us some understanding of what factors are related to that. Intuitively, we already have a pretty good idea, but I think superimposing the community mapping project on the early childhood development instrument will be really helpful in confirming some of those ideas.

I think I'll just wrap up there and open it for discussion.

The Chair: That's fascinating. I think that as we sit and listen we begin to see patterns and differences and a tremendous richness of experience. I also love the fact that you're talking to each other. This is great.

[Translation]

Ms. Gagnon, do you wish to ask any questions?

Ms. Christiane Gagnon (Québec, BQ): I would like to thank you for coming here to inform us about what is going on in the different provinces. We can see, from your presentations, that there is no uniform programming and that daycare service delivery varies.

I understood that Vancouver and Prince Edward Island provided programs to help poor children primarily. In Quebec, our programs are much broader as far as daycare services are concerned, which are provided to all families who need them. We have community networks that help young families living in poor neighbourhoods by providing education to the parents to help them develop better parenting skills and by providing noon-time lunches. These community networks are part of a program that is funded by the federal government.

This $5 daycare program that we developed in Quebec is truly a broader program. Are you heading towards this type of program? Even if you provided such daycare centres in the communities, you would still have to provide this front-line service to needier clients. You talked about social disparity and you mentioned the Aboriginal communities, which may need a little more help. Would your communities like to see a system similar to the one developed by Quebec?

• 1620

I noted that, in Vancouver and in Prince Edward Island, there is no daycare service program similar to the one provided by Quebec.

[English]

The Chair: Robert Paterson first, and then others.

Mr. Robert Paterson: I think you are raising an extremely important point: that most of the programs that are currently available across Canada focus primarily on “at risk”. I believe it's a difficult job to raise children for anybody, and if you look at the McCain-Mustard data, you'll also see that in fact the bulk of middle-class families are having a very difficult time as well. I sense they're rather left out.

I'm not saying don't look after the “at risk”. I'm saying what I find attractive about the whole approach in Quebec is that it's very broad and that it really is trying to get behind family realities for all families. That's a question of the provincial government having to making a decision that this is important or not, and in Quebec that policy direction has been made.

It's a difficult one for us to make in Prince Edward Island, where kindergarten is only just coming in now in a very small way, and we just don't have the resources at the moment for that.

The Chair: It's now the turn for Ontario or Ottawa—Carleton. Who's on first?

Madam.

[Translation]

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Ms. Pitre Robin, you may wish to conclude.

Ms. Claudette Pitre Robin: In Quebec, I think that we were fortunate to have a minister who sees the opportunity, who has a vision and who was able to use the resources available to us very well. At that time, we had to decide whether or not to invest in half-day four-year-old kindergarten and full-day five-year-old kindergarten, and we even talked about the possibility of three-year-old children attending school. We also embarked on an initiative to integrate families, especially single-parent families, into the job market. We wanted to help families get on their feet as quickly as possible. There was also the campaign to fight under-the-table work, because as we know, daycare services are often provided under the table.

Consequently, there was a whole mix of circumstances that resulted in us consolidating the money available to us in the same fund, resulting in a substantial amount of money that could be used to provide services. In this manner, we were able to avoid dealing with the situation in patchwork fashion. This is why we advocated the creation of child care centres rather than maintaining the daycare centres under the previous formula. We developed a much broader vision based solely on the need to provide daycare services for working parents. We looked at the various requirements of families and we established a link with the community.

Currently, we are working with the community groups. This is an avenue that we must continue to develop as broadly as possible. These community groups work on a closer basis with the parents, whereas the child care services focus on the children. All of these aspects must be integrated. For years we worked in stovepipe fashion, each of us trying to find grants for our own service, whereas a universal service must remain a community service recognizing the importance of the role played by parents. We need a service that is connected to the other community organizations.

I am very familiar with the United Way because it has been providing funding to the organization that I represent for 25 years. I worked at 1, 2, 3 GO! when it first started, six years ago. I can say that this project that we set up in six Montreal neighbourhoods is similar to the Success by Six program. We had set up a drop-in daycare centre within 1, 2, 3 GO! for families with few resources. This drop-in daycare centre was always experiencing problems with financing and staff turnover because the people were participating in programs, and it became very difficult to provide high-quality care for children because things were always changing. In June, this drop-in daycare centre will become the third child care centre facility, which will enable the parents to continue having access to the drop-in daycare centre, which is now part of the child care and community centre. Five-dollar daycare services will be provided; however, since we are dealing with families on welfare, these services will be free of charge. The staff will get the wage increases and enjoy the same conditions as those of other employees working in this field. This service will come under the child care centre policy.

We have to learn to work together and we have to be able to support each other so that we can provide adequate assistance to families who are at the most risk.

• 1625

During the last fiscal year, we recognized that this was a really good program, but that it cost us more when we wanted to help the children and families with problems. We pointed out how important it was to give additional support to families and children. As a result of an increase in funding, we will be able to reduce ratios in child care centres, the ratio being one to six. We were also given funding to work more with community groups in order to provide support to families.

There is no advantage in developing a stovepipe system. Instead, we need to create a universal base of services where we will bring together all the various players and where we will always work with the entire community.

[English]

The Chair: Perhaps we could have a quick reaction from Ottawa—Carleton and from Vancouver to Madame Gagnon's question or observation about the Quebec model. Who'd like to go? Dr. Cushman?

Dr. Robert Cushman: I'd like to echo what's been said before here. Certainly universal programming is important. Kids are important enough and parents need help. But on top of that we need boosters, targeted programs for those with special needs.

Building on the booster reference, I think for young children immunizations are an essential ingredient to a healthy childhood. We do provide that with our health care system, but I would also add that quality, affordable, licensed day care is another cornerstone. Health care, day care and also something like junior kindergarten—these are programs that have proven their worth and should certainly be available universally to all the population.

