ONTARIO COALITION FOR BETTER CHILD CARE
CONTENTS
Monday 10 June 1996
Children's services
Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care
Kerry McCuaig, executive director
Mary Lou Lummiss, supervisor, Omemee Children's Centre
Sheila Olan McLean, inclusion resource consultant, Five Counties Children's Centre
Merla McGill, resource teacher, Victoria County Association for Community Living
Family Day Care Services
Maria de Wit, executive director
Bob Hollingshead, president, board of directors
Daily Bread Food Bank
Sue Cox, executive director
Winston Husbands, research coordinator
STANDING COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Chair / Président: Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
Vice-Chair / Vice-Président: Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
*Ecker, Janet (Durham West / -Ouest PC)
Gerretsen, John (Kingston and The Islands / Kingston et Les Îles L)
Gravelle, Michael (Port Arthur L)
Johns, Helen (Huron PC)
*Jordan, Leo (Lanark-Renfrew PC)
*Kennedy, Gerard (York South / -Sud L)
Laughren, Floyd (Nickel Belt ND)
*Munro, Julia (Durham-York PC)
*Newman, Dan (Scarborough Centre / -Centre PC)
*Patten, Richard (Ottawa Centre / -Centre L)
*Pettit, Trevor (Hamilton Mountain PC)
Preston, Peter L. (Brant-Haldimand PC)
Smith, Bruce (Middlesex PC)
Wildman, Bud (Algoma ND)
*In attendance / présents
Substitutions present / Membres remplaçants présents:
Bartolucci, Rick (Sudbury L) for Mr Gerretsen
Boyd, Marion (London Centre / -Centre ND) for Mr Laughren
Gravelle, Michael (Port Arthur L) for Mr Patten
Parker, John L. (York East / -Est PC) for Mrs Johns
Pupatello, Sandra (Windsor-Sandwich L) for Mr Gravelle
Ross, Lillian (Hamilton West / -Ouest PC) for Mr Newman
Clerk / Greffière: Lynn Mellor
Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes:
Deborah Deller, Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees
Staff / Personnel: Ted Glenn, research officer, Legislative Research Service
The committee met at 1541 in room 151.
CHILDREN'S SERVICES
Consideration of the designated matter pursuant to standing order 125 relating to the impact of the Conservative government funding cuts on children and children's services in the province of Ontario.
The Acting Chair (Mr Michael Gravelle): I'm going to call this committee to order. Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the continuation of our hearings under standing order 125 on the impact of the Conservative government's funding cuts on children and on children's services in the province of Ontario.
ONTARIO COALITION FOR BETTER CHILD CARE
The Acting Chair: Our first presentation this afternoon is the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, Kerry McCuaig. Thank you very much for joining us. You will have 30 minutes for your presentation, which you can use in whatever manner you wish in terms of time. Whatever time is left over after your presentation we will divide equally between the three parties. Welcome, and feel free to proceed.
Ms Kerry McCuaig: I had hoped to have a larger delegation before you. I expect to be joined at some time, hopefully, during the next half-hour by three colleagues from Peterborough who wanted to talk to you specifically about difficulties they are having in their area. If I don't see them, maybe you could signal if they walk in the door.
I'd like to do two things. I'd like to give you a general overview of the state of child care since the government took office and then I'd like to talk to you specifically about the Peterborough situation, because I think it's an illustration of how market solutions to child care are insufficient to meet the demands, particularly the demands and the needs of vulnerable children.
In its July 21 economic statement, the Ontario government signalled its intention to review the province's early childhood education and care programs. Since that time, it has cancelled $100 million in funding out of the province's $560-million child care budget. In addition, parents and educators fear the demise of Ontario's 25-year-old junior kindergarten program. Twenty-four boards to date have announced that they will no longer carry the program, and government spokesmen have touted unregulated care as the arrangement of choice in the care of children.
No previous government has reduced funding for child care in the past. Responding to changing workforce participation rates by parents with young children, growing child poverty rates and the overwhelming research which indicates the benefits of quality programs for children, each consecutive Ontario government has increased its funding commitment to child care. In the past 15 years, the provincial child care budget increased from $144 million in 1981 to $560 million in 1994. Each new investment was aimed at enhancing the quality and accessibility to child care.
Since July, the government has taken a number of steps to reduce its involvement in the provision of early childhood education services. Those include the cancellation of the early childhood education pilot project; reduced funding to junior kindergarten; allowing boards to opt out of providing JK; reduction of Jobs Ontario child care subsidies; cancellation of financial support to child care centres already built in new schools; cancellation of planned child care centres in new schools; 10% cuts to family resource centres; elimination of the program development fund; cuts to programs which assist child care programs to integrate children with special needs; a review of wage grants and the capping of pay equity and subsequent reducing of staff salaries; and cancellation of the conversion program for commercial child care. In addition, provincial government cuts to social service agencies, school boards and post-secondary institutions have impacted on child care services.
These government actions are having an impact. A survey of municipal children's services departments completed by the coalition in February 1996 indicates that 4,743 of the 14,000 Jobs Ontario child care subsidies have been lost to date; more subsidies are scheduled to be dropped by the municipalities at the end of June, and additional spaces will be under review in September; 19 child care programs have closed; 12 regions have frozen their subsidy intake; 16 areas have increased their user fees to subsidized families; three areas have reduced or eliminated support to children with special needs; and 12 community-based planning groups have lost their funding. Meanwhile, 30,000 eligible families continue to wait for access to regulated, quality care.
A review of child care is currently under way and we await the findings. Government spokesmen have stated that the intention is to promote flexibility and efficiency. We concur that these are reasonable goals. However, when placed against the strategic directions strategy of the Ministry of Community and Social Services and past practice of the government around Bill 26, changes to the Labour Relations Act, employment standards, environmental legislation, housing and other vital legislation protecting and enhancing Ontario citizens, there is cause for concern. The overall direction of these steps and statements made by government ministers reflects a preference for privatizing care and education programs for young children, reducing regulations and monitoring, and undermining the quality of care young children receive.
The province has indicated it's ready to spend $40 million more a year over the next five years on child care. The federal government, as we read in today's reports by Canadian Press, indicates its child care employability tools will total -- there's a correction there -- $240 million. How the money is spent is crucial. For child care proponents, it has never been a question of simply more money, but ensuring that money is spent in a manner to deliver high-quality programs and supports. This is critical, since research indicates that high-quality programs are of benefit to children, their families and societies, and poor child care arrangements are damaging and even dangerous for children.
If public dollars are used efficiently, they should produce a comprehensive social program which provides parental employment support, positive development for all children, income support for low-income families, a prevention program for children at risk and a developmental program for children with special needs. It should reduce the costs of other social programs and itself expand the economy by creating and supporting new jobs.
In order to produce this bang for the buck, public funding must produce good-quality care and education programs. Good child care isn't a mysterious formula. Extensive research shows it's high adult-child ratios, consistent caregivers, small group sizes, appropriately trained staff and an adequate physical environment. These results are most likely to be delivered where there is adequate public funding, regulations and enforcement, parental involvement and non-profit delivery.
Prior to April 1, 1996, the federal government was already spending $100 million on the dependant care allowance to persons in federally sponsored training programs. It spent $300 million on cost-sharing child care subsidies with the provinces for eligible families. Today, in the age of the Canada health and social transfer, the federal government plays no role in supporting the care of young children.
Provinces no longer have access to federal dollars under the Canada assistance plan, nor do they have access to the committed new dollars. In exchange, it would appear that the federal government's employability tool is an extension of the dependant care allowance. A babysitting voucher given to a parent in a job training program is not child care. It is an inefficient and poor use of public funding because it leaves children out of the equation. Child care is more than a program to warehouse children while their parents are otherwise occupied. We would hope the Premier would use the opportunity of the first ministers' conference to remind the federal government of its commitment to establish a national child care program offering high-quality accessible services.
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I'd like to refer you now to the program situation in Peterborough and Victoria counties. This is a microcosm of what's going on in Ontario right now, particularly with children with special needs who are being integrated into mainstream child care programs. Peterborough and Victoria counties are quite interesting because they are a little snapshot of Ontario. It's an area made up of an urban, small-town and rural base, and the range of programs in the counties serve a whole number of families without regard for where they live.
Between 1992 and 1995, there was a 60% increase, from 183 to 328, in the number of children with special needs included in community care programs, and the amount of funding required to do this increased from about $300,000 to $429,000.
Previously, providing resource teachers in order to integrate children with special needs into mainstream child care programs was provided on an annual basis. It was a problem, because it did not provide for long-term solutions, and no program could make a commitment, when taking on a child with special needs, that they would be able to continue to take that child on. This was addressed in the fall of 1994 --
Hi. How nice to see you. I was just getting to the part of informing the committee about the situation in Peterborough with the care of special-needs children. I think it might be more appropriate if you picked up from here. Are you prepared to do it?
The Acting Chair: Would you introduce yourselves for the committee, please.
Ms Mary Lou Lummiss: My name is Mary Lou Lummiss. I'm the supervisor of a child care program that supports families and children with special needs -- all families and children, actually.
