Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

CONTENTS

Tuesday 6 October 1992

Ministry of Community and Social Services

Hon Marion Boyd, minister

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

*Chair / Président: Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC)

*Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC)

*Bisson, Giles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)

Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC)

*Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L)

Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)

*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)

Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville ND)

O'Connor, Larry (Durham-York ND)

Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND)

Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)

Sorbara, Gregory S. (York Centre L)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants:

*Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND) for Mr Ferguson

*Hope, Randy R. (Chatham-Kent ND) for Mr Lessard

*Morrow, Mark (Wentworth East/-Est ND) for Mr O'Connor

*O'Neill, Yvonne (Ottawa-Rideau L) for Mr Sorbara

*Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Perruzza

*In attendance / présents

Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim: Mellor, Lynn

The committee met at 1610 in committee room 2.

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

The Vice-Chair (Mrs Margaret Marland): I'd like to call to order the standing committee on estimates for the estimates of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. I invite the minister to make her opening comments.

Hon Marion Boyd (Minister of Community and Social Services): Madam Chair and members of the committee, I'm pleased to have the opportunity to appear before you to discuss the 1992-93 estimates of the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

I want to preface my remarks by saying that although we are here to talk primarily about dollars and cents -- dollars and cents which are even more scarce than ever before, given our fiscal climate -- we also need to develop together a real sense of the human consequences of the forced decisions we are about to make. So before we begin to discuss reconciliations between expenditures and allocations, fiscal pressures as they relate to program or service cuts, I know all of us in this room want to reflect upon the people who are served by this ministry's budget of $9.57 billion.

Let me briefly share with you a few profiles of those whom I have met over the past few weeks:

-- A mother who made the choice to keep her developmentally handicapped teenager at home, who wants and deserves the assurance of ongoing supports in order to maintain that community choice as her child moves into adulthood.

-- A 14-year-old young offender who seeks stronger safeguards against abuse within the criminal justice system.

-- An unemployed parent with two children who needs more time and guidance from an already overburdened welfare case worker to help her make appropriate choices, choices which will lead her to an effective training program and eventual employment.

-- A three-year-old child living below the poverty line who requires the comfort and hope available at an affordable, accessible child care program.

-- A 72-year-old woman, homeless and hungry, who wanders the streets hoping chance will provide a safe, clean home, a warm meal and a friendly face.

-- A mother with her children, the victims of domestic violence, who are fearful of strangers and sceptical of the system as they seek shelter, protection and understanding.

-- A quadriplegic with the right to autonomy who seeks more individualized and flexible funding to support the goal of independent community living.

-- A young person in a sheltered workshop who wants to make use of the skills he has acquired to undertake supported employment within the community, an alternative which reflects his growing sense of self-worth and dignity.

-- A crown ward whose abusive past led to the decision to remove her from her family and place her in care, who seeks the assurance that the crown, as parent, will continue to provide her with the educational opportunities most other young people take for granted from their family.

These are just some of the tens of thousands of people who are reliant on this ministry's budget. They are people who are vulnerable, who may be at risk and who in most cases have had little choice or control over their own circumstances.

Most of our clients require relatively modest supports to enable them to gain control over their own lives and become productive, self-sufficient contributors to our society.

The commitment of the Ministry of Community and Social Services is to seek a future which is safer, healthier and more equitable for our clients, their families and the community at large. This task, always difficult, becomes extremely tough as the fiscal situation allows fewer dollars but creates more needs.

Our budget choices are extremely challenging. We must build on the best of our inheritance in the social services sector of the province, a legacy of extraordinary dedication from thousands of service providers, volunteers, advocates and ministry employees, and we must carry on the best traditions of past administrations, whose policy directions in such areas as social assistance reform, multi-year planning for the developmentally handicapped, long-term care and community-based programming have provided impetus for ongoing changes in service delivery.

But, generally speaking, we cannot use a rearview mirror to guide us on the road ahead. What we created in the past at the community level and through government initiatives must now be examined in the light of present realities and future needs. In a non-defensive manner, we must acknowledge that we have created individual service delivery mechanisms which provide services within very loosely aggregated programs. These aggregated programs pose as systems but in fact are not yet systems at all, since they guarantee little consistency or equity to recipients across the province.

Not only are program requirements interpreted differently by individual agencies, but they are also applied differently by municipalities and area offices of the ministry itself. If we are to transform these programs into genuine, effective and dynamic systems which really work to the benefit of our clients and the community, there are a number of actions we must take.

We must encourage our community partners to move away from the rugged individualism which has created more than 7,000 separate transfer payment agencies towards a sense of creative interdependence and integration focused on client need rather than agency turf. If we are to succeed in this, we as government must demonstrate our commitment by vigorously seeking interministerial coordination.

We must stop spending so much energy finding labels for our clients' conditions and then forcing them to fit the program box which fits their label. Instead, we must invest our financial and human resources in levering our clients' potential, with reference to their individual needs and aspirations.

We must move from expending all our energy on developing policy and process and instead commit ourselves to achieving clearly stated and appropriate outcomes for our clients.

Whether we are considering welfare, young offenders, child care programs or any other area of service, we acknowledge that we have yet to achieve systems which work. In the past we could hold programs together, creating the illusion of systematic service provision by pumping in more money to paper over the cracks. But now we face a new reality.