In Ottawa—Carleton, we have funded targeted programs for those with greater needs. We are trying to effect universal policies. We have succeeded with junior kindergarten in our region, and certainly with Success by Six we're looking at parenting resource centres that can be available to the broad public.

The Chair: British Columbia.

Dr. Lois Yelland: Actually, I will echo what's been said and say that we have looked at the Quebec model with great interest. First Call has developed a position paper on early child development. There was a long debate about whether we would go with the Quebec model or whether we would go with a B.C. model. In the end we decided on a B.C. model, but it doesn't look unlike Quebec's. Clearly child care is a key cornerstone, but it's not the centrepiece.

What we see at the centre are children and families, and we see supports needing to take place in a number of areas, child care being a major one, but also prenatal and perinatal services and supports to ensure healthy birth outcomes. We also need, as you mentioned, family resource types of programs, actually a whole range of family supports, but a lot of these would be delivered through family resource programs.

Another component, which I haven't heard mentioned yet, is the early identification, and support and intervention, for children at risk of developmental delay and children with disabilities.

In terms of the approach, one of the early childhood development pieces of the windows was universal access to a full range of child care options. We still feel very strongly about that. That's come up as being well supported in our consultation.

It's clear that children who could benefit most from the child care experience are the least likely to be accessing that kind of experience in our city. So it's going to probably take more dollars in certain parts of our city to ensure that those access issues are addressed. That's why we have our work cut out for us in the fall, when we arrive at a city-wide action plan.

• 1630

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Gagnon, have you got a final question?

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: Since setting up these child care centres in Quebec, have you conducted any studies on the development of the children, including the children at risk, who have been attending them?

Ms. Claudette Pitre Robin: No, because it is still too early, the policy having been implemented only in 1997. A variety of action is being taken at different levels, for example, the direction taken in public health, in certain regions and communities, including Quebec City. There are crisis intervention programs that we are implementing jointly with Social Services. A group of educators can intervene directly with the family. All of these initiatives are being done on a partnership basis. It is important that this partnership be developed.

We believe that the child care centres should be just one place where various services are provided, where we can direct parents towards services. It is not about providing all of the services, but rather informing parents that these services exist. We can support and guide families in accordance with their needs.

Often we realize that a very young child is experiencing difficulties that had not been identified by anyone else. We have to be able to create links between the various interveners so that families don't have to start from scratch each and every time. Parents should not be sent from one place to another as we may well lose them along the way. We have to create links to provide more assistance to the most needy. This is one of the objectives of the program.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Pitre Robin.

[English]

Libby Davies—I should thank Mr. Lowther for recognizing that Libby Davies has an obligation that she absolutely has to attend to at 5 p.m.—and then we'll go to Mr. Lowther and to Mr. Jackson. We have a vote coming up at around 5:30. I'm not sure how many folks can stay on, but we'll do our best.

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

First of all, thank you to everyone for coming, especially to Lois, for coming all the way from Vancouver. Being from Vancouver myself, I'm very familiar with First Call and the Windows of Opportunity.

It's really interesting to hear about the different programs across the country. Like Mr. Paterson, I'm not going to dwell on what I think we know to be the issues we need to deal with. I think what's really fascinating at this juncture is how is it now going to unfold.

In listening to you all, what struck me... I remember actually hearing other people from the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada here in Ottawa... For instance, Maryanne Bird was saying if she heard of one more pilot program she was just going to chuck it in. It does strike me that we're doing a fabulous job of setting up pilot programs across the country, and I think the real challenge for us is how we bring it together.

I'm fascinated to hear that you've now even got money from Industry Canada. So it's like everybody's getting in on this. It's high tech. It's linking up. It's all on the basis of very good pilot programs, but it's so fragmented.

This is our experience as well in Vancouver. I've been working with a group of inner city advocates who are just jumping off the walls because of the need they see, but what they're met with all the time are short-term dollars, or this pilot program.

I think the challenge for us is that as this national children's agenda proceeds and this framework is developed... I think there is a certain attractiveness of saying one model fits all. I think of schools. Everybody knows where their school is, their elementary school particularly. To me, that's like a basic building block in a neighbourhood. It should be a place where people can come not just for school but for family support, to get immunization, to get child care, to get after-school care programs and all the rest of it. So there's a certain attractiveness to that, of saying “We build airports across the country, let's just go out and build a child care and family resource centre in every neighbourhood in this country.”

But on the other hand, we do develop differently across the country. We do have different historical things. To me, the important part of that is what has been developed at the grassroots where we do have more custom-made programs that fit our particular community.

So my question is, how do you see that unfolding? How do we make sure core principles are met, that we're not missing the boat, and that we're not referring a person from A to B to C to D? But how do we do it in a way that we are allowing communities to really be creative and be grassroots? Surely this is also about accountability.

• 1635

To illustrate that, I want to pick up on a point that Claudette made at the very beginning, the issue of wages that people get paid. I know we all know and probably share a belief that people who work in child care or in family resources centres are hugely underpaid, and so it's almost a downside of not having a more universal, centralized model. So as we proceed with this so-called framework, how do we balance those two things, and how do we make sure what I think is very important thing, the value we place on this in terms of work and training, is recognized across the country and that we don't have this incredible patchwork and fragmentation where some communities are having just horrific things going on, and then next door it's a big hole?

Maybe that's too big a question, but I think you know what I'm getting at, and I'm very interested in your perspectives about how we can be pushing some of these issues as this framework develops.

The Chair: The rules for this are a bit like Reach for the Top; you have to put up your hand.

Who'd like to go first? Rob.

Mr. Robert Paterson: I'll be very brief.

I think there are two levels to this. One is the official level that's going on now, what we're going to do federally and provincially. I actually don't think that's going to go very far, because it's at a level that doesn't mean anything. I found it interesting just listening to my colleagues here, and my sense is that there is an emergent model developing, and if you did bring together a group of people such as those at this end of the table, who really are doing this in the community, I think you'd find that whilst many things appear to be different, there is a common DNA to this.