Ms Sheila Olan McLean: My name is Sheila Olan McLean. I'm the coordinator of the day nurseries resource funding program in Peterborough, a program for enhanced staffing and child care programs when children with special needs are being included.
As soon as I get my papers out I'll be able to speak further. Sorry. We just sat for two hours on Highway 401, so I'm still in the pull-out-and-pass kind of mode.
The Acting Chair: That's where the Chair of this committee is too. He's in a traffic jam as well.
Ms McLean: It's a bad one.
The Acting Chair: May I remind you that we have about 20 minutes left in the presentation? Hopefully, you'll leave some time for questions as well.
Ms McLean: Basically, the situation with this enhanced staff program is that over the last six years since the program has developed, it's become very popular. There's a high level of satisfaction with parents and child care programs that this is really meeting child care program needs as well as parent needs. That being the case, our base budget was very quickly inadequate to meet the needs in our communities of the counties of Peterborough and Victoria.
For the last three years, between 30% and 50% of our funding has been fiscal funding. In the fall of 1994 our area office, realizing that our base budgets in enhanced staff programs were inadequate, decided to do a review and put more money into base budget. However, by the spring of 1994, before that increase happened, there was a freeze put on the area office, so they were unable to increase any base budgets, for whatever reason. They continued to support the program through fiscal funding. That's one-time funding they could find from here and there and that wasn't nailed down for any particular reason.
That continued until January 1996, when the area office informed us that they have been prohibited from giving out any extra funding for fiscal or base funding purposes. We were informed a couple of weeks ago that this would continue, that we would receive no fiscal funding until after the child care review was completed and the area office had time to figure out what it would mean to their funding base.
Right now there is funding they were hoping to pull together to help us through the summer months. Child care programs have taken about a 50% cut in the amount of funding they were receiving for enhanced staffing, and they've been very creative in meeting that challenge. They've done a lot of fund-raising efforts. They've asked all parents in their child care programs to contribute to paying for enhanced staffing. They've really been creative and they've done it, but they cannot do it for the summer months, and there are a number of children in our communities who will not receive supported child care unless there is some funding.
We're not asking for extra funding to be put into the Peterborough area office so that we can meet these needs. This is money that's already there, but it's not allowed to be allocated. It's part of the $600 million that this government says is being spent on child care, but it is being held back at this point.
Ms Merla McGill: I'm Merla McGill, a resource teacher with the Victoria County Association for Community Living. My position is to support families of children from birth to 12 years old. I came to speak on behalf of families that are affected by these cutbacks or this lack of funding to their children.
The day nursery resource funding program is vital to the families I support in that this is their only avenue of support for their children during the summer. It is important because without this program and without access to these funds, these children will have no summer program to maintain the consistency which the board of education would like to see so that these children don't regress and require more supports at school.
The impact we've seen -- some families are near the breaking point as it is. Many have two workers in the family; mom and dad both work and they need care for their children. Private care is not available to them. Their special services at home funds do not cover enough hours to adequately support the child. Private babysitters don't work for them because these people need qualifications which many do not have unless they're willing to pay upwards of between $10 and $15 an hour. One parent said to me, "Without this, my alternative is to put my son in an institution," and we're all aware that that costs upwards of $120,000 a year. I think offering this family to allow their child to stay at home and in his community is a small price to pay. That's just one family. There are many more facing the same kind of impact.
What it does to the family isn't pleasant. Many parents have expressed frustration, are at their wits' end and have looked for supports in many other places. Sports programs and other programs for the summer aren't available to these children because they have to bring a one-on-one support person with them whom the parent has to pay for. That just isn't feasible for parents already paying child care for their other children. The child care provider will not take the child with special needs because they can't handle them. Not only is the consistency for the child lost when they return to school in September, everything they've gained or maintained during the summer is lost as well.
I don't have that much more to say other than that keeping the family together at home seems to be common sense. If that's what it takes to provide, then I think that's something this government needs to seriously take a look at.
Ms Lummiss: As a supervisor of a child care program I'm on the desperate front lines saying no to these families. That's very hard to do. For the last three years their high-special-needs children could come to our program or to any child care program that offers school-age care and this year, since the government has changed, they can't. They have trouble comprehending why. Does this government not see special-needs children in the same view as the other governments did? I try not to answer any political questions. I ask them to go to their local member of Parliament and ask those questions.
When you're sitting across from a parent who has trouble coping on weekends and you know that, and you see the tears in their eyes and the desperation in their voice, that's what brought us all here today.
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Mrs Janet Ecker (Durham West): Thank you very much for coming today and for putting up with the transportation hassles. As a commuter, you have my sympathies. I know what that can do to you.
I want to ask a little bit about some statements that were made at the beginning of the presentation by Kerry. I appreciate that you've acknowledged the fact that Ontario has had some difficulty because of the reductions and cutbacks in Ottawa with its transfers to Ontario, and we've all had some frustration trying to figure out what Lloyd Axworthy meant or didn't mean with his commitments.
You talked about cancelling $100 million in funding of the province's $560-million child care budget. I'm a little confused about that. Last year we were spending up to $549 million; this year, up to next year, we're spending up to $600 million. I'm a little confused how we've ended up losing $100 million when we're spending more than what you're pointing out.
Some of the figures I've seen on sheets that your organization has distributed to people have talked about things that we were supposed to have eliminated. For example, we've got another document that has been circulated to child care organizations that says the resource centres, before our government, were getting $19.5 million and that we are supposed to have cut $2 million from that, but as I understand it we are currently spending $20 million on resource centres.
I'm a little confused where the figures are coming from. They certainly do not match up with the figures that are tabled publicly in the Legislature as part of the budget process.
Ms McCuaig: We got figures from both the organizations -- to deal with the Ontario Association of Family Resource Programs specifically, their latest information was that in 1994 the government was spending something like $17.5 million on MCSS-funded family resource programs; there are a number of other resource programs that aren't funded by the ministry. They have since taken a 5% cut and then a further 5% cut.
Suffice it to say, Janet, when we look at child care we look at it holistically, so when we talk about the $100 million, there are going to be some cuts that you may not find line by line in your child care budget. For example, in the line items in the child care budget you don't see pay equity, yet for a child care program that's very much part of the funding that goes in. You won't see the cancellation of the early childhood education pilot project. That was never part of MCSS's budget; that was part of MET's budget, yet to us that was very much part of child care funding.
Mrs Ecker: If I understand you correctly, you're adding in cuts, in your view, that are not part of MCSS, but at the same time, when you're talking about what the government is spending on child care, you don't wish to take our figure.
Ms McCuaig: As you say, you thought you were spending $549 million.
Mrs Ecker: Comsoc is spending -- it was up to $549 million; it's now $600 million. Even if we take your view that you are talking about reductions in other programs --
Ms McCuaig: Not just in other programs. That's why we're talking about $560 million rather than $549 million, because it takes into consideration funding which was coming from other sources than MCSS. What's not covered in it at all, for example, is funding to junior kindergarten, which is a major early childhood education program that has suffered tremendous cuts, yet we have dealt with that separately.
I think you will have to agree that some of these funding cuts came from the MCSS budget for child care on line items that neither you nor I would dispute. That was money being spent on an annualized basis for child care which isn't being spent now. We're not disputing that you're committed to putting in $40 million more a year; we're wondering why you're not acknowledging the money that's come out. For example, when the program development fund was eliminated in November, with it went programs like the one that's been talked about in Peterborough and other programs like that across the province, but I've yet to see your government acknowledge that those cuts have been made.
Mrs Ecker: We've certainly reduced programs that deliberately tried to wipe out one sector of child care in favour of another, like the conversion program. I don't make any apologies for that because that program did not create one more new space or one more new subsidy. That's a cut I do not apologize for at all.
Mr Rick Bartolucci (Sudbury): Unlike Mrs Ecker, I don't want to waste my time on statistics.
Mrs Ecker: They're called facts.
Mr Bartolucci: I'd like to deal with the important realities of children, children's needs and the lack of availability to meet the needs of these children. The reduction in funding has taken place; there's no question about that. There is a freeze on base funding; there's no question about that. Can you answer the question, maybe Merla, because you work so directly with it: What effect does that have first of all on children, on parents, and what is the importance or necessity of parents to have these services available to them so that their children's futures can be enhanced? Would you like to address that in a very general way? We only have five minutes.
Ms Lummiss: It's Mary Lou speaking. In my program I've had to say no to three children and their families. These children need one on one in the school system, and we cannot say, "Yes, they can come into our program," because we can't deal with them. That has devastated their families. One is a working parent, one has a baby at home and a younger child and knows that all summer long with this child, who's abusive and needs direct one-on-one care, she does not know how she's going to cope. She tried her hardest to get here today.
For the staff in our program who have worked with this child since he was about four -- we feel that we're letting the family and him down because we can no longer offer the service because we cannot get the funding to service the family and hire the staff that's necessary.
Mr Bartolucci: Thank you very much. Just to quote a line from Mrs Ecker, that is fact. Would you like to outline very particularly and very directly what happens to essential services to the community at large and to these families when they have no recourse or no hope? How does that impact on those three areas?