It would be enough if we were only dealing with a short-term fiscal blip. It would be enough if we were only dealing with five to seven years of major economic restructuring. It would be enough if we were only dealing with the abrupt end to the 11-year annual average increase in funding of 17%. It would be enough if we were only dealing with the devastation of the federal government's unilateral cap on the Canada assistance plan and the loss of $3.3 billion in federal transfers over the last two years.

But the confluence of all these events means that the dollars allocated to the social services today likely foreshadows the level and proportion of funding available during the foreseeable future.

We all know that the programs and services provided by Community and Social Services are inextricably connected to social justice, one of the major commitments of this government. If we are to preserve that commitment to social justice, we must develop a social service system which enhances economic renewal.

Although it may not be immediately apparent, our ministry has a vital role to play in supporting this government's top priority of economic renewal. Access to training and retraining, employment programs, child care, adequate resources to ensure good nutrition and safe shelter: All these are essential to ensure the full participation of all our population in a productive, healthy and competitive economy.

So the challenge facing the Ministry of Community and Social Services, and indeed the whole government of Ontario, is not whether we can continue to provide programs and services, but how to provide a level of social services that is not only acceptable to people, but also an affordable and wise investment in our economy.

Thanks to our efforts to implement a more strategic approach to budget planning, as well as our efforts to involve our community partners more fully in a review of the issues at hand, we know that the way we are doing things now as a sector does not ensure that we can meet the challenge.

At the ministry level, we must look at how funding decisions are made and how those decisions may fail to take into account their effect at the local level. The Ministry of Community and Social Services has evolved into a highly decentralized organization, reliant for planning and delivery of services at the regional and area offices.

Except in the case of social assistance, the practice has been for funds in a given program line to be allocated out to the regions and from the regions to the area offices, according to roughly calculated demographic factors. Both at the regional and the area level, managers have exercised a good deal of discretion in terms of the levels of service, the delivery agents and the priority of funding. Additional discretion is exercised by municipal partners, with whom we share a number of programs within their jurisdictions.

This level of decentralization was developed to ensure that the ministry was sensitive to local needs, to provide flexibility to take account of community resources and to encourage creative solutions to services gaps. The result, however, has been a marked unevenness across the province in terms of service delivery, resulting in disturbing inconsistencies and inequities which distress service providers and clients alike.

1620

Local emphasis on one program area has often resulted in outstanding services in that aspect of our mandate but a slow development of other program areas to which less time, energy and resources have been allocated. Fiscal dollars have been used to begin or bolster community services not fully funded through regular annualized allocations.

Again, this creativity has resulted in exciting and effective local solutions, but the problem arises when fiscal dollars are no longer available because of shrinking resources. Those same programs, on which the community and clients have come to rely, may be in danger of redirection or closure. As a ministry, we must find ways to ensure equity and consistency in our services to the people of Ontario and yet do so in a flexible enough way to respond to our diverse communities.

As indicated earlier, most of the social services provided by our ministry are delivered by community agencies to a wide range of people. These agencies, created out of identified local needs, are in most cases guided by community boards of directors that ensure that services are provided with some reference to community characteristics and priorities.

Given the fairly high level of autonomy exercised by ministry personnel at the regional and area level and the individualistic, community base of over 7,000 agencies, what has evolved over time, through a topsy-turvy responsiveness to local decisions and needs, is a patchwork of aggregated programs and services, rather than a systemic delivery of equitable services.

Let me give you an example. In the area of children's services in MCSS, we have a number of distinct program sectors, all of which have separate policy and administrative structures. We have services for young offenders which are distinct from our developmental services, our child care services or our child protection services. Because we offer services on a program basis rather than a client basis and our programs are not yet fully integrated, we may not offer a young client at risk all the services she or he needs in order to thrive. When we add to this mix the lack of integration between ministries such as Health, Education, Tourism and Recreation, Housing, Correctional Services and MCSS, we understand why we are not always meeting the complex needs of our young clients and their families.

We are suffering, as my deputy minister described it, from a "hardening of the categories." We depend upon the dedication and heroic work of our community partners and ministry staff, but we often leave them feeling like the little Dutch boy, trying to stem the rising tide of need by holding their fingers in a crumbling dike. So what is the solution?

First, the ministry must provide more consistent and clear guidelines for service provision. Our funding decisions must be more transparent and the implementation of program changes must be monitored to ensure that issues of equity and consistency are taken into account.

We must work with our social service partners to restructure social services so they reflect a true network of interdependent agencies and organizations working together in an environment of sharing, consensus-building, problem-solving and conflict resolution.

We must encourage partnerships among service planners and providers, to articulate common values and goals and put our passion for client interests into a more rigorous framework of accountability. Such partnerships will make better use of scarce resources, unite strategic directions, put into action collective expertise and create the mechanisms necessary for the integration and coordination of services within or across service sectors.

We must listen to self-advocates. We must tear down interministerial walls which get in the way of needed reform, and we must understand that empowering people means that they are not clients we own for purposes of protecting the historical mandate of a ministry or an agency.

We will continue to reinforce:

The need for tough-minded fiscal constraint and shared responsibility to do business differently: In order to achieve the kind of cooperation and collaboration necessary for success, we have noticed that communities are increasingly willing to establish their priorities and to initiate innovative restructuring to best use scarce resources.