It expresses itself locally differently, but there are some core design issues. I think you could end up with a pretty good framework by simply getting a group of people like us together and going into a design meeting, not into a “we should do more for children” meeting—I'm actually pretty fed up with that—but go into design, and I think you'd get a lot out of it.

The Chair: From Ottawa—Carleton? Michael.

Mr. Michael Allen: Let me add to that thought, Ms. Davies. If I were to look for common elements for what kind of system we might develop... and I think, to be fair, this is what spurred us on in Ottawa—Carleton, a sense that we had to start the process locally and with as many partners as we could bring to the table, and we are hoping to bring more partners to the table. So if I were looking for criteria for a system-wide approach, it would be a system that is community-based but that demands or has an expectation that as many, if not all, of the significant partners be brought into the system.

That includes the provincial government and municipal levels of government, and education authorities have a key role to play in this. We have to recognize, as I think you do, that these are required community holistic responses. So in the voluntary sector, we believe we have a role to play. We believe business has a role to play.

In that context, I think the federal government, or the provincial government, as the case may be, would be well served by expecting that the communities respond to those kinds of initiatives and that there be encouragement for that.

Secondly, as I think Mr. Paterson has suggested, there is an emerging model around parenting resource centres, and we recognize this in Ottawa—Carleton, that the potential range of manifestations of that kind of response is significant. That's where I think the ingenuity and creativity of a community-based response would be appropriate. But I do think universality should be a key element.

So I think those would be the building blocks around which a broad policy could commence.

Dr. Lois Yelland: I would add one comment to that, that I think whatever is developed needs to be broad enough that you can build on the strengths of what you already have, that you don't recreate parallel services to what you already have there. I think it really alienates people, both residence and service providers in the community, if you do that.

• 1640

But given the experience we've had with our consultation process, I think it's really important that there is a clearly defined structure. And community needs input into that, but it needs to be a combination of service providers and community residents who look at that.

[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

A voice: —

Dr. Lois Yelland: I don't think it works best that way. Everyone has an investment in the community, everyone has expertise, and I think it's best when all of them are engaged. That's what we've attempted to do in our consultation processes.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Pitre Robin, do you have something you wish to say?

Ms. Claudette Pitre Robin: I would say that the quickest way is certainly not to invent something new. Politicians have to resist the temptation to announce new models. Our problem is that we are always dealing with pilot projects and there is always money for new models, but there is never enough to consolidate what we already have. If there is one message that I'd like to convey, it is that one. We have significant experience and I think that the politicians should have the humility to recognize that things have already been done and they require support.

Any suggested model must have enough flexibility to adapt to both the reality and culture of the various environments. In some areas, more emphasis is placed on joint efforts. Bravo! We have to use that and see how we can add the service. In other areas, we already have the service. We have to see how we can work better together.

We have to take what already exists and enable these already very vibrant, strong sectors, with their valuable community experience, to go further and to get access to what they need, namely, the money that will enable them to do what needs to be done better. Hence I believe that we have to tap into the experience of the people who are already there.

The Chair: I note the presence of Ms. Gagnon, who is always there to safeguard our humility.

[English]

Ms. Libby Davies: I think that would make a great title for our final report, that politicians must have the humility to recognize what's already working and just provide the resources to do it.

The Chair: Yes.

Did I see a last comment from Dr. Cushman?

Dr. Robert Cushman: Picking up on what my colleague from Quebec has said, I would even encourage you to provide a voucher for young children that was only redeemable for certain services. That's the funding. You collect taxes; you distribute funds. For this group, the very young, I think it's money well spent.

You could argue that there should be an underage rather than an old age pension, or whatever, and these vouchers would be redeemable for certain services in the community. Let me tell you, the consumer and the communities and the agencies that are there would have no trouble coming up with model programs quickly.

The Chair: Thank you.

I will go to Mr. Lowther—

Mr. Eric Lowther (Calgary Centre, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

The Chair: —who, by the way, lives in Calgary, where I believe there is a Success by Six program, the United Way.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Yes.

My questions are going to be a little bit all over the map, because I have a number of different areas of interest. Maybe I'll start at a fairly high-level one, just to gain from your insight here.

People tell me that sometimes the programs work best at a community level, when you have somebody there with a bit of a vision or a passion for what they're doing, and when there is a certain component of volunteerism involved, or people who are working for maybe not a great wage but who believe in what they're doing. It's tailored to the local community and cultural differences, different sensitivities in that part of our country. It's in tune with that community. Then you go up another level, and you have the provincial involvement and then federal involvement.

What I would be curious to know from this panel is, what are the involvements at the three levels? Sometimes it appears to me, not so much in this discipline but in others I've seen, that yes, sometimes there's some federal money there, but there's a number of strings attached, so to speak. If you conform to this model, you get the money. If you don't, you don't get the money. I sometimes wonder if the model is sensitive enough to adapt to community and cultural differences.

• 1645

So let's kind of tailor it to this: how can the federal government, in whatever help they offer, be sensitive to the sort of community tailoring that might be needed in different parts of the country? Or maybe you don't even buy into that idea. Maybe you think, look, we don't need community tailoring. This works, so let's just roll it out across the country.

The Chair: Lois Yelland.

Dr. Lois Yelland: There are a couple of things. One, I think you're absolutely right, they do need to be sensitive to the differences in communities.

But I would also say that I believe funding needs to be a partnership, just as we have a partnership at the community level. I look at the Windows of Opportunity, and one of the things that made it so appealing and gave it such broad support was the fact that it was a very comprehensive agenda. Yet it was the very comprehensiveness of the agenda that made it very difficult to find funding.

I think it's really important for different ministries within the federal government to look at partnering around holistic initiatives. I think it's also important to look at a partnering among the different levels of government—provincial, federal, and municipal. I think it's absolutely essential that local communities or municipalities define how those service deliveries are going to be. I know that a lot of times we're performing acrobatics trying to fall within the funding categories of all the different levels of government.

The Chair: Robert.