Ms McGill: If I can address that: Many families will have to turn to institutionalized care for their children, probably the worst, but it seems this government is only looking at that as an option for people. Whether they realize they've taken away such a vital program I don't know, but I think it needs to be put back in place. I also feel that the stresses on families and couples, husbands and wives and siblings -- these siblings are so concerned for their brothers or sisters, as we all are. It was a big mistake; it's time to correct it.
Mr Bartolucci: A final question, and it's a rhetorical question, but I ask for either a yes or no: Do you really believe you'll be doing better for less with these children?
Ms McGill: No.
Mr Bartolucci: Thank you.
Mrs Sandra Pupatello (Windsor-Sandwich): The government has constantly acknowledged or they say there is a need to address some area of child care as it relates to jobs. Over the course of this year, since the government has taken office, what do you think has happened with the families you deal with in terms of improved access to jobs or job opportunity because of what they're doing in the child care area? Could any of you address that?
Ms McCuaig: Just looking at the Peterborough situation alone, when we talk about jobs, 43 children in 19 programs now do not have child care. That has a big impact on their parents' ability to access employment. I want to emphasize that this is a prime example of why putting money into parents' pockets and saying, "Go out and buy your child care," doesn't work. These are parents that you could put all the money in the world into their pockets and they would not be able to find people -- the lady down the street is not going to look after these kids. These kids need expert care not only for their own safety but for their development.
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I would refer you to the letter from the paediatrician in the Peterborough area which references three children particularly. If we have to put names to these kids, let's do it. There are real impacts to the developmental needs and wellbeing of these kids because they do not have access to child care programs. In addition, we've lost 13 jobs; these are trained specialists working with special-needs kids who now don't have jobs. You know, so much for job creation.
The Acting Chair: Thank you. Third party, Ms Boyd.
Mrs Marion Boyd (London Centre): Thank you very much for coming. I know it's hard to get in to do this, but it's very important for us to hear from people who are actually delivering services out in the field and what actually is happening, because those are the facts that really count and that's what we need to be looking at.
I'm really quite struck by the importance of your presentation to the whole topic we're looking at, which is the impact of the kinds of decisions the government is doing. You've given us a very graphic example of the kind of domino effect, that if you take money out of this area and you don't examine what the impacts are, then you have to spend money in three, four, five or six different areas and in fact there's no saving at all. That's exactly what the story is that you're telling us in terms of families that have special-needs children.
Would you like to give me any kind of sense -- have you had any kinds of questions from the ministry at all about what that domino effect is for the families, or has this been your only opportunity to really get across the seriousness of what you've experienced?
Ms Lummiss: If I could just speak quickly to that. A parent really wanted to be here today to tell you because their local member of Parliament is a very busy person apparently and does not have time to return phone calls or answer letters. We were given a form letter and this form letter talks about the $600 million, it talks about the cutting of the conversion program and not once does it mention her need as a parent, what desperation she's in and what she's going to do with her special-needs child in the summer. Even her name was spelled wrong.
That told her that this member of Parliament, while he is very busy, was not able to address her need and so is not paying attention. I think the desperation she's feeling is that no one will pay attention and I said, "Well, we're going to go to Queen's Park to let people listen because they need to."
Mrs Boyd: One of the things that strikes me is that whenever the parliamentary assistant talks about child care reform, she talks about the need to find flexibility, and yet when you talk about the way your program worked, the flexibility that was available to area offices to really look at the way in which these very important programs could be delivered most effectively in their local area you say has disappeared.
It really feels as though we're being told, on the one hand, we have to reform in order to achieve flexibility but, on the other hand, are taking away the flexibility that was there that was actually delivering programs and in fact delivering programs in an integrated kind of a model with other agencies like the community living association. All of the instruction has been: "Try to integrate. Try to get a continuum. Try to do all this sort of thing." It sounds to me as though you've done that and, as a result, 43 children don't have care and 13 people have lost their jobs.
Ms McLean: I think the most unfortunate part is that there hasn't been a cut. This is not a cut that someone has said, "This kind of a service isn't needed and therefore we're going to cut." It hasn't been that we were caught in a certain funding tunnel and that was cut. This funding has not been cut. This funding is frozen at the area office and the area office has lost its discretion to allocate that funding. It's still there, but they can't use it.
Mrs Boyd: They can't release it. One of the issues that we've been looking at is the really highly magnified impact of all of these changes to disabled people, and you've certainly given us a really good example of that for these people sort of at a particular age. But one of you -- I think it was you, I can't remember -- talked about what this means to the future of these children and to the costs in the education system; the medical system; the social service system in terms of their parents; the legal system, because we know the stresses this places on families and so on. It sounds to me as though the freezing of those dollars is going to cost us all a great deal in the long run.
Ms McCuaig: I think it's worth adding that these Peterborough programs have been doing what they've been advised to do, and that is, from January to May they try to run those programs on fund-raising and going to the private sector in addition to offering the service, and trying to make up for $429,000 which wasn't there to run it. That is again an example; that sort of community generosity is not sustainable, and the fact that these parents are now stuck during the summer months without care and without knowing what their chance for future care is, is an indication that this laissez-faire view to allowing the community to find its own solution without supports is a non-starter.
Just to reference that Peterborough is not alone, we have families here from Sault Ste Marie who would very much like to have come down and talked to you. We have families from Hearst, we have families from Kitchener, all who are experiencing similar problems with programs, who've had to say to families with children with special needs, "We're sorry, we cannot sustain your child in this program any longer."
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much. Our time has expired.
Mrs Pupatello: On a point of order, Mr Chair: You referred to a letter during your presentation. I wonder if you wouldn't mind tabling the letter for the committee.
Mr Trevor Pettit (Hamilton Mountain): Is that a point of order, Mr Chair?
The Acting Chair: Apparently it's appropriate to ask if it's tabled, and if they wish to table it -- if you wish to let the letter be --
Interjection.
The Acting Chair: As long as it's okay with you, apparently it's appropriate for the committee to accept that.
Thank you very much for your presentation. It was much appreciated and I'm glad you all managed to get here in time to be a part of it.
FAMILY DAY CARE SERVICES
The Acting Chair: We'll move to our next presentation, Family Day Care Services, Ms Maria de Wit, the executive director, and Mr Bob Hollingshead, the board president, if you would come forward. Good afternoon and welcome. You have 30 minutes for your presentation, which you can use in any way you wish. Whatever time is left over after your formal presentation we'll divide equally among the three parties for questions, and the questioning will begin with the official opposition. Thank you. If you can introduce yourselves; we know who you are, but welcome, and feel free to proceed.
Ms Maria de Wit: I'm obviously Maria de Wit and this is obviously Bob.
Family Day is a non-profit charitable organization which has been in the business of providing children's services since 1849. We were originally known as the Protestant Children's Homes. We operated orphanages which were phased out in 1930 and then the agency's priority shifted to foster care. In 1964, with financial assistance from the United Way, we undertook a pilot study on home-based child care in partnership with St Christopher House and Victoria Day Care Services. This is the model that was later included in the Day Nurseries Act as a regulated program, now commonly referred to as licensed home child care. Family Day then shifted its priority to the delivery of home-based child care programs.
Why are we talking to you today? We represent an agency providing direct delivery of child care, both centre-based and home-based. We are an approved corporation, and we provide child care consulting service to corporations across Canada.
Our programs are available in the greater Toronto area, Metro, Peel and York regions. We operate 16 child care centres -- the majority are located in schools -- serving 1,000 children and four home child care programs. In Metro we have 180 caregivers and 500 children; in Peel we have 300 caregivers and 950 children; and in the York region we have 80 caregivers and 225 children. Our annual operating budget is $20 million, and we employ 260 staff.
Licensed home child care is the best-kept secret in Canada and Ontario. It's a program whereby independent, self-employed caregivers link with a licensed child care agency, which provides training and support and access to program resources. It's an affordable, quality model of child care for children of all ages, but particularly younger children who thrive in the home setting; and many families prefer it for siblings and after-school care.
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Children all over the province are feeling the impact of recent funding cuts to social service, child care, municipalities and education.
The reduction in welfare benefits has had the greatest impact on children and families. We now have a record number of children in Canada living below the poverty line. Cuts to welfare have put more children in the vulnerable category. Any family trying to minimize their dependency on government's assistance by attending an educational institution or job retraining were also impacted by the Jobs Ontario subsidy funding change from 100% to 80% depending on the municipality's willingness to pay the 20%.
Family Day is an approved corporation under the Day Nurseries Act. This means that we administer child care fee assistance directly on behalf of the provincial government. Since we do not have a tax base to collect the 20% as a municipal contribution, the agency commonly charges the parents using our service to 20% and fund-raisers.
Before we considered this for families and Jobs Ontario subsidy, we undertook a detailed review, since we knew all the families were in receipt of full or partial social assistance and were poor. We found that the average gross family income was $1,350 a month, and this was before the 21.6% rollback on welfare payments. Many families were paying over 50% of their income towards housing, so their ability to pay for child care was limited. Family Day was unable to underwrite the fees for all families, but our board did decide to underwrite the fees for all infants and toddlers by $3 a day.