The need for interagency partnerships: Individual service providers will have to make the switch from planning and managing within the context of their own roles and delivery methods to more broadly defined client needs and accountability-driven outcomes and standards.

Responsiveness to community need: More local decision-making must ensure more responsive and streamlined approaches, along with better planning, coordination and management of services.

The need for new funding arrangements: Current funding arrangements do not encourage agencies to work together to enhance effectiveness or efficiency, nor are funding decisions well linked to planning. In addition, incentives and disincentives exist that are not always consistent with policy goals.

The need to reinvest in prevention and early intervention: There has been too limited an emphasis on prevention and promotion in the system up until now. These activities must become an integral component of effective social services delivery.

As we work with our community partners to build an effective social services system, we will all experience some of the inevitable pain and difficulty that comes with choices and change. I know that each of you has already seen the painful face of these choices in your communities, but I'm equally certain that our efforts will result in a vastly improved and fiscally responsible system.

From the perspective of improving the cost-effectiveness and responsiveness of social services in this province, we have identified five areas as ministry priorities. They are: (1) to reform the social assistance system; (2) to reform child care; (3) to work with the ministries of Health and Citizenship on the redirection of long-term care, and eventually linking with long-term care, services to people with developmental disabilities; (4) to promote and improve programs that eradicate violence against women, children and the vulnerable, and (5) to integrate services for children and youth.

Our approach in all these priorities is to enhance service integrity and restructure delivery to improve the service to and impact on clients while containing and paring back historical patterns of expenditure growth.

At the same time we are deliberately shifting our emphasis from a targeting and labelling focus to an approach that is based on people's actual needs and abilities and we are developing more rigorous methods of evaluating the programs and services we offer from a client outcome perspective. We want to be sure that the dollars we're spending are being used effectively. When we are asked about the outcomes of a program we must have an answer which is clear and relevant to both the client and the community.

Keeping in mind that this work of restructuring and redesigning the social service system in Ontario will span the range of programs and services we offer, I'd like to talk about each of the priorities and bring you up to date on recent activities.

First, some words about social assistance reform.

As you know, the largest growth in expenditures in this ministry this year has been in social assistance. About two thirds of our budget this year will be spent on social assistance, but due to the cap on CAP, almost 50% of what we would normally receive for social assistance spending will not be reimbursed by the federal government. Compared to three years ago, the number of people receiving social assistance and the cost of providing that assistance has doubled. Today, more than one million people in Ontario, over 40% of them children, rely on social assistance.

Our priority is to help people avoid social assistance or get off the program and back into the labour force in a timely fashion. All of us benefit when employment replaces reliance upon welfare. A trained labour force will make this province much more successful in the global economy, and, quite frankly, given our demographic shifts, we will require the full participation of all who are able to be productive.

The government's response to plan for economic renewal through training and job creation includes the Jobs Ontario Training fund, which is designed to strengthen our capacity to return social assistance recipients to the labour force: $1.1 billion will be directed over the next three years to help create up to 90,000 jobs for the long-term unemployed. Up to $10,000 will be offered as a training credit to employers for each new job they create under the program. As part of JOTF, up to 20,000 fully subsidized spaces in the not-for-profit child care sector will be created. These subsidies are an important contribution to job creation and they will enable many families to participate in the workforce.

As I announced in May, we have introduced changes to the eligibility requirements to the supports to employment program, STEP, to restrict employed people with moderate incomes from qualifying for social assistance benefits without jeopardizing social assistance for the most needy. This will enable us to realize substantial savings. At the same time, we are increasing efforts to make more social assistance recipients aware of STEP and encourage them to work gradually back into the workforce using the supports available through STEP.

The new Ontario Training and Adjustment Board, OTAB, will take responsibility for a number of employment programs funded by the ministry for people on social assistance and people with disabilities who seek employment. We are working with OTAB staff to ensure that these programs continue to serve and support the people who need them.

We are also taking steps that will not only discourage abuse of the system but also make it more efficient, more effective and more accountable through a series of measures I announced in May that are designed to help us move closer to our goals in social assistance while helping to save more than $300 million during this fiscal year.

At the time of the announcement I talked about the overwhelming provincial case loads with which social assistance workers were struggling and our intention to hire 450 additional field staff. I have talked to income maintenance officers with case loads of 500 or more, and they are people who should be, and want to be, brokers who help people link with opportunities so the safety net doesn't become a trap. We acted, and our $18-million investment will make a difference.

1630

Working with all other social assistance staff, the additional staff will allow us to improve the service we provide to social assistance recipients and applicants, helping more of them to find alternative sources of income. The new staff will help to increase the efficiency of the system, monitoring overpayment and administrative errors and ensuring that only those who are in need of support receive it, while also helping us to accomplish many of the new measures.

I am pleased to announce that as of August 1 we had hired 200 new staff members, most of them income maintenance officers, to work in eight areas of the province where growth in the number of people receiving family benefits has been greatest: Barrie, Hamilton, Kingston, London, North Bay, Ottawa, Sudbury and Toronto. Many of these new staff were redeployed from other parts of the ministry workforce where downsizing had created redundancies.

In the sites where the new staff are employed, we are strengthening our front-door screening to help new social assistance applicants identify training or employment opportunities that they may wish to access early in their contact with the social assistance system. We can therefore more adequately concentrate on working with applicants to discover their abilities, their training needs and their employment potential.