Mr. Robert Paterson: I'd like to add to that. I think you've raised what is another excellent question. I think this is where this will rise or fall as a future program or future anything.

We've experienced the same complexity in funding. If we come up with a holistic idea, we usually find we have to split it up into four or five different things because the processes all belong to different branches of the federal government. So I think you're right on something very important.

The other side is around the issue of control. For instance, the CAPC program is an extremely good program. It's community based, with a community board—not civil servants and so on—but when it comes down to the money, one civil servant locally makes all the decisions, so you end up...

We're trying to create an organization that is trying to help people become less dependent, but if it itself is run on a totally dependent parent-child set-up, where there's no discourse, no discussion, where it's “Here's the budget and here it is”, where there isn't that kind of business-like or cooperative... and I don't know if you can even call it that... There isn't an opportunity to really talk about what you're doing and to address your funding in a more flexible way.

So I think you're right on the money here.

The Chair: Dianne.

Ms. Dianne Wilson: I would like to add something too. I think what you've struck on is that we're trying to do the job of taking care of a large segment of our population, but we're trying to do it with philanthropy. Philanthropy is supposed to be for the extras, not the basics. It's not supposed to be for core programs. It's not supposed to be how we raise the money to fix the roads in our country.

That's why it's done with string and with pilot projects. We're attracting participation with funky new ways of addressing things. We're finessing different departments to get things done. We're appealing to special interest groups within business and stuff.

We're doing all of that when really what we need to do is take a look at it and say, “We have a child here, and how do we best take care of this child as we address the road?” We say we have a road here, and how do we best address the road? I think we've complicated it and we've finessed ourselves into the side pocket, and that's just not getting the job done.

Mr. Eric Lowther: Maybe I'm going a little too far in my literary licence here, but would it be fair to say, based on your comments, sort of simplistically, that fewer strings attached at the federal level and maybe more of a best practices sharing or an outcome measurement that's shared amongst all the players across the nation... But federally, the money would flow with fewer strings attached and with more decisions made closer to the community, either provincially or municipally. I'm not sure how that breaks down, but it's at least closer to the community. Is that a better model than what we have? Is that where we want to go?

• 1650

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Pitre Robin.

Ms. Claudette Pitre Robin: I think that that is the challenge that remains. When I sat down in this room earlier, it was the first time that I had come to praise the merits of a program. Usually I appear before commissions to fight for something or to get something.

This, therefore, is the first time that I defended my government or a project. If we are defending it, it is because it is a project that belonged to us as a community organization. Back in 1979, we advocated integrated child care centres and the government decided that daycare services were useful to those parents who were working and, consequently, paying taxes to the State. It took several years before we could get back to what is important. And it remains essential.

Although the services are funded primarily by the State—to the tune of 90%—our current challenge is to ensure that these services remain autonomous and under the control of the parents and the community. The legislation already stipulates that two-thirds of the directors sitting on the boards must be user-parents. Hence we already have a solid base to ensure that services do not stray from the approach that the parents and the various services wish to take.

Services must, as much as possible, be tailored to the needs as determined by the community itself. However, there must be tight management and we have to look at how the money has been managed. We should not be asking how something was done and what program received the financing, but we must ensure that the programs are effective and accessible and that no one is profiting personally from the system. This is what we must concern ourselves with at this level, and not questions about family makeup, the number of children per family and the criteria that has to be met. In my opinion, that has to be left up to the community.

[English]

The Chair: I saw Mr. Paterson looking quite enthusiastic.

Mr. Robert Paterson: Yes. I just want to make a quick comment. As an ex-banker, I think outcomes are an important issue here. In my mind, the flaw in looking at the health system and the education system is that they're measured by budget.

My sense is that if there's some rigour about developing a national view—the national longitudinal study and so on—do you really know what's going on? You can give me money, I'll tell you I think I'm going to do a good job, and in three years' time you'll know if I've done it or not. If I haven't, you cut me off, and if I have, you'll probably give me more. I think results-based funding would be a very healthy way... We don't know what's really going to work or not, and surely what we're interested in is the outcome, so I would favour that type of approach.

The Chair: Lois, did you want to add something? Then it'll be Mike.

Dr. Lois Yelland: I favour it generally as well. I just want to make sure the outcomes are broad, that they cover the whole range, starting right from healthy birth outcomes to school entry in this case of the early childhood development discussion.

Mr. Eric Lowther: That just ties into my other question. It's a little bit off on a different tangent. It is the whole issue of prenatal health, of fetal alcohol syndrome, and of education or whatever is being recommended at that level. It seems to me that so much can be gained through proactive prevention there rather than having a lifetime of trying to cope with the negative impacts of FAS—and now they're even talking about smoking and other things. I'm not an expert on that either, but...

Are any of your programs strong on that dimension? I know there's a whole rights issue there and an issue of potentially intruding on people's personal lifestyles, but do any of you have strong proactive programs on the fetal alcohol side or on prenatal health in general?

The Chair: Why don't we start with our two public health folks here?

Mr. Eric Lowther: Yes.

The Chair: Dr. Cushman and then Dr. Yelland.

• 1655

Dr. Robert Cushman: Certainly we've looked at this. When we say zero to six, in fact contraception is a vital part of this, because there's no worse fate than being an unwanted child in this difficult world. For instance, 3%, I think it is, of births in Ottawa—Carleton are to women under the age of 20, and then a certain segment of that is to women under the age of 18 and to women under the age of 16.

Mr. Lowther, you mentioned special instances. I think there's no doubt that it has to be part of the program. As you said, while it's a difficult one to go public on, certainly we're looking at this. We think that when women do have children, they should be ready and prepared.

The Chair: Lois.

Dr. Lois Yelland: This is an area of real interest, and it's one of the reasons Windows of Opportunity is looking at the whole age span, not just up to age six. One of the things we're embarking on in the fall is a pilot parenting program called the Roots of Empathy. This is to teach children about healthy human development, including the importance of taking care of yourself when you're carrying a baby and the risks of substance abuse.