The provincial government has not taken any direct cuts to child care subsidies, although there is severe anxiety because of the decreased federal funding transfers and its impact on future funding. However, the funding cutbacks to municipalities has impacted child care subsidies in many municipalities. In Metro Toronto where there was no saving in welfare payments, the Jobs Ontario were all at risk until temporary funding relief was provided by the federal government, safeguarding the spaces until December 1996. Frankly, this means that as of September they're probably going to stop admitting subsidized children. In both the Peel and York regions, the municipalities only approved funding for some of the spaces, restricting access to fee assistance.
The Conservative government has stated many times its commitment to levelling the funding playing field between the commercial and non-profit sectors of child care. Mrs Janet Ecker chairs the child care review committee that is to report soon on this and other child care matters.
The inequity in funding occurred when the Liberal government introduced the direct operating grants. Non-profit organizations received 100% and independent and commercial organizations received 50%. This funding was increased for the non-profit sector in response to provincial pay equity legislation.
Prior to the introduction of the direct operating grants, the cost of child care for families in need of subsidy was through the fee assistance program. The introduction of the direct operating grants was restricted to salaries, benefits and provider payments, resulting in a double stream of funding: subsidy and grants. The grant benefits all users of the licensed child care system, fee paying or fee assisted. It's important to note here that fee-assisted families also make a significant financial contribution to the cost of child care since the cost is shared by the federal/provincial/municipal governments and parents.
Family Day is an excellent service provider, and our ability to do so was greatly enhanced by the wage subsidy funding. It resulted in our ability to pay decent wages and benefits and to increase provider payments. It has meant that the turnover of staff and providers has decreased significantly. One of the indicators of quality is staff retention. It has kept our fees affordable for low- and middle-income families who do not qualify for child care fee assistance. Our current salary scale, including all grants for ECE teachers, is $30,000 to $33,000. The provider payments are $23 a day.
We're committed to quality care for all children in Ontario, and agree that inequities need to be fixed. Any change in child care funding needs to be well planned and will need an appropriate time frame for implementation.
The change in family compositions and labour force participation means that young children do not have a parent at home to look after them. We believe that the $525 million -- it may be $549 million, going to $600 million -- is money well spent on child care. It's a wise investment.
We agreed with the government's decision to cancel the conversion funding but question the freezing of the program development fund. We never agreed with the use of the program development fund as a bailout fund, but did think it was appropriate for minor capital to deal with health and safety issues and it gave the area office some flexibility to respond to local community needs.
The deletion of capital, minor capital and startup funding for child care centres located in schools has had an unfortunate impact on new communities. Family Day believes that most families prefer the school as a location for their child care programs. The majority of our centres are located in schools and the partnership between the schools and the centre helps families cope with the stress of work and family life.
We find that the cuts to education affect us in two ways: in service delivery and in the cost of shared school space.
In the Peel region the board has decided to eliminate junior kindergarten and at the same time is looking for ways to increase its revenue. Family Day operates five child care centres in Peel. The child care centres were not financially viable using the centre-based space for 40 pre-school children and were licensed to serve 70 children; 40 in the centre and 30 school-aged in alternate school space. The agency pays $5.45 a square foot for operating costs and now pays $800 a year for the alternate space.
Prior to the cancellation of child care centres in new schools, the board perceived the child care centre more as a partner, which now, due to the budget cutbacks and the perception of no government commitment to child care in schools, is altering to a tenant relationship. This means that for the summer of 1996, we have told we will be billed $20 per hour for an on-site board caretaker.
In the York region, junior kindergarten was eliminated and the school board decided that each school could decide whether kindergarten will be half-days or alternate full days. The school board promoted all-day alternate kindergarten as lunchtime busing was eliminated. Parents were allowed to vote, but a requirement was if you voted for half-day, there had to be a plan that enabled all community children to attend without busing paid for by the board. In many cases, working parents' only solution is the additional cost of busing offered by a day care centre, if they're that fortunate, or taxis.
The introduction of alternate kindergarten days and its match to child care does not sound problematic until you consider professional development days, spring and Christmas breaks and a summer program when all the children are in attendance. Relate that to the cost for alternate space, a must to serve all the children, and there are significant costs that impact both parent fees and subsidy rates.
What are our recommendations? Retain the Day Nurseries Act standards for home-based and centre-based care; retain the current funding portfolio; introduce a three-year funding cycle -- we had that once and I have to tell you, every single day care operated much more efficiently; level the playing field by increasing the wage grants to independent operators; and streamline fee assistance by introducing income testing.
Thank you for listening.
The Acting Chair: Thank you very much.
Ms de Wit: I tried to do it quickly.
The Acting Chair: Mr Hollingshead, you wanted to say something?
Mr Bob Hollingshead: Just that I am the president of the board. It's a volunteer board. In my day life I'm a partner at Price, Waterhouse, but I'll be pleased to answer any questions from the board's perspective or as a taxpayer, for that matter. Maria and I are both pleased to be here.
The Acting Chair: We have about five and a half minutes remaining per party for questions. We begin with the official opposition.
Mr Bartolucci: Maybe we'll ask a financial question to the financial person. One of the suggestions -- I think it was a wise one because it was a Liberal government recommendations several years ago -- is that we have a three-year funding cycle and, Maria, you alluded to the fact that it was good. Now, Bob, from a financial point of view and from a practical business point of view, could you outline why that three-year funding model is an excellent model?
Mr Hollingshead: From my perspective it introduces an element of stability in that you can plan with a little longer cycle in mind. With the constant uncertainties of what might be coming down the pipe in the next budget, it takes away flexibility; it takes away any concept of long-term planning and program development. The uncertainty is very tough on all of us. It's the fear of death by a thousand cuts. What's coming next? I think it's critical in any fiscal situation to have a longer-term view, and a three-year cycle would certainly introduce that.
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Mrs Pupatello: I'd like to ask you as a taxpayer your opinion of government-sponsored programs like child care programs and in particular the view that the money that government spends on child care as an investment for communities at large in terms of the early childhood education that is attached to child care in all cases. How do you feel as a taxpayer and as a representative of corporations, for example, that government uses your money in this way and that it should continue to do so?
Mr Hollingshead: My first comment there would be that I don't envy anyone sitting out there who has to make these decisions. Having said that, we had quite a debate when Mr Harris was elected from the perspective that, as a taxpayer, I thought the stance or the move to more fiscal responsibility was long overdue. We had to face up to it now rather than later. Then it becomes a question of, where do you cut?
One of the things I've learned in my 10 years on the board is that very issue you're talking about, the importance of early childhood development and making an investment today to save on the crime sprees down the road. The empirical evidence in the US and elsewhere that supports this has been very, very strong. That's why, as a taxpayer and as a director, I believe so strongly in quality child care. It's a wise investment. It's pay now or pay big time later.
Mr Gerard Kennedy (York South): Thank you for your report. I just want to touch on an area that wasn't addressed directly in the report but it was in one of the responses about the uncertainty that exists out there in terms of the pay equity payments that are gone for staff and the increased fees for low-income families in some of the municipalities you serve. I wonder if you could address those. In particular, what kind of difficulties that has raised, if any, and also what areas are you most concerned about in terms of the changes that are contemplated and may take place yet?
Ms de Wit: I have a whole lot of answers to that. The first thing is that I've been an advocate and I think I've been on every child care forum since the Premier was named Davis, so I get an incredible number of phone calls from anybody and everybody about "What is it you're not telling us?" and I have to tell them I don't know anything.
The fear has to do firstly with, are our salaries going back to what it was like when I was a child care worker?, which meant that I subsidized every parent who used child care. So the big fear is, what's going to happen to the grants? That's from a staff perspective.
All our directors and all our parents in our centres are very aware that if the grant or part of that salary was to continue, there would be huge fee increases. Most of them are now struggling with even retaining their current salaries. We're getting more and more pushes for extended hours of service because employers expect everybody to work longer, and parents are really shocked when you sit down with them and work out what the cost for that is. I think the big fear is, as frankly I've always said to previous governments and to this one, that child care funding feels like a house of cards. You pull the wrong card and the whole thing will crumble in around your ears.
I also just want to add that one of the things I feel very strongly about is that we manage taxpayers' money. I'm one of them; Bob's one of them. We manage it wisely. We provide an incredible amount of service for little money. You don't have to be an entrepreneur to do efficient, quality child care. Many of us who are non-profit operators get very offended by the sort of wording that implies that if you're non-profit or charity, obviously you waste your money.
My sense is that there's just a lot of uncertainty because it's been going on. I tell people we have so far retained the child care portfolio. "We have seen no cuts. Are you getting your paycheque? Are your centres still functioning? Are the children enrolled?" We just have to live with the current reality of uncertainty.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you for coming and thank you for your presentation. You say the centres are still open and the providers are still employed. Is that true? You haven't lost any parents as a result of the kinds of changes and you haven't lost any capability of providing care?
Ms de Wit: Our board has been fund-raising a hell of a lot harder than they ever used to, so we've had no fee increases for infants and toddlers. We did increase, for the first time in two years, our preschool, which has gone to $630 a month. We've retained the rates in home child care, and we've undertaken a huge marketing campaign because we do know we are going to have a hit. So far we have had a little rollback as an agency in subsidy enrolments. We have been able to replace them with full-fee because of marketing.