Where appropriate, applicants are assisted with information about other programs, services, employment and training opportunities. We have also been able to direct more attention to linking social assistance applicants with other forms of income support for which they may be eligible, such as unemployment insurance and the Canada pension plan.

Similarly, some of the new employees are parental support workers, who assist sole-support parents in obtaining their full child support entitlements, aided by our improved system for recovering such support payments.

While these and other measures will help make the system more efficient and effective by directing people towards employment and other forms of income support, we continue to be committed to major social assistance reforms as the primary way of building a social assistance system that works. We have no intention of abandoning the many in Ontario who need help to get back on their feet.

While it is true that the extraordinary growth in welfare expenditures impacts on the government's debt load, it is also true that most of this money gets recycled directly back into the economy. People who receive social assistance spend that money on the necessities of life. They buy groceries from the local supermarket, children's clothing and other consumer goods from the nearest retail outlet and pay rent to their landlords, contributing to an economic cycle that creates a need for more workers. These workers pay taxes, in turn contributing to the funding of social benefits.

We will continue to strengthen social assistance as a residual system necessary to help people in need during times of financial crisis or other circumstances which prohibit traditional participation in the labour market, an important investment in all aspects of the health and wellbeing of our citizens.

We have implemented more than 50 specific actions from Back on Track, the report of the provincially appointed advisory group on new social assistance legislation, including equalizing the rate paid to sole-support parents under both GWA and FBA at the higher rate, giving boarders a special increase of $50 per cheque issued and introducing health-related special necessities, such as diabetic supplies, for those who require them.

In addition, we are in the process of implementing a number of other initiatives, one of which includes our plan to move ahead with the creation of a council of consumers in Ontario, which will directly involve people receiving social assistance in the policy development, decision-making and service delivery process.

In June the advisory group on new social assistance legislation released its principal report, Time for Action, providing the government with further advice for creating new social assistance legislation for Ontario. All the advice offered on social assistance reform, from SARC to Time for Action to the discussions with our municipal partners at the disentanglement table, has vigorously reinforced the need to move to a single system. The process to introduce new legislation in 1993 is under way.

We have also moved ahead with another key element of social assistance reform, opportunity planning. Opportunity planning is a service philosophy designed to help social assistance recipients get back to work, and it has been an important recommendation in both the Transitions report and Back on Track.

In July I announced the selection of nine pilot projects to test various ways of introducing opportunity planning to the social assistance system. The projects were chosen on the basis of consumer involvement, community partnerships and attention to serving a wide diversity of people on social assistance.

In addition to these nine projects we will be funding a number of First Nations opportunity planning pilot projects to serve primarily native Ontarians who live in First Nations communities.

We anticipate that these pilot projects will give us some very good models for implementing opportunity planning throughout Ontario.

In addition to all we have done to date, we plan to present a renewed vision for welfare reform in 1993, a vision which reflects the challenges of an economy undergoing fundamental change.

It may appear unusual that as a government we are emphasizing the connection between economic renewal and employment initiatives while at the same time our expenditures in the employment services area are decreasing. We want to put this in the context of our government-wide initiative to refocus our resources and efforts on the Jobs Ontario Training fund. The transition included the cessation of our 1991-92 anti-recession program.

Next I'd like to address the issue of child care. As I mentioned earlier, child care reform is one of the major priorities of our government. The Ontario government considers quality child care critical to the economic and social wellbeing of society as a whole, an essential public service for children and their parents who are working or going to school.

Quality child care helps people get back to work and to stay working and quality child care has proven to be a major positive determinant of health, happiness and prosperity for our children, especially those who are economically disadvantaged. Affordable, stable, accessible child care is an absolutely vital part of economic renewal and job creation.

However, like many other social services, child care in the province has developed in an ad hoc way.

The intent of child care reform is to develop a comprehensive, cohesive, integrated system of child care, guided by four basic principles: quality, affordability, accessibility and sound management.

Earlier this year we launched an extensive public consultation process to bring together as many people with ideas as possible. Over 3,000 people attended 20 public consultation meetings held in communities throughout Ontario and we received more than 1,200 written briefs and letters from stakeholders around the province.

We will soon release a public document with the results of the consultation, but I can tell you that I was impressed by the quality of submissions and pleased that there was so much support expressed for the principles of reform that we had identified.

In undertaking consultation, I was committed to the belief that parents and the community should be partners in ensuring that children receive certain basic entitlements including consistent, competent and committed care to foster early learning opportunities. At the end of the public consultations I was pleased to find out how many people supported this vision.

The reform process will be based on the feedback that we received during the consultation from parents and other key stakeholders, as well as the direction provided by cabinet. Over time, this process will enable the development of a comprehensive range of quality, regulated, non-profit services and supports -- services and supports that are well managed, appropriately funded and responsive to the range of child care needs of children and families in the province. Because of financial challenges, this process will take time, but the vision will be clear and the strategic path well-delineated.

Our next step is to begin the process of creating new child care legislation for the province for introduction in 1993.

A fundamental aspect of the new child care system we are building is a commitment to ensure community participation in local service planning. This summer we released the Ontario Child Care Management Framework, a document for ministry local offices to use when working with communities in planning child care services. In this way we can ensure that the development of future child care in the province takes place in a well-managed way and in a way that is consistent with government priorities.