But the other thing we've just developed is a proposal for a transition program for children who are fetal alcohol affected. That's with either the full-blown syndrome or partial fetal alcohol syndrome. These are often your next generation of parents who are involved in substance abuse. These are very vulnerable young people. What we want to do is to support their transition so that they end up staying safe and choosing lifestyles, first of all, where they're parents at an older age, and, secondly, where they don't get into that substance abuse cycle.

It's a real issue in Vancouver. We have a postal code in our downtown east side where a study was done, and 40% of babies were affected. So another program we have, which is actually an interministerial program, is Sheway. It works with mothers who are drug and alcohol addicted. The whole problem, as far as I see it, is that the damaged babies are apprehended and the mother is discarded. What we need to do is to be working with these women who are having the babies. I don't think a punitive approach toward them works. I think the best way is to use that kind of window of opportunity, when they're likely to look at their lifestyle, and to help them change and to support them.

Mr. Eric Lowther: I'll close with this and turn it back to you, Mr. Chair.

All of your organizations are focused on the long-term best interests of the child. I think I can sum up in general. I would really encourage you to be proactive on that prenatal component. I see a brief mention of it here in some of the handouts, but not much. I think you should crank that up. I think we have made some gains in the last 10 years in the awareness of the impacts of prenatal health, in utero health, and all that. But that just seems like the low-hanging fruit, the easy one to catch early to save a lifetime of social supports and networks and even a repeat, as you say, of the same problem in the next generation.

So I just close with a strong encouragement to emphasize that part a little bit more.

Thank you.

The Chair: Next we have Mr. Jackson, then back to Madame Gagnon, and then the chair has a a few questions.

Mr. Ovid L. Jackson (Bruce—Grey, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'll make some comments and then maybe ask a question.

• 1700

When I think of myself as a Canadian and I wear my experience as a mayor, a citizen, a teacher, and all that, I come back to a couple of things whenever we have these discussions. You have the bureaucrats on one hand, the experts on the other hand, and then you have the politicians on the other hand. Everybody sort of goes off in different angles.

I've tried to start bootstrap organizations, and sometimes it means you have to be frugal. Although you have the person who can drive the system properly, they have to be aware that they can't expend all the money or expect money without some kind of accountability.

I'll give you a good example, one of the things I did as a mayor. We had an economic development department, and I found it hard to get a person with some vision of the incubators you need to make the community go, and the ability to be an extrovert and get out to a different country and so on and make the sale.

We'd hire one chap who could really do good book work, and then we'd say, “Go to Montreal, we think there's something happening there.” So he'd get on a plane. But he had to come back and play badminton at night, so he sort of absconded from there. Or you get a real business type who is a heck of an entrepreneur, but he spends money like a drunken sailor. There's no accountability to it. He does get results, but he doesn't do his book work.

The problem I have with a lot of the systems we have... We're not a unitary government, and all the provinces have systems that they think are better. But we also have an organization of people who think their systems are better too. The problem I have is how do you get an organization—and that includes government—that's self-sustainable and has all the synergism as a learning organization, that would include all those bits, include new people, and just keep learning, if we gave you the money, so to speak... So the money could go to that organization, and that organization could use peer review, if you like, so that you wouldn't have to go to a bureaucrat and have him or her give you the money, and that kind of stuff. The organization would say “look, this person does that, and it might seem weird and you may not be able to see where all the dollars go, but we know from the results-based stuff this could happen.”

Across the country we could see that when we have exams, these guys are doing good in science and these guys are doing good in arts. Maybe we could bring that art component and that science component in different ways, because everybody is a little bit different.

You're right, the reason we get these damn pilot projects is that somebody always comes up with a great idea. It may be a new idea or an old one reinvented, but because they are the person in there, they feel...

It's kind of like the Wheat Board. The Wheat Board is there, and if the Wheat Board doesn't bring in new people, they think maybe there are a lot of things in the Wheat Board that are not happening. Then all of a sudden they get the job, and they figure out that it's maybe not as easy as they thought, notwithstanding there could be changes.

I think in cases like this where we're dealing with children, we need that learning organization with all these facets that are accommodated in order to make things happen.

I'll make one last remark, and then I'll ask you my question. As a teacher, I observed a lot of stuff in classrooms. Teachers are all different. If you send in a kid from some of these low-class places or places where people drink a lot and the kid swears a lot and whatnot, the middle-class teacher may not like him. The kid ends up in what you call a circle of disparity. It's not the kid's fault. Because his mouth is so foul and he actually challenges that person and she's scared of him or something, she sends him to the sandbox or something like that. She's not in his social class. He ends up being spun out and dropping out of school, drinking booze, getting married and having kids, and the same thing happens over and over again. Obviously you have to find ways of fixing that problem too.

My question to you is, is there some way of getting this synergism, this model that could renew itself, bring in new people, and include all those stakeholders, the philanthropic people, the people with the knowledge, and the people who are the professionals? That's where the thing works well. Wherever children are doing well, that community has something like that that's cooking pretty well. But then they get older or they move on, and then it flops, or something else goes wrong with it. That's what happens, I think, to some of these things, because there's nothing to keep this synergism going all the time.

• 1705

There was a federal-provincial meeting from June 8 to 9, and apparently they've come up with some kind of national funding. Is that enough money, that $3 million to $5 million?

So the two questions are, first, is it possible to get that kind of model, the self-learning model that will do that; and secondly, would this money be enough to keep that model going?

The Chair: I see Lois Yelland first, and then Madame Pitre Robin.

Ms. Lois Yelland: I'm going to respond to your first question.

First of all, I don't think it's an organization; I think what we need to do is break down the silos. We need to be working together around these things. It's absolutely important that we encourage innovation, that we discard our job descriptions, that we put aside the mandates of our organizations, that we roll up our sleeves and ask, what can we do to make a difference here?