Are we unique? The answer to that is yes. One thing we've learned is that there's an economy of scale for our organization that enables us to do things that a stand-alone centre is unable to do. The board keeps asking me, "What can I do to help the community as a whole?" and I say, "The minute my shoulders aren't up," like I find I'm doing now, "we should give some thought to how we can support community programs." Our own centres are fine, but I think it's partially economy of scale.
Mrs Boyd: That's indeed very helpful.
The kind of care that your organization offers in fact offers the kind of flexibility to parents that we certainly heard in all the child care consultations a lot of parents are looking for. Can you tell us, in terms of the continuum of what parents' needs are, whether it's really feasible, for the kinds of suggestions around the removal of regulation in terms of licensed child care, to maintain the quality you now provide and the quality that has been the goal of the child care industry, whether it's commercial or not, over many years? What are your concerns around that?
Ms de Wit: I think centre-based care has always been better understood, so people insist that there be licences, there be standards, there be inspections. I get very anxious about home child care. I think it is provided 99% by women who are very committed to the programs they do, who need supports to say they can do it independently and alone and keep the quality. When we insist there be standards in group centres, where people are in and out all the time, and there be inspections, to then suggest that home child care can be provided by someone alone in their home without supports -- that's my biggest concern. I think quality care for children means that you also support the workers who work with them, whether it's an independent, self-employed caregiver or a staff in a day care centre.
Mrs Boyd: So you would be offended if people compared your kind of child care, even though it is home-based, to the lady up the street looking after your kids for a few hours, which has been suggested as a model by some members of this government. I think for most people who work in the child care field, that is seen as really not an understanding of the educational impact and the care and support impact of the kinds of programs we now have.
Ms de Wit: I'd be offended unless you describe the woman who can do it independently very well, and I can give you a few.
Mr Hollingshead: From the director's concern, when we recruit new directors one of their first questions -- and if they don't ask it, I suggest that they do -- is from a legal liability perspective: How do we know that there is quality care being given by our providers? The regulated form is obviously one of the areas from which we draw comfort, but the prospect of parents having to turn their children loose in a totally unregulated environment because that's the only way they can afford it -- I'd be frightened at that prospect.
Mrs Julia Munro (Durham-York): Just picking up on the last question when you talk about the unregulated, I just wonder if you can tell us, how many children are covered by organized or licensed child care as opposed to the informal sector?
Ms de Wit: You mean in home child care, or total?
Mrs Munro: In total.
Ms de Wit: I would say roughly 80,000, but I could be off. The numbers never seem to agree when you ask the ministry. Sorry. There's not a good data system.
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Mrs Munro: My question was in terms of percentage, just to have a sense of --
Ms de Wit: If you only count -- and this is where we separate from our European partners -- child care and not junior kindergarten and kindergarten, then we probably have 11% to 12% of the total child population covered. It's not necessarily an indicator of need for child care. You then have to take into account labour force participation etc. But certainly we don't cover the majority of children and families.
Mrs Munro: Right. In your presentation, on page 3, you referred to York region's junior kindergarten being eliminated. How many schools were running programs?
Ms de Wit: About 50.
Mrs Munro: Out of?
Ms de Wit: Sorry; I remember the ones that were eliminated. I think they had about a third and were planning to go to two thirds in the fall of 1996, which was then cancelled.
Mrs Munro: The last question: On page 4, when you talk about the alternate kindergarten days and the match to child care and then, in the rest of the sentence, "until you consider professional development days, spring" etc, what happens now with those days?
Ms de Wit: Right now, alternate child care will mean that two children will share one space. I don't have a problem right now. When they're going to kindergarten half-days they're with us the rest of the time; we're not able to enrol a second child. For it to be financially viable to have them three days one week and two days the other -- it's the intent of all the child care organizations I've talked to that we will provide that. There are examples in Durham that do that. But you're now serving two children. You run into a problem on a PD day, because now both children are there. The parents are still working. I'm still only licensed for 24 kindergarten children. Suddenly, I'll have 48.
On PD days, as long as it isn't a hard winter, we say, "Gee, we're going to take lots of field trips." We had to do two weeks of field trips in Peel region because we couldn't access the school. The parents said the program was great. The kids were exhausted and miserable: "Let's not ever do that again." We're certainly not doing that in the summer. When you think about alternate kindergarten where the children are five, field trips for a week are not going to work. That's going to be the challenge.
Mrs Ecker: Our colleague across the way talks about uncertainty in the field. With the misinformation that is continually put out, I can understand why people are very concerned. For example, we have not scrapped pay equity; it is not gone. We are not proposing a model of friends and neighbours down the street to replace the regulated sector. I certainly would agree with your presentation that regulated home care is probably one of the undiscovered sectors of child care out there. One of the things I've found of concern is why so few parents, even when they can have the choice in a community between regulated home care and non-regulated home care, choose non-regulated home care. It's not cost in many communities that causes them to do that. It's certainly something I have found to be of some concern.
One of the issues you have raised here is the inequity of the wage subsidy grants as they've gone into the system, and it's not only between private sector and non-profit, because there are many non-profit centres and whatever that don't get the wage subsidy for various reasons. Why is it that they've been able to survive, those that are not getting it, when some that are in the non-profit do get it? Is it because they are part of organizations that have the economies of scale, as you talk about? Any insight into why that is the case?
Ms de Wit: The reason I have hundreds of applications for employment is that people are working in other places for less money and there is more turnover. If you really look at turnover as an indicator of quality, you're going to find that you can manage. If suddenly the government cut it from Family Day, I can assure you we're not going to be bankrupt and out of business, but we'll go right back to having all kinds of turnover etc of staff, which isn't good for children. Added to that, someone phoned me and said, "If everybody gets cut it happens to everybody at the same time." Then I get really offended, having been one of the people who ran a large non-profit parent cooperative at $5,500 a year when everybody else around me made $15,000. It then says the government does not value people who work with young children, and as far as I'm concerned, the most critical years are young children.
If I can add to your comment about people choosing unregulated caregivers, partially, when you look at the national child care study, you find a lot of the unregulated child care is family, some sense of family. It could be my cousin, it could be my sister -- it isn't just strangers in communities -- and often there is an arrangement that, "I will do it for you, because you're my cousin, at a lower rate than I would do it for anybody else."
Having said that, there are also lots of caregivers who are independently running good programs, market themselves well, get paid top dollar, but they are in communities where they're not dependent on subsidies. An example for Family Day is that we always had caregivers at Yonge and Eglinton and they were able to get children directly at higher rates. We had trained them, and even though my child care coordinators were very upset, I said, "Look at it as community service." They're now doing it independently on their own, the kids are getting good care, but we trained them, we supported them and they know what they're doing. That can happen.
The Acting Chair: Our time has expired. Thanks very much for your presentation and your time. It's much appreciated.
Before moving to our next presentation, I just want to tell the committee members that there was an opening in tomorrow's schedule at 4:30. It now has been scheduled for the Indian friendship centre to make a presentation, so there will be all three spots tomorrow.
DAILY BREAD FOOD BANK
The Acting Chair: If I can call forward our next presenter, it's the Daily Bread Food Bank, Ms Sue Cox, the executive director, and Dr Winston Husbands, the research coordinator. Thank you very much for joining us.
Ms Sue Cox: Thank you very much for having me here. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you about child hunger and what's been going on over the last six months in the greater Toronto area, where we're seeing more and more children in more and more difficulty.
I'd like to give you a little context of what Daily Bread is. For those of you who might not know, we're the largest food bank in Canada and we're the central supplier of food and information and all kinds of things to about 200 food programs in the greater Toronto area. We also conduct intensive research with the people who use those food programs to try and find out more about why people need food relief, what are the causes of hunger and perhaps some of the solutions to that.
I'm here today to say, unfortunately, that hunger is growing quite rapidly and it's growing among children in the greater Toronto area faster than it is among any other population group. Compared to previous years, kids now constitute a larger proportion of the people benefiting from food relief, and the hardship they suffer is really quite great, greater than I can recall seeing before.
The report I'm going to speak about today is based on our spring survey of food bank users, which was coordinated by Dr Husbands. In the survey we go out and anonymously interview about 900 food bank households randomly chosen. We gather a lot of data from them. It's the information that they have given us and what we also see happening in the service statistics of our member agencies that constitute the base of this report.
It's quite clear in looking at the results of the February and March survey that there is a direct relation between increasing hunger in the greater Toronto area and the recent cuts to social assistance. People have less money obviously. They have less disposable income. They have less money to buy food. They go without more often. They have less ability to deal with emergencies they face.
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There are currently about 154,000 people, or slightly more actually. There were 154,000 people in March of this year using food banks in the greater Toronto area. By now the number has risen closer to 160,000 people using food relief programs in the GTA every month. Where once, until recently, 43% of all the food bank recipients were children, that percentage has now risen to 46%. That accounts for about 71,000 kids in the GTA living in families who turn to a food bank for help. It's a 65% increase from a year before. Because children are only a quarter of the general population, the high incidence in food banks is obviously quite significant and points to the significantly increased risk they take of being in need.
I included in my report a chart that takes a look at the growth in numbers of children using food banks over the last several years, partly because it indicates the various factors that lead to people needing food banks.