Another important direction in child care is the development of non-profit, regulated, community-based child care services. We recognize the important contributions of for-profit programs in the past, in providing a service before government funds were available for child care, but we believe, as did the previous administration, that the best way to use public funds for child care today is to direct them to publicly accountable, non-profit services. Now is the time to encourage parent participation on local boards of directors to make our child care resource centres a focus for information and networking and to encourage local effort for the care and wellbeing of our children.

In keeping with that direction, last December I announced the creation of a child care conversion strategy to encourage for-profit child care services to convert to non-profit status. That strategy also includes support to non-profit centres to bolster their accountability and effectiveness.

In July we issued a document for commercial child care operators outlining the guidelines for implementation and administration of funds which have been made available for the conversion of for-profit child care operations to non-profit services. At this point in time, approximately 50 for-profit operators have applied for consideration under the conversion plan.

1640

Finally, as I mentioned earlier, child care is an important element of job creation. We recognize that a shortage of affordable child care is a major barrier to training and employment. Therefore, as part of the Jobs Ontario Training fund, we announced we would be providing up to 20,000 100% fee subsidies over the next several years in support of those being trained under the program. These new subsidies provide a 40% increase from the present level of fee subsidies and represent a major expansion of regulated child care in this province, demonstrating the government's sincere commitment to supporting Ontario's families.

I'd like to switch the focus now from child care to the next priority area identified earlier in the discussion, long-term care and services for people with developmental disabilities. By redirecting long-term care and support services, we intend to address the needs of the increasing numbers of elderly and disabled people and the acutely and chronically ill who can be cared for at home. We're working in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Citizenship's office for seniors' issues on this important initiative.

Last fall we released a consultation paper and announced the beginning of a province-wide consultation process which ended on March 31. Because the results of the redirection of long-term care will affect the quality of care and life for hundreds of thousands of Ontarians, we conducted a comprehensive consultation. Approximately 75,000 people participated and we received 2,200 briefs and written submissions. This consultation was perhaps the most comprehensive ever undertaken by the government of Ontario, and the volume and quality of the feedback was impressive and much appreciated. We heard from consumers and their advocates, families and care givers, workers and service providers.

Our vision is one that builds towards a coordinated and integrated system of long-term care, health and social services. The analysis has been complex and time-consuming, but there is considerable consensus on a number of directions, including the need for more supportive housing and proposed long-term care facility reforms.

Participants expressed a diversity of opinion in some directions which must be readdressed in the light of feedback. Our proposed service coordination agency model was the most controversial of our proposed directions. Specific, well-thought-out alternatives were proposed during the consultation. We were reminded that a special focus was required in planning to meet the needs of consumers with physical disabilities.

We were challenged by those representing other client groups -- for example, people with developmental disabilities -- as to why our reforms did not address their needs. We now realize that long-term care reform must place a greater emphasis on wellness and rehabilitation. My colleague Frances Lankin, the Minister of Health, will be announcing our long-term care policy decisions very shortly.

In the meantime, we've moved ahead with a number of important initiatives.

In July I announced $7.8 million for 22 supportive housing projects now being developed across the province. Response from the consultation process strongly supported the expansion of supportive housing, so we are proceeding in this area.

Similarly, we announced that a new facility funding formula for long-term care facilities will be implemented in January to match provincial funding to the actual care requirements of the 59,000 consumers living in nursing homes, charitable homes for the aged and municipal homes for the aged.

Work is now under way through two joint working groups to finalize the new funding arrangement and to create a program manual reflecting the new provincial standards for these facilities. In this work we are assisted by representatives from the Ontario Association of Non-Profit Homes and Services for Seniors, the Ontario Nursing Home Association, Concerned Friends, and the Ontario Association of Residents' Councils, as well as organized labour.

Our objective is to provide more high-quality nursing and personal care to our facility residents and to offer them a wider range of programs and services than is currently available.

With regard to people with developmental disabilities, the ministry has been implementing a multi-year plan for community living over the past six years. This plan has two goals: the establishment of a comprehensive community services system in which all people with developmental disabilities receive the support they require in their home communities, and the planned phase-out of institutional placement of people with developmental disabilities. These goals continue to guide our efforts to create community-based services for people with developmental disabilities.

As we come to the end of the first seven-year phase of the plan, we are undertaking a substantial review of programs and services, investigating ways to redirect what we do towards the needs of individuals.

For example, we are conducting a review of the special services at home program, which provides funding to assist children with physical or developmental disabilities and adults with developmental disabilities to live at home with their families. Given the demand for this program and the current funding pressures, it is essential that we work together with stakeholders to develop future directions regarding the role, eligibility and services of this individualized funding program.

We're also developing appropriate accountability mechanisms for programs and services for people with developmental disabilities to evaluate client benefits and outcomes. By reviewing the quality of our customer service, we will identify gaps in order to develop options to fill them in the future; again, in cooperation with stakeholders.

The development of the independent Advocacy Commission also prompts a review of advocacy functions in case management to ensure that roles are complementary. Because there has been significant growth in the area of case management and service coordination over the past decade, the roles of workers who deliver these services have evolved to include trends such as mainstreaming, individualized services and consumer empowerment. Because overlapping roles may exist and gaps in service may be apparent, our overall approaches may need to be updated.

Because of fiscal restraints, it was necessary to announce this year that we will be constraining sheltered workshops by $5 million over two years. However, of that $5 million, $2 million will be redirected to supported employment. This action demonstrates our commitment to moving away from segregated services for people with disabilities and towards integrated community-based supports.