It's interesting. When the Windows of Opportunity applied for funding with Health Canada to get going on the community development piece, there was experience on the part of Health Canada with each of us as organizations, but they'd never had any experience with us as a coalition. Hence, we got only about two-thirds of what we asked for in our original funding. We've subsequently got that money, but the delays in getting our funding have created some problems in the way in which we implement it.

I think it's really helpful if the federal government can look at innovative approaches, and preferably within partnerships rather than a single organization.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Pitre Robin.

Ms. Claudette Pitre Robin: I think that the problem lies elsewhere. The needs are so great. There is such a pressing need to invest that there is no risk of making a mistake by injecting money into any of the existing organizations. We have not yet reached the point where we are concerned about refining a program, because there is such a pressing need to support what already exists and to find means of providing both resources and services to children who, in certain areas, have nothing at all.

Consequently, we are a long way from refining programs or from reaching the end of the road. It is important to establish a vision. What do we want to have in ten years? If we begin by saying that we have to wait until everyone has had a turn to speak, we will spend millions of dollars so that people can talk to each other and the children will receive no services. We can't wait for that to happen. Children can no longer wait until adults have finished fine-tuning a project that will be ready five years down the road. We have to take action now, at the same time saying that, between now and such and such a date, we want to have attained such and such an objective with respect to joint action, planning, etc. The problem will revolve around the vision. Where do we want to be in a reasonable time period? We have to consider the amount of time it will take in order to reach this point, but meanwhile, there is a need to invest in children in general, and then early childhood in particular. I don't think that that can wait.

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Paterson, do you have a comment?

Mr. Robert Paterson: I think the organizational issue is very important. The traditional organization, which has all these silos, which is organized around a certain type of culture, is a dependency-creating culture, and I think it's the absolutely inappropriate form of organization for this type of work.

Somewhere out there, there are some network models. United Way is in itself a network model.

Your job, Michael—I'm presuming—is not to do lots of stuff for the centre but to make your partnership work. I think that's the nearest thing we have to a learning organization, that type of organization, and I think you could look at organizations such as United Way, which are network organizations. I'd much rather lean towards that as a model than a conventional hierarchical, command-and-control type of organization.

As to the money, I haven't the slightest idea.

[Translation]

The Chair: Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: I would like to make an observation. The way I see it, it's not about looking for a model. This afternoon, we have talked about intervening at different levels and it would be complicated to come up with a model that would suit all of Canada. We will waste a lot of time trying to adjust one model to another. At any rate, that's the way I see it and I think that there are two points that we should remember: the pressing need to invest and the ability to implement structures. These structures vary from one province to the next and this is where the federal government is trying to find out which program and which model to support.

• 1710

As Ms. Pitre-Robin said earlier, we have to see the broad picture so that we can be flexible and try to meet the various needs of certain communities within the various provinces.

Since I know it best, I will talk about Quebec and its early childhood and home daycare policy. We know that a tremendous amount of work has been done with respect to this policy, given the Government of Quebec's desire to implement it. However, we have also hit obstacles in developing this policy. It doesn't suit everyone and we know that this policy is being funded through the National Child Benefit. Other provinces have not done this and perhaps did not draw as much criticism from the citizens.

In Quebec, we are questioning our approach. We are saying that this is not perhaps a good way to fund the program, but we do need to develop this daycare policy. Young families have to be able to meet their parental and professional obligations.

Quebec is leaving $50 million in the federal coffers precisely because of the implementation of this policy. I believe it was Mr. Paterson who said earlier that we need to improve what is being done now. If a policy is not adopted, there will be other intervention tools. But when a province decides to forge ahead, instead of holding back, we should help it. So, on the one hand, we are praising the province and, at the same time, we are penalizing it financially.

In Quebec, we must broaden our policy because we need more daycare spots. As for the 15,000 additional spaces that are to be created every year, this hinges not only on feasibility but also on money and structure. We are not able to implement the policy because we don't have the required funding. There are, therefore, issues at several levels.

We must be careful this afternoon. Are we going to be funding the right thing? Everything that you have said this afternoon is valid and I think that the objectives are commendable and urgent. We need to provide money. The federal government must assist the communities of Canada in their efforts to free up money quickly and to try to improve the structures. This is my observation. I do not know if it is accurate, but it will figure in the report. If we prepare an overall report, that will be the observation I wish to make.

[English]

The Chair: I'd like to follow up on that, although we do have to be mindful of the time. There will be a bonging of bells. We're quite close to hand, so we only have to panic when... At three bongs we have five minutes, basically, and then at two bongs... That's the way it works.

Let me try a hypothesis on you that takes into account what has just been said by Madame Gagnon. I want to see how it works in each of your situations.

If there is a deal with the provinces, maybe this September when the first ministers meet, to put in place a national action plan, the framework agreement might go something like this.

There are two models now in Canada. The first model we'll call

[Translation]

the Quebec model.

There is a provincial family policy. There is, of course, community mobilization, but there is a social daycare system that comes from the centre and moves out towards all of the communities. That is the vision.

[English]

So that's one.

On the other hand, if I may talk about Ontario as an extreme, pure other example, there is the community mobilization pilot project model, where basically the province is saying “Look, we're not going to drive this thing from the centre. What we want to do is to discover, as we have in the demonstration project in Ottawa—Carleton's Success by Six, communities that are already mobilizing, and then we're going to come in behind them, give them the resources to pull these things together, and invite”—as the Ontario government has, by way—“other levels of government and the private sector to join us.”

So you have two different views of the world in their purest form. Then maybe you have a mixed model. I don't know what... We'll get a reaction from Lois on this.

In one sense, the British Columbia model is that they are pushing it out, certainly in child care, for the 6 to 12 age group, but there's an awful lot of community mobilization going on at the same time. P.E.I. is... Well, we'll get a description of it. But if a deal between the provinces and the feds recognized those two models and said, in the case, first of all, of Quebec, we will reimburse them for their pioneering role, because that's the spirit of the social union framework...