In the late 1980s we had gradual increases in numbers of people using food banks and children using food banks, primarily because of a high rent situation in the GTA and the high percentage of people's incomes that had to go to rent. When there was some relief in the welfare rates and people were given some more money in 1990, there was actually a brief decrease in children using food banks, quite a significant one really, and children who were on welfare and lived in low-income households. Unfortunately, it didn't last very long because the recession started to move the numbers up and so you see them rising through the early 1990s. But when the employment situation starts to improve, you see the numbers coming down again, and last summer they were the lowest we had seen for a long time, until October.
The complete increase in food bank use is actually a direct result of the cuts to social assistance payments, and that's true of course of all food bank recipients, not just children. Three quarters of the children in food bank households live in families that are on social assistance. Other people have jobs -- they're low-wage earners, they have income from a variety of other sources -- but primarily you see people in a situation where they're either on family benefits, mother's allowance or general welfare.
We also noticed that the percentage of single-parent households has actually increased recently, probably primarily as a result of their lack of access to any jobs that have come along. I remember in the late 1980s single-parent households were about 65% of all the food bank households with children. At the height of the recession it was pretty well a 50-50 split. You could as easily have been in a two-parent family as a single-parent family, but now we're seeing lone-parent families increasing. Although the single-parent families are obviously at far greater risk of needing a food bank, the actual situation for two-parent families is considerably worse. They have less access to a variety of things. I'll talk a little bit about that in a little while.
It's worth pointing out, though, at this point that the food bank families we're seeing are already taking incredible steps in trying to cope with the situation they're in. They're doing all the things they've been told to do. They're buying dented cans, they're buying on special, they're buying in large quantities, they're using coupons, they're cooking in bulk. They're taking all kinds of measures to try and cope with their situation. Thirty per cent of them don't have a telephone any more, they're not using public transit as much and, I think most disturbingly, almost half of them have actually built in not buying as much food and going without meals as part of their coping mechanism.
About 82% of all the food bank recipients who are affected by social assistance cuts report to us that they've turned to food banks more often as a result. I don't suppose we're surprised about that. But food banks themselves are in a very tight circumstance right now. Whereas donations have increased, they haven't increased nearly enough to make up the slack, the increased numbers of people who are coming to us and the increased frequency with which they seek help. More people are going hungry as a result of that, and I fear more children are going hungry.
Last year, a year ago in the spring, 11% of the food bank children in the GTA went hungry at least once a week. By February of this year, 16% of the children, more than 11,000 kids, went hungry at least once a week. For many of those kids, they went hungry on a daily basis. Overall, probably about a third of the kids go hungry at least sometimes; twice as many of their parents do. They give up food in order that their children can eat. The risk of hunger is greatest in the families whose social assistance was cut.
Without reading a lot of numbers to you, I have included a chart that makes a comparison between the hunger frequency in 1995 and 1996 and the hunger frequency in those families whose social assistance income was reduced. As you can see at this point, the regular experience of hunger, not just the occasional experience but the regular, once-a-month-or-more experience of hunger now affects 27.8% of the children in food bank households, and of course many more go hungry with less frequency, and 63% of their parents at this point. So not only are the children in some jeopardy but I'd suggest that the parents are too.
Overall, when we talked to food bank users, about half of them report that their health has diminished since the cuts; about two thirds of them say their mental health, probably related to stress, has diminished since the welfare cuts. I can just imagine what families are going through when they don't know how they're going to feed their children, they're doing everything they can to cope, they know their kids still go hungry, and on top of that they're probably not able to obtain adequate nutrition for themselves.
The cost of housing has a huge impact on the situation right now. As I said, people plan to go hungry now in order to stretch their budget. About twice as many of the families with children who are on GWA or FBA, mothers' allowance, now use part of their food money to pay their rent as did before. Those who were already over the maximum shelter limit one year ago are diverting, of course, even more of their dollars to their rent.
In 1995, 34% of food bank households with kids paid more than the maximum shelter allowance for their rent; now the number is 67% of those families. Again, the situation is worse, as I mentioned, in two-parent families. Not that they are at as high a risk, but when they are unemployed their situation is very, very grave. A vast majority -- four out of five, basically -- of two-parent families are over the shelter limit now. On top of that, their basic allowance is lower. So what they're left with is considerably less. Their situation, I think, is very, very serious right now.
I have to point out, and I'm sure that this committee is very aware of it, that about 45% or 50% of the basic allowance is what has been lost to families, because they've diverted their basic allowance money to pay their rent. So instead of a 21% decrease in welfare, they have, as far as their disposable income is concerned, something that looks closer to 40% or 50%, and we've seen families where it's about 80% right now.
The families are also at increased risk of homelessness. Some 35% of food bank households with kids who were affected by the cuts report that they've paid their rent late; a quarter of them have already missed a rent payment. So they're really at risk of homelessness right now. About 5% have actually been evicted, families with children, and 9% of them have been threatened with eviction.
It seems to me that there's a false economy in providing this inadequate social assistance to families with children. There are two primary reasons, I suppose. Health problems that the kids are going to suffer are really going to be aggravated by shortages of food. A third of these families are saying, for instance, that they've been unable to afford adequate winter clothing for their kids. So their health is likely to suffer from things like that. They have no margin to buy cough medicine when the kids get a cold, or an aspirin or anything else. There's a whole bunch of hidden costs associated with going to school, which -- I have no proof of this -- I think could even contribute to dropout rates. It seems unwise to create this kind of situation.
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Additionally, I think that parents themselves, rather than being in a situation where they're being pushed into the workforce, have a lessened opportunity. It's clear that single-parent families have more difficulty re-entering the workforce, and I think that the two-parent families, unable to use transit, without telephones, under a great deal of stress, are also less likely to be able to get back to work. I think that we're in real danger right now of perpetuating or creating -- I don't think it is a perpetuation, but we could create a cycle of long-term unemployment and dependence for some of these families if we don't take certain kinds of measures. I think that's just apart from the fact that most of us are quite horrified by the idea of kids going without adequate food.
Some suggestions that I would make: I think we have to find some kind of guaranteed level of income that at least meets children's needs and leaves them in a situation where they have adequate food and adequate safety in their personal lives and not the kind of instability with the threat of homelessness or actual homelessness lying over their heads. I think that the children particularly need greater security of housing. Certainly not a final solution but an interim measure might be at least some kind of a supplement to families who are over the shelter limit now so they don't have to divert so much of their food money to pay their rent. It would seem to be kind of a logical, early step to at least some significant reduction in hunger among children.
The idea of losing rent controls is really a threat to a lot of families who are already in great hardship. Very few of the families with children who are in unsubsidized housing are able, obviously, to find accommodation that's under the shelter limit. What we've basically got now is a situation where we're taking food out of the mouths of babes and putting money into the hands of landlords. I think anything we do to exacerbate that would be a great shame.
Finally, I think we need to explore -- and this is something the Daily Bread is more than willing to participate in -- what kind of opportunities might make a difference. Why is it that those sole-support families seem to have so much difficulty in re-entering the workforce? What are some of the things that would assist the two-parent families?
I think that we didn't have time, unfortunately, before these hearings to do all the exploration we'd like to on these issues, but we're certainly willing to do more of that. I think that what we presented to you in fact begs a lot of questions and I would very much like to be able to present in the future some more answers to the committee. I'd like to know about the impact on the most vulnerable kids, the preschool kids who tend to be the largest proportion of age groups. I'd like to know something more about the impact of family size, of child support. About 5% of these families are currently getting some child support payments. I'd really like to know more and we intend to research this and we'd love to have an opportunity to come back to you and tell you more about it, more about the work opportunities, the educational background and so on of many of these families. So I think we've got a lot of work ahead of us to explore this, but in the meantime, let me answer your questions. Do you want to add anything, Winston?
Dr Winston Husbands: No, I don't.
The Chair (Mr Richard Patten): Thank you for your presentation. We have about four and a half minutes per party and we begin with the third party.
Mrs Boyd: Thank you very much for coming and thank you for an excellent presentation. It certainly gives us a great deal to think about. I share your concern that what we've seen so far is really only part of the picture, because for sure, if the protection for tenants is dissipated, we're going to see a much larger problem, aren't we, in terms of the housing issue? The one thing you didn't mention that surprised me a little was the very imminent effect of the $2 prescription charge, because you're talking about families with children and we all know what the determinants of health tell us around the connection between poor nutrition and poor health for both parents and children. So looking at this particular population and looking at a $2 prescription cost --
Ms Cox: You've got families right now who can't afford to get on the TTC for two bucks.
Mrs Boyd: That's right, and that's what's going to really put a lot of families right over the edge in terms of being able to look after their children. So that's the only thing I can think of that needs to be added to this picture to really look at the complexity.
One of the issues you raise is this issue of the differential between the support that two-parent families and single-parent families get around the housing subsidy. I must confess I did not realize that the differential was that high, because that's really quite a shocker, isn't it? Because very often you find in these two-parent families that one or the other parent has one form of disability or another; there are reasons why --
Ms Cox: Yes, very often you do, but these are families who are on general welfare and families who have been cut, who are in this situation. Frankly, that came as a surprise to us too. I guess maybe that speaks to some stereotypes. Of course, it's the single-parent families who have had better access to subsidized housing; that's true. But it also is weighted on the basic allowance side. There's a kind of punitive part of the basic allowance for two-parent families. That's a subjective thing, but I perceive it as almost punitive that they're worse off in the long run.