While there has been much successful movement of consumers from sheltered workshops into competitive employment in the mainstream labour market, we recognize that not all people with developmental disabilities will necessarily choose to enter the labour force. We are committed to providing a range of integrated, community-based alternatives to sheltered workshops for people with disabilities. While there are currently vocational options available, we will work to develop non-vocational service options in partnership with consumers, parents, agencies, advocates and unions, which will provide respectful and meaningful learning situations for those clients requiring such supports. I want to assure you that there are no plans to phase out sheltered workshops until community-based alternatives are in place.

Over the long run, our intent is to broaden the long-term care initiatives to include the recurrent needs of the developmentally handicapped. As to our next priority area, our commitment in the area of violence against women, children and the vulnerable continues to be very strong.

Violence is a common denominator in the lives of many of the clients we serve in MCSS, whether they approach the ministry or its agencies directly for help in that area, or indirectly, through their involvement in other programs.

Previous victimization is a factor preventing self-sufficiency for many recipients of social assistance. For many mothers with children, violence precipitated their entrance into the social assistance system. For many adults, victimization as children has so destroyed their sense of self-worth that their ability to make decisions, to care for themselves and to enter the workforce is severely impaired. Family violence, street violence and institutional violence affect the lives of the vast majority of young offenders. Institutionalized clients of all ages, either in government-operated or -funded facilities or within community-based programs, are very vulnerable to physical, emotional and sexual abuse. These very vulnerable people need our special attention to their safety needs. Perpetrators of violence also need assistance if they are to learn to relate in non-violent ways.

The ministry is fully involved in the government-wide initiatives on wife assault and sexual assault. Funding for shelters and counselling for battered women and their children are major program areas for the ministry. We are evaluating the effectiveness of these programs to ensure that we are effecting appropriate and empowering services. Programs for male batterers are offered by both MCSS and Correctional Services. Concerns expressed about the effectiveness of these programs and their accountability to women's safety have been taken seriously by both ministries and the Ontario women's directorate, and we have begun an evaluation of these programs following a major consultation forum with interested stakeholders.

MCSS has taken the lead in establishing an integrated interministerial initiative to deal with child abuse in all its forms. Meanwhile, child protection is a specific mandate of the ministry which presents us with very significant challenges in times of budget restraint.

Finally, the ministry is committed to the implementation of safeguards against violence in our institutions, and is working with interministerial partners to put policies and procedures in place in all institutional settings to prevent violence and intervene appropriately when violence does occur.

I'd like now to discuss the final priority area I identified earlier in the discussion: integration of services for children.

The goal here is to restructure all services and programs for children so that we move from loosely connected services with gaps to an interdependent and integrated system which ensures that parents, guardians and schools each have a service system which is geographically and culturally accessible and comprehensive.

1650

We want to ensure that the following case study does not continue to occur: Paul is 17, has dropped out of school and disappears for days at a time. He comes home drunk and is physically abusive to his mother and younger brother. When he was in school, the attendance counsellor had recommended assessment and treatment at a children's mental health centre. It took a long time to find a centre within travelling distance that dealt with older adolescents, and then he had to wait for an assessment. He sometimes shows up to see his counsellor, but what he wants is a job.

Tom, his 13-year-old brother, has been charged and convicted of shoplifting. He sees his probation officer once every three weeks for one hour. He is failing in school and the teachers have told his mom that he is learning-disabled. He doesn't have any friends and spends most of his time in his room. The children's aid society had been involved, but it closed the case when the abusive father left the home.

Ann, their mother, is a shift worker on minimum wage. She suffers serious migraines and depression. She is an outpatient at the psychiatric clinic at the local hospital. She wants help for her family but doesn't know where to turn.

Paul and Tom are what some people call "mad, bad, sad, can't add" children. Right now, they are receiving a patchwork of uncoordinated services through different systems. They and their family need easy access to an integrated system of services and programs -- a seamless system of support.

We have taken significant steps in developing integrated services for children on two fronts, with the development of ministry and interministerial initiatives.

At the interministerial level, the interministry committee on services for children and youth was established to develop provincial strategic directions that will guide government reform of policies, programs and services pertaining to children and youth. A secretariat was recently set up to support the committee and to look at ways to integrate and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of existing services and to consolidate the government reform initiatives that are already under way.

On a ministry level, we are moving ahead with a number of projects that will help us to integrate services for children and families to ensure that children benefit to the greatest extent possible from available resources.

As a first step towards reform that will create a seamless system for all children, we have developed a draft policy framework and action plan to guide future decision-making about specialized children's services funded under the Child and Family Services Act.

The framework provides short- to long-range strategies for reform with a focus on positive outcomes for clients. The purpose of the framework is to set a course for achieving an effective and efficient system of supports and services for children and families. It calls for a system with several key characteristics, including a cohesive and integrated system involving health, education, recreation and other relevant services; a simple, understandable process for gaining access; community-based planning for service with broad-based community representation; resources directed to specified groups of children and families on the basis of clearly established priorities; resources allocated to communities on an equitable basis, and accountability for the benefits provided to children and families.

The framework is currently the focus of discussions in the interministerial committee. Once all ministries are committed to the plan, the framework will be distributed to all service providers and the ministry area offices. Implementation plans will be developed with input from all stakeholders, including parents, service providers, consumers and workers.