• 1715

[Translation]

The $5 daycare centres can probably use every dollar that we can send.

[English]

On the other hand, Ontario, we hear you. In this case we'll create a different system. We'll try to work community by community. Eventually we hope the two models, 10 years down the road, will meet because we will have driven the system out from the centralized model of Quebec and filled in all the blanks one way or the other.

On the parts both would have to have in common, there would first be an agreement on three building blocks—this is what Madame Stewart's been talking about, picking up on what Mr. Lowther said. There would be the prenatal/perinatal piece; the parenting or family resource piece; and then the garderie, the day care, early education piece. Whether you went centrally à la Quebec or you went community by community, everyone would have to agree that you would have to look at all three components. You couldn't just do two. You couldn't cherry-pick. Whatever way you went, you'd have to measure the outcome part, whether it was being centrally driven or driven community by community. That's the only way to stay honest.

We'd have to be measured too—the feds—for what we did, whether it was for CAPC or anything else. We'd have to be measured and give an account to the Canadian people for what we were doing, not just to ourselves. It wouldn't be a tutelage relationship.

How does that strike you as a model? What are your reactions? Lois, I'm really interest in starting with you.

Dr. Lois Yelland: I have mixed feelings. If I hear you right, John, you're not talking necessarily about a universal program.

The Chair: I'm saying there are two ways to go to get to the same place.

Dr. Lois Yelland: It could move to that, yes. As a community that's mobilizing and could take advantage of this kind of opportunity, we're ready and would welcome it. On the other hand, what will happen to communities that haven't mobilized and might never mobilize?

The Chair: I suppose the answer is that you'd start with what you had, where there was already a good base of opportunity, and gradually, through best practices and extra assistance, you'd fill in the map, so eventually all communities, whether they had real leadership models or not, would be there on a permanent sustainable basis. We're simply trying to figure out where different provinces are at.

Which would work in P.E.I.?

Mr. Robert Paterson: I think this is what we're doing, and we're finding this approach is working very well, the approach being prenatal, family resource centre, and preparing for school. There is a management system starting to come in. I think it's very viable.

On the caution that some communities won't mobilize, in life, whether it's buying VCRs or computers or anything, there's always a way. There's the early adapting, the next bit, and then it becomes mainstream. I'm less worried about it. If the wave is moving, everybody will come on side in time.

The Chair: There's another thing that's very special about P.E.I. For example, the CAPC declares all children in P.E.I. at risk—

Mr. Robert Paterson: It does.

The Chair: —therefore it's universal by definition. Those federal programs are already there, so it's very special.

Ontario, what do you think?

Mr. Michael Allen: Mr. Chair, I have heard you speak of this model before and I certainly support it, at least in the context that some flexibility is critical. Let's hit the ground running where people are at now and build on that. The United Way is certainly committed to that exercise.

To go back to one question Mr. Jackson asked on whether or not it's enough money, I guess my response to that is I don't know. As Ms. Davies said earlier about politicians and their humility vis-à-vis what the right answers are, I don't know all the answers either, but I do know it would be very appropriate for the federal government to have expectations about outcomes. I support Mr. Paterson completely in that.

• 1720

But the other expectation I would have of the federal government, if we engaged them, if we could get you involved in this in a positive way, is that you join us in that endeavour, be partners with us. And if the model is different in communities or in provinces, that in my mind is acceptable. We will get there, but let's get there together.

[Translation]

Ms. Claudette Pitre-Robin: You are asking a difficult question because we often wonder whether or not we should give money to the parents or invest it into the organization of the system. In order to have a structure, you have to fund it, and if you spread the money too thin, no structures get created. We must therefore reconcile these two requirements.

Otherwise, if we do not have an organization built on a solid foundation, with sustained funding, it will fluctuate at the whim of the politicians, the elected representatives, the parties, the latest trends and, the next day, when there is an increase in the population of senior citizens, early childhood will be set aside so that we can look after the elderly. There is always a great risk of this happening unless these structures are established formally. That is where all of the danger lies. We must bear these two obligations in mind, otherwise the choices will be random ones. Today, we are focussing our interests on early childhood, but tomorrow there will be something else.

[English]

The Chair: With the indulgence of colleagues, I'll try just one other proposition.

Take model A as le modèle québécois and model B as community mobilization, for the time being. Would life be easier for the model B folk, the community mobilizers, if this deal we do with the provinces actually delineated quite carefully, of the three building blocks, who is primarily responsible for what?

What I mean by that is, for example, the feds would put up the money for community mobilization in the first place, to assist in that process of mapping and all of that activity. The feds would put up the money for measurement. The feds would put up the moneys also for things like innovation within community. The feds would come in on the prenatal/perinatal piece through maybe an expanded Canada prenatal nutrition program. It seems to me that has a different character. it's like maybe 25% of the population; it's less universal in the sense that probably 75% of parents are doing the right thing, and there the at-risk factor is much more sharply defined. The feds can come in partially on the family resource thing. They already are through CAPC, but if it's going to be more universal there would have to be additional money.

The provinces are clearly the holders of the key to early education, to spaces in schools where a lot of this stuff may have to take place. Somewhere in the middle, somewhere as a shared responsibility, there would have to be something for child care, because that's a big sum of money that's missing from the system.

Is that too complicated for the community mobilizers? Or does it help us figure out who does what so you know where to go and you can get on with it? I'm just testing it out.

Dr. Robert Cushman: Well, I think there is some... it sounds elegant, in fact, because you can divide it into three. But I'd warn you, we have to be careful here. I think it's doable. We talk about our silos, but really—I think it's been best said by our friend from P.E.I.—in fact our silos are a function of the funding silos. Do you know what I mean?

My colleague here, Dianne, said we're talking about kids. I mean, we're not talking about building a bridge, we're talking about expenditures at the margin for the individual. You know, there's a bridge for one or there's a bridge for none. And certainly if small is not beautiful here, it's not beautiful any place.