I think that's one of the things that really ought to be explored: who are those families and what do we know about them and what kind of opportunities do we offer them? Frankly, with the less than basic allowance that they have, I think they would be particularly a group of people that I'd like to see with at least some shelter assistance to get them into a situation where they're just not paying so much of their basic allowance for their rent.
Mrs Boyd: Has any of your data included any information about the level of disability of people who are accessing the food bank?
Ms Cox: Yes, we do have data on it. Most families with children, it's three-point-something-or-other per cent, right, Winston?
Dr Husbands: Yes.
Ms Cox: I wrote it; it's in here, anyhow -- or slightly more if you include people on CPP. It's a fairly small percentage of disabled people, people who did not have their welfare reduced who are on Canada pension plan or something like that. There are a small percentage also --
Mrs Boyd: You misunderstood me. I meant the children.
Ms Cox: Oh, the children with disabilities. No, actually I don't. I'm sorry. I beg your pardon.
Mrs Boyd: I wasn't clear; I realized that when you started to answer the question.
Ms Cox: I don't have any information on that.
Mrs Boyd: One of the issues that keeps getting raised with us is that parents who have disabled children have lost that percentage of their allowance. There has been no recognition of the fact that they are often on welfare or family benefits because they are looking after children who are disabled.
Ms Cox: Yes, I've certainly talked to mothers in exactly that kind of situation with children who are in disability, but I don't have any quantifiable data. I know that in some countries those parents do get a special caregiver's allowance and certain job search expectations and things are not placed on them because of the care they have to give to their children.
Mrs Boyd: And if you don't pay taxes, tax rebates don't help you, do they?
Ms Cox: They don't make it, no.
Mrs Munro: Thank you very much for the presentation. I was just wondering if you could tell us, when you identified the children in the statistics you gave at the beginning, what age are the children you're using --
Ms Cox: Eighteen and under.
Mrs Munro: The reason I asked was simply because everyone has statistics, and they pull them out to explain their positions. In your diagram you have the figure in 1990 as being particularly low. The information that's been in the Toronto papers suggested there were about 250,000 people in the fall of 1990 and then by December 1992 it had gone up to about 450,000. I just wondered if you could explain that in comparison to the changes in the welfare rates.
1710
Ms Cox: Our numbers in Toronto have never been as high as 250,000 people ever. That would be a figure for the whole of Ontario, I suspect, although even for Ontario I don't have the actual number right now. It may be as high as that across the whole province, but I'm just talking about the greater Toronto area right now.
Mrs Munro: I'm sorry; that obviously is the confusion. The point is simply that despite the changes in the welfare rates, the numbers went up more than twice.
Ms Cox: No. In 1990 the numbers went down, most significantly in families with children. In 1990, the number of food bank users declined when there was an increase in the welfare rates. That increase actually targeted children, and they stayed away in droves. With a little extra money, their moms went to the supermarket like other people.
Mr Pettit: I thank you for your presentation. Being from Hamilton, I wasn't overly familiar with the Daily Bread Food Bank, but since being in Toronto I've learned it has an excellent reputation. I guess I should commend you on your agenda to eliminate your own position.
Ms Cox: Thank you. That is my ambition.
Mr Pettit: I'd like to carry Mrs Munro's point a little further. The former director of the food bank is now a member of the Liberal Party. That particular party realized unprecedented increases in the use of the Daily Bread Food Bank. Some of the Toronto papers reported that there'd been a 100% increase in the number of people using the banks between 1986 and 1989, and this was at a time when the Liberals were actually boosting welfare rates and it was also a time of economic boom. To me, that seems absurd.
I'd like to ask you again, how do you link an increase in food bank use to welfare rate reductions, when we've seen it was actually increasing drastically at a time when so were the welfare rates?
Ms Cox: Let me explain that to you. Over the period of time, from the mid- to late 1980s, in the boom times, there was an incredible increase in the cost of shelter in the greater Toronto area. Perhaps you remember that. I, unfortunately, bought a house in 1988. I remember it very well. In fact there were not until 1990 any significant increase in welfare rates until those targeted changes. At that point in time, the people we saw in food banks were virtually never employables. They were people who were either single mothers or people on disabilities. Their situation worsened as rents increased, worsened as housing was more and more difficult to find, and in fact there was some gradual erosion in some of the programs over time that supported them.
Under the Social Assistance Review Committee, there was an initial increase in welfare rates that were targeted towards children and moved them forward, and that was when we saw a decrease in food bank use. Subsequent to that, the recession started to hit, and that's when the numbers went very high.
Mr Pettit: Are you attributing a lot of this, then, to the rent control regulations that were in place at the time?
Ms Cox: Obviously not.
Mr Dan Newman (Scarborough Centre): You mentioned that a lot of children are not getting the essentials that they require. What is it going to take for parents to provide those essentials?
Ms Cox: Enough money to buy the food they need for their children, I think. They need opportunities. I certainly am as anxious as you are to get those folks to work if they can work, those people who are not disabled. I think they need a job first, a job that pays enough money to support their families. I believe they will willingly take one and eagerly take one.
Second, if they're not able to work or jobs are not available, I think they need sufficient income just to meet their basic needs. I don't think it's very much to ask.
Mr Kennedy: I appreciate how carefully you've given us the basic facts and figures; I understand how necessary that is to do. But I wonder if either yourself or Dr Husbands could confirm the idea that 28,000 more kids in the GTA are going hungry because of the Conservative government's decision to cut social assistance rates. Does your research prove that? Does it provide evidence towards that? How strongly would you characterize the evidence you've collected in regard to that statement?
Dr Husbands: I would say the evidence is pretty strong. When we looked at the proportion of respondent households occupying accommodation for which they were paying rents in excess of the shelter allowance, comparing 1995 to 1996, without any doubt there has been an increase, in some cases a rather substantial increase. Of course, if people are using their basic allowance to pay their rents, to cover their accommodation cost, that means there is less money left over to buy food and the other things people have to do. There's a very -- I wouldn't want to say an unquestioned relationship, but there is a relationship, without any doubt.
Mr Kennedy: Then in terms of the specific policy the government put forward in defence of cutting welfare rates, that rates were still 10% higher than some average, it's noteworthy that children were cut. If they were in a two-parent, two-children family, they got cut $80 each; if they were in a one-adult and two-child situation they were cut $100 each; and if they were in a one-adult, one-child situation they were cut $60 to $65 each. It seems pretty arbitrary. Do you see any basis for the kind of rationale the government put forward at that time, now that the time since October has passed? What is your research showing?
Dr Husbands: These are not our figures but data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Even for single people, unattached people, for all classes essentially, the average rent for the various levels of accommodation that you would expect people with different household sizes to occupy is always in excess, and sometimes far in excess, of the shelter allowance. This is independent of Daily Bread. On top of that, of course, there is a very low vacancy rate, typically 1%, 1.2% or less, which means there is a lot of difficulty. People who use food banks are experiencing a great deal of difficulty since last October.
Mr Kennedy: So you're referring to rental rates here that are how in relation to the rest of the country?
Ms Cox: Considerably higher than anywhere except Vancouver at this point, 40% higher or so than any other city except for Vancouver, and because they are so much higher, there obviously is not a very logical reason welfare rates would have been cut to that drastic amount: 10% higher. I simply don't understand. When you have 40% higher rents, it doesn't make any sense at all. And it was such an across-the-board sort of cut, it didn't try to take into account all kinds of extenuating and not so extenuating circumstances that people face, including those people who under virtually no circumstance are going to find affordable housing under the shelter limit and are in many instances going to be several hundred dollars above it just because the rental situation is like that.
I don't know. I think there are lots of new ways we might begin to look at some of those cuts, and perhaps there are some people who really need and should get some extra assistance and support right now.
Mr Kennedy: Do you have any correlating evidence from other parts of the province in terms of how we can understand the picture put forward from the greater Toronto area?
Ms Cox: We do know that food bank use has increased right across the province. Not 100% of communities, but most communities, are reporting increases, and the increases range from 30% to 100% in some communities, depending on their local employment situation. We're just right now gathering a second-quarter report to bring that information up to date. The situation seems to be tough and quite similar in many other jurisdictions.
Mr Kennedy: Is it appropriate for us to ask for that information to be submitted to the committee for its deliberation?
The Chair: If you would like to share that, certainly we would be happy to accept it.
Thank you very kindly for your presentation.
Ms Cox: Not at all. Thank you.
The Chair: Is there any other business?
Mr Bartolucci: Mr Chair, I have a motion I'd like to introduce, as follows:
"Since debate and dialogue on children's services has been ongoing since December 1995 at the social development committee;
"Therefore, in the view of the social development committee, the government's agenda for children's services has failed, since children are significantly affected in a negative, hurtful way by government cuts, and this agenda should cease immediately, and recommends to the government that this agenda against children be abolished."