We need to pursue a system that supports all children and families in a rational way and avoids the kind of marginalization we have experienced by isolating special needs children in separate programs within MCSS.

We consider the money we spend on our children to be the very best investment we can make in the future. By providing protection, support and services today to children at risk, we can help them grow into well-functioning, productive members of society, effectively preventing the need for further, perhaps more expensive, social services down the road.

We now know that doctors and hospitals are not the beginning and end of health care, particularly for young children. The full spectrum of health -- and the future -- of Ontario's children is also predicated upon a clean environment, a stable and healthy family unit, a supportive community and the knowledge and security that their parents are gainfully employed.

Without these supports in a child's life, research indicates an increasing likelihood of psychological problems which take root and continue into adulthood, manifesting themselves in antisocial behaviour. Then we all pay as a society. That is the circle we have to break.

The level of material wellbeing, or lack of it, is the primary determinant of health in our society. We also know that it's absurd to think we can create a healthy economy in a society filled with unhealthy people. So all ministries that provide services to children and youth must coordinate their efforts to ensure that all of the factors which determine the health of young people are addressed effectively on their behalf.

You have been very patient in listening to my comments about changes, choices and reform. We have to accept that the communities where these services are delivered will find the kind of climate of review, reform and restraint that I've been talking about today very challenging, and at times painful.

Frankly, we do too. Let me tell you briefly about some of the measures we've taken within the ministry to demonstrate our commitment to restraint. Earlier, I mentioned the multi-year plan for community living for people with developmental disabilities, which continues to undergo substantial review. In addition, you should know that the ministry declared 341 staff surplus in May of this year in two facilities scheduled for closure: Muskoka Centre and Northwestern Regional Centre. Since that time, 79 staff have resigned, retired or been placed in other positions in those two facilities, and 113 staff are participating in retraining assignments.

As part of the corporate reorganization of the ministry this year, a variety of changes occurred. The information systems and technology division was eliminated, and all functions were amalgamated within one branch. This eliminated the need for a number of senior management positions.

Overall, in the 1992-93 year, the ministry implemented constraints of $24 million as part of a continuous review of its business practices to ensure the most effective use of funds. All head office work locations had to trim non-salary budgets by 18%. Field and facilities were required to cut by 16%. The ministry involved people in the various ministry units in its cost-reduction exercise and implemented many of their suggestions. Expenditures on conference attendance, travel and meals were significantly reduced.

In the spring, we announced that transfer payment agencies would only receive a 0.5% to 1% increase in funding this year. The ministry's internal salary budget was reduced by 3%, or some $17 million. I anticipate that out of constant and painful choices will come the necessary transformation I have discussed today.

In addition, within the ministry's operations division, which represents about 90% of the people who work for the ministry, we are undertaking a major organizational review with a view to restructuring, similar to that which we expect of our social service agencies. In short, we are improving things in our own backyard. Belt-tightening, creativity, service improvement and restructuring must begin "at home."

The Ministry of Community and Social Services is prepared to demonstrate leadership and set an example for the change we feel is inevitable and, frankly, desirable if we are to develop a social services system responsive to the social and economic needs of Ontarians.

It's going to be a rocky road getting there from here, and we're all going to have to work together to prevent the choices made from overlooking the most vulnerable of those we serve as elected colleagues. I know each of you has an important role to play in reminding us of the human consequences of our decisions.

By learning to harness the wonderful spirit of cooperation and commitment that is a hallmark of the social service deliverers, I'm optimistic that this ministry and our staff and all our partners in communities across the province can meet this challenge of crisis proportions.

Since January, we have been meeting informally with community members involved in social services to discuss ways of charting the course. This exercise, which we have called "tables of diversity," has been important on two levels: It is a useful forum for the exchange of ideas and information, and it has brought together people of widely differing backgrounds and interests to address issues relevant to the ministry and their own communities.

In summary, the issues of my ministry are extremely complex, the human consequences are extraordinary and the choices daunting. In this context, I look forward to our discussions, I look forward to your questions and I look forward to your to your ideas. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair: Thank you, Minister. The critic for the official opposition.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): Can I just ask a question before we start? I can take it on the rotation; it doesn't matter.

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): We won't get a rotation today.

The Vice-Chair: We've agreed that the minister would present her opening comments and then both critics. Even at that, we won't be able to get through both critics today, so you could ask the question on rotation when we get to the next opportunity. Ms O'Neill.

Mrs Yvonne O'Neill (Ottawa-Rideau): Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'm very pleased that both the minister and the deputy have seen fit to come today to present their estimates in person. That doesn't always happen.

I think the estimates of Community and Social Services, although not every member is here today, are of interest to every single member. Each of us, whether we want to or not, cannot deny service in this ministry, and we have to interact with that ministry, likely on a weekly basis, if not more often.

1700

I would like to begin by going back to June 20, 1991, when there was a provincial and territorial ministers' meeting. At that meeting there was an agreement to adopt a national statement of values and principles to guide the development of Canada's social policy for the next decade and beyond. Madam Minister, I'd like to read some of those values and principles into the record:

"We believe that social policy in this country should promote the dignity and self-worth of each person and reflect fairness and equality for all members of the community.

"We believe in self-sufficiency and self-determination as keys to maximizing individual potential. We must create incentives for people to work together to solve problems and make our services flexible to meet identified needs and choices.