Also, in terms of parents, I've worked in an emergency room at a pediatric hospital, and I've worked in a community health centre in very poor areas. Let me tell you, the people from Vanier want as much for their children as the people from Rockcliffe do. So in fact if we really enabled them and empowered them, I think you would get results. There are ways to check for certain abuse along the way, whether it be at the individual level or even at the administrative organizational level, but I think it would be minimal.

• 1725

As for the remedial issues, these are the measurements and so on. I didn't mention earlier, Mr. Lowther, that improving diminishing low birth weight is in fact one of the six goals of our Success by Six. So, yes, we're starting right there.

A lot of this material could be shared. So what I would say to you, to really answer the question, is that I understand there is some elegance in dividing it into three parts, because you may say, yes, the educational piece really lies with the schools and the provincial level, but I would say be careful because it can get a little complicated.

I like the fact that you've done it vertically with the ages, rather than saying we'll do evaluation and you do programming, or we'll do this and you do that, because it gets back to the labyrinth of funding silos that we, at the service level, have to run through, and because of it we spin our wheels more often than not.

Ms. Dianne Wilson: I would add that what we're talking about is children. To continue with my analogy of the roads, we don't have a ministry for roads that are gravel or roads that go west, rather than roads that are hilly terrain. It's roads. And what we're talking about here is the child. What we need is a ministry or secretariat of the child, and then from that all of these things will flow unto all of the models that are specific to our different areas.

The Chair: Another way of viewing this might be—and again I'm thinking more on the community mobilization model than the Quebec model—to say maybe it's a bit like the infrastructure program that we proposed. You want to have a strong role for community in defining what their needs are, within a framework of checking against our three building blocks and agreeing to do outcome assessment, and so on. We wouldn't demand, as we do in the physical infrastructure program, that it's a third, a third, a third of equal money. What we would do is—and again this is to recognize what communities are already doing—we would define the community part as being not just the municipality and not even just the municipality and the educational system, but also the third sector—United Way, the business community, and so on. They would, in a sense, be applying to some fund, presumably, agreeing to abide by certain kinds of rules, and the province would come in... and again it may be in a kind of contributed-resource basis. That's why I was referring to school buildings, space, that sort of thing. The feds would come in with real live cash.

I think the virtue of that is it's not just fed-prov, it does recognize the importance of community. And if we're really going to take advantage of the huge voluntary resources, for example, of the United Way, and indeed across Canada, then we don't want to have it driven down... Certainly no one wants it to be driven down by the feds, including the feds, but we also want to capture the vitality and the buy-in of the community. So the community has to, at least in the early stages, initiate and apply for and get its act together. Is that unrealistic or is that...

[Translation]

Ms. Claudette Pitre-Robin: I would be afraid to provoke precisely what we're trying to avoid. Targeting funders according to whether they're part of community or institutional organizations will not promote concerted effort and co-operation between the institutional network and the public health networks in the regions and so forth. It will have the opposite effect. If I get too close to one side, I'll lose my chance to be funded by the other and I won't be any further advanced.

We're treading a very narrow path, at a time when services for small children in particular must be supported and families need support for the role they have to play. We have to support parents because they have children. When we provide them with adequate support from the outset and they recognize their role as parents, later on, the investment made early on encourages them to play a role in the schools, to take part in their child's sporting activities, and to just get involved in general.

So it is not by treading a narrow path that we will achieve sound results. Rather, we must find a way to support parents in the various roles they play with their children.

The Chair: Ms. Gagnon.

Ms. Christiane Gagnon: At the federal level, we're trying to find a better way to assist parents from a financial standpoint. Here I'd like to get into politics a bit. I'd remind the government that cutbacks to the Canada Health and Social Transfer hurt the provinces a great deal.

• 1730

What we hear in committee is that the provinces have not done enough because the federal government cut the funding. So we see a social deficit that is measured in years, six or ten years, and that is quantified in the field.

In my opinion, proposing a funding model that has a federal component, that effectively creates funding corridors, leads to an extremely complicated administration.

The provinces look after the social sphere. I know that some provinces don't provide all the effort necessary in this area and I don't know how we can call them to order. However, Quebec will never accept the proposed model because it would lead to duplication, in the number of bureaucrats required to monitor these programs, among other things.

Let's look at the policy that has just been introduced for the homeless. Out of $305 million, 48 million are earmarked for administration costs. A new $90 million program is announced elsewhere, and again there's $35 million that apply only to management of the program. In the final analysis, this money is used to duplicate what's already being done. I don't know if there's a more flexible method to go through the provinces. If some provinces already have the necessary structures, help them.

Personally, I don't believe that funding from the federal government will satisfy us in Quebec. This will simply unbalance what already exists in the province of Quebec. And as Ms. Pitre Robin has said, it will divide the community networks. We know that the federal government wants to deal directly with the community networks and negotiate with them. However, we don't have the same way of funding things and organizing them.

The Chair: That's why I refer to two equally valid models.

Doctor Cushman.

Dr. Robert Cushman: I'd like to say that I was Director of Public Health in the Outaouais three years ago. I'm now the Director of Public Health of Ottawa—Carleton. I also work as a general practitioner in Montreal, in the Outaouais and here in Ottawa. I'm going to tell you something very simple and very brief: there are children who are dying of hunger; there are children who have enormous needs out there. We, the people who work in the field also have enormous requirements as do parents and their children.

There's an expression for that. I think Woody Allen coined it:

[English]

“Don't just stand there; do something.”

[Translation]

And it has to be simple. The needs are enormous. These are our children. One week of their lives counts for a whole year of our own.

We have to call upon you. It's as if there was a fire raging and we had call the fire department.

[English]

The Chair: Well, that is a superb note on which to end, it seems to me. Those are our marching orders.

I want to thank you very much for coming. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have. It's been enormously useful. Thank you for being patient with us, and we look forward to seeing you again under even happier circumstances.

This meeting is now adjourned.