It is self-explanatory, and I have no further debate.
The Chair: Do you have that in writing?
Mr Bartolucci: Yes.
Mrs Boyd: Mr Chair, this matter has been debated at great length, and I would think there's very little need for additional debate. I would call the question on the motion.
The Chair: Would you like to debate this motion?
Mrs Ecker: Yes, if I could have a minute to read it, since we did not receive notice of this, Mr Chair. Actually, I would like to call a five-minute recess before we call the question.
The Chair: Is there agreement for a five-minute recess? Okay.
The committee recessed from 1722 to 1727.
The Chair: I call the committee back to order.
Mrs Boyd: We're not allowed to substitute after 5 o'clock.
The Chair: I am informed by the clerk that the substitution slips were in before 3 o'clock this afternoon.
Mrs Pupatello: We're going to need verification on who's on the committee today.
The Chair: Okay, we'll get those.
Clerk of the Committee (Ms Lynn Mellor): Mrs Boyd for Mr Wildman, Mr Bartolucci for Mr Gerretsen, Mrs Pupatello for Mr Gravelle, Mrs Ross for Mr Newman after 4:30, and Mr Parker for Mrs Johns.
Mrs Ecker: If this motion were to pass, what does this do to the rest of the 125 order we're under for the hearings and stuff? Does it have any impact?
The Chair: The clerk says we would have to take that under advisement. My understanding of the motion is that it would end the presentations?
Mr Bartolucci: Mr Chair, that's at the discretion of the committee. Any presentation in front of the committee is at the discretion of the committee. This motion, because it was done after presentation, is a motion that stands by itself. If in the view of the committee they'd like to hear presentations on 125, they are certainly still available and we can still do that, is my understanding.
The Chair: Yes, because we still have several days, particularly if we're living up to the 5 o'clock rule, which only gives us three witnesses a day. How many hours do we have left?
Clerk of the Committee: At least six and a half. I can't tell you right now, but it's the way the motion is worded I'd like to consult before --
Mrs Ecker: So it is possible, if we pass this motion, that it could conceivably end the rest of these hearings? Is that what I'm hearing? That is a possibility, that if we were to pass this motion it would indeed end the rest of these hearings?
The Chair: That's a possibility.
Interjection.
The Chair: You're saying it's not?
Mr Bartolucci: It's at the discretion of the committee.
The Chair: Let me hear your arguments before I make a ruling on this, because I'd like to seek advice.
Mrs Pupatello: Mr Chair, if there is no further debate, we'd like to call the question.
The Chair: I haven't yet asked if there is further debate on the motion.
Mrs Munro: I come back to the question that has already been raised. This motion is asking us to agree to the failure of this agenda, and I think the purpose of the hearings was to examine this. I think it puts in question the validity of any further hearing if this motion were to pass, because it states here the agenda has failed, and obviously we haven't completed our hearings.
Mr John L. Parker (York East): I would speak in support of what Mrs Munro has just said. It looks to me as though this resolution calls the issue to a question and we decide the issue once and for all and that is the end of the discussion, as I see it. It would appear to me that this resolution brings the issue to a head. If we decide this resolution, that puts an end to the process.
The Chair: We have two interpretations of that, one that it's still an open question and this is a resolution that stands on its own, and the other is that it would close debate.
Mrs Boyd: First of all, I'm a little puzzled that we're going on when we had called the question, but let's leave it at that.
On the issue of this motion, if this motion were not to pass, I see no reason to assume that would end the discussion at all in this room. If the motion were to pass, it might end the discussion. But it seems to me if the motion did not pass, there is no reason to end the discussion. I would assume, at least from what government members are saying, that they would be saying no to the motion because they wanted to hear more from the community around the issue.
Mr Pettit: Just quickly, Chair, it says here, "In the view of the social development committee...." I'm not so sure that's the view of the whole committee, maybe the view of a small minority.
Mr Bartolucci: That's the purpose of the vote, is it not, Mr Chair?
Mr Pettit: If it is, then I would say we vote on it.
The Chair: Is there any further debate? No? Then I call the question.
Interjections: Recorded vote.
Ayes
Bartolucci, Boyd, Kennedy, Pupatello.
Nays
Ecker, Munro, Parker, Pettit, Ross, Smith.
The Chair: The motion is defeated.
Mrs Pupatello: A question to the clerk: Are all those who voted members of the committee right now, bona fide?
Clerk of the Committee: I read that to you earlier on, who were the legal members of the committee.
Mr Bartolucci: Mr Chair, just a point of clarification, because I'm not familiar yet with the standing orders around here. I am very familiar with what happens at regional and city council. After a question is called, debate ceases. Is that not correct? The debate on the question ceases and we move to the vote.
The Chair: Yes.
Mr Bartolucci: Yes? That wasn't done today, Mr Chair.
The Chair: I didn't put the question.
Mr Bartolucci: No, the question was put by the member, and anybody can put a question, correct? No? Clarify it for me.
The Chair: I regret that I didn't understand that you had actually moved the question as such.
Mrs Boyd: That's why she called a recess.
The Chair: Yes, we called a recess, and then we had debate. Now we can go back to the original question, if you like, and vote on that, and then we've already voted on this as well, if we have unanimous consent.
Mr Bartolucci: Then it's my understanding that that's the only way we repair a wrong here? In fact, this vote should have already been done once the question was called. That's why I say I want clarity of procedure here. Once a person calls the question, the vote is taken. Those are the rules of procedure. If the Chair recognizes that the question is called, we proceed to the vote.
Clerk Assistant and Clerk of Committees (Ms Deborah Deller): Can I jump in here? I wasn't here and I'm not certain what happened, but if I understand correctly, there was a debate going on on a motion. Mrs Boyd then moved that the question be now put. The first vote then would be on that question, that the question be now put. If that carried, you would move on to the original question.
The Chair: I am advised that the sequence of events was a request for a five-minute recess before the question.
Mrs Boyd: No, that's not so.
The Chair: That's not your recollection?
Mrs Boyd: She called for the recess after I called for the question, and she called for the recess because she didn't have any members except herself and her colleague from Durham-York.
Mr Parker: Aren't we talking now about water under the bridge? Whatever was done was done. The time to object to the process, if there was a concern about the process, was at that time. History has moved on. The vote was called, the vote has been taken, the vote was recorded. There was a call for a recorded vote and that's what was done. I can't understand what we're talking about now unless it's some attempt to unwind the clock, and I'm not sure that's a productive exercise.
The Chair: I think the understanding is that once the question is put, that's it. The clerk advises me that a request for a recess may still be requested, and it was in this particular instance.
Mrs Ecker: Also, I do believe I had put a point of order on the question as well, in terms of how that impacted on the hearings. I don't know whether that has any impact on the clerk's ruling.
Mrs Pupatello: Do I have the floor now, Chair? I just want it to be noted, for government members especially, that it took us an awful lot of time to receive the 125 committee on children's services and the negative effects of the Conservative government's cutbacks on children's services. We had a very significant presentation being made here about the effects to children and you had two members sitting here, and it's not comparable to how many opposition members sit at committee.
It's very important that government members, who are in a position to be influencing decision-making in a far greater way, supposedly, than opposition members -- that you be here when you're scheduled to be here and hear the kinds of things that are important to the children of Ontario. If there's any lesson to be learned here, it's that those who are advocating on behalf of children have the right to be listened to by all government members who are required to be here. I think that is the important lesson to be learned here.
Mrs Ecker: With all due respect, I find it highly offensive that the member opposite would try and lecture the government members on their responsibilities.
Mrs Pupatello: Janet, you had two members sitting here.
Mrs Ecker: We have sat in many committees --
Interjection.
Mrs Ecker: Excuse me, I have the floor at the moment. We've been in many committee hearings where there have been very important presentations, we've been in the Legislature where there have been very important debates, and members from all parties sometimes are there and sometimes are not there. If we're going to start pointing fingers and you want to get into that kind of game, we can certainly play that, but I don't think it's very productive or very helpful to what's going on here. Mr Bartolucci: Just as a final point, since I moved the motion, I'd like it to be known that I think it is important that members of the committee be here. We are not preaching. This is of significant importance.
I will be watching and I will be following procedure, and as I become more adept at handling the procedure of this place, I will be questioning a whole lot more. Clearly this vote should have been done, and you're right, Mr Parker: It is water under the bridge. You were able this time to beat us. But let me tell you, we will be watching procedure to ensure that we maximize any advantage that may come on the opposition side in order to stop the faulty agenda of this government.
Mrs Boyd: Perhaps one of the lessons from this for the government -- and I think every government of every ilk finds this out -- is that motions can be moved at any time, and it is important if the government considers the work of the committee to be important, that it have sufficient members present to meet that challenge at any point. I can recall a great deal of resentment on the part of the member for Huron during the Bill 26 hearings when the government allowed the majority of the committee to slide and a vote was taken. There was a great hoo-ha about it and much resentment. I would have thought the government had learned its lesson at that point, that its job is to keep the majority if it does not want unfriendly motions from an opposition side.
The Chair: Any other comments?
All right. I adjourn today's meeting until 3:30 tomorrow afternoon.
The committee adjourned at 1741.