"We value the family as the basic unit of society and the best environment in which children grow and develop. Benefits and services should be integrated and simplified.

"We should encourage flexibility and choice for clients and facilitate full participation in community life. In managing social services, we should encourage public participation by being accessible and responsive."

Madam Minister, I appreciated your remarks this afternoon, and I want to put those remarks I've made as a backdrop. I guess the one area that I feel has been lacking today is any assessment of what's gone on in the last two years, any update on the programs that have been initiated by this government, whether it's a program as new as Jobs Ontario and the takeup of that or whether there would be more indication of what's going to happen in long-term care. I felt we were still talking about principles and ideals, and I really think the Ontario public is getting very impatient. That's certainly part of my experience.

Ontarians are posing many questions. You know them as well as I. Many of these questions are based on concerns, anxiety and, in some cases, impatience. Of course, the one we've studied the most in committee in this last session was the conversion of the child care package. That program has caused an awful lot of disruption in many people's lives. We have an initiative of $75 million. It seems to be based on a government priority; it doesn't seem to have a whole lot of other reasons, when resources are very scarce. Thence, we get the announcement kind of settled and we get into the complexity of the conversion program, and I certainly would have liked to have heard more about that today: 50 people, yes, have applied; the time lines; how it's going -- that would have been quite helpful, because this issue now is close to three quarters of a year old.

The second area I'm having a lot of interest in -- maybe it's because of the part of the province I'm coming from, but certainly it's all over the province -- is the child abuse issue, basically the prevention of child abuse. Many of the agencies, particularly the children's aid societies in many of the communities, find that their preventive programs are the ones that have to be dropped, simply because the emergency in crisis presents itself and does take the vast majority of their funds.

As I look at the prevention of child abuse -- you've asked us for suggestions or comments -- I'm quite concerned, locally, about the cutbacks to the Prescott investigation, simply because that is the most horrific and, should I say, most widely deep-seated, community-based abuse situation I have experienced and run across. Maybe there are others, but that's certainly the one closest to home. I really am very emotional about it, because I just can't believe how long and deep-seated and the effects of that, and to hear that the program has been cut back and the funds and supports to that, which were looked upon as an extremely good example of how a government can support a great difficulty within a community, has caused me consternation.

You did mention, and I'm very glad you did, that you are in the evaluation process of the treatment for abusers. That seems to be an area that is causing a great deal of concern to the abused, because part of the treatment is certainly feeling that something is being done that will help the situation not to recur. In some cases, many of the people who are abusers are also loved by the people whom they have abused and there would be a hopefulness of reconciliation.

Another area that springs from prevention of child abuse is, I feel, the supervised access centres. That's been kicked around at Queen's Park for a long, long time. I really do know, in my own community, that this is a very successful program. At this time it's municipally supported, but I think it's an area that we should look upon as part of service centres that we are, hopefully, going to maintain.

That area of child abuse is one I think all of us would feel is a priority, and that your government will get support to continue to present programs on behalf of the most vulnerable.

The questions about eliminating child poverty seem to be lacking in today's outline; maybe it's because of your limitations. I do like the integration of the child services. In doing that, I didn't hear much about child poverty. As we know, the figures haven't really changed. When people are on social assistance and have been for at least the last 10 years, I think the statistics have been very similar: that the disabled and children make up more than half of that number. Most people don't know that. A lot of people, of course, think this area is one of the areas where we have abuse of government funds. I think that once that very basic fact is known within the community, we get a very different perspective.

I'm going to invite you right this moment -- as you know, you have an invitation, as I do, to join in the declaration for child poverty. I will certainly be approaching you in a written manner, but I would certainly invite you today to join with the other two parties in this province to reinforce that declaration in this province.

There are many children at risk, for very many reasons. I really do feel that the integration of services has been on the front burner for a long time at Queen's Park. The select committee on education in Ontario dealt with this issue. Many of your members and colleagues were involved in that, as was I. I don't think we've dusted those reports off enough, even in your own ministry. I think there was a lot in those select committee on education reports -- as you know, there were four of them -- that spilled over beyond the Ministry of Education.

At the other end of the spectrum on children and youth -- you have put that into one service area, and I think that's wise -- are the services for the over-21 developmentally handicapped. I think all of us have had parents either bring their children as they reach that crucial point of turning 21 or come in themselves and told us how helpless they felt.

There have been some very small efforts. I don't know how many of these young people are served; if I look just at my own community, I'd say under 500 in the province are being well served. I may be wrong, but in my own community it's less than 50, and that concerns me a lot.

1710

I want to turn now to the social assistance area. I was really quite surprised with the very quick brush you gave to the Time for Action report. It has a very, very strong direction. I think it's an outstanding document because it has so very many practical applications. Many of them we've heard before, such as the market basket approach.

However, the one that I think has been repeated from the SARC report is the difference and the way in which we should deal with social assistance, dividing it only along the lines of all except the disabled and then the disabled, because I do think there is a big difference and certainly the disabled members in the community who speak to me reinforce my theories. That, as I say, was a disappointment, that there wasn't anything more specific. I presume I'll have to wait until 1993 to see where the specifics are going on that.

In conjunction with that, I want to go to the STEP program, which I very strongly support, and in the course of the questioning I will want to go into detail on that program, because I feel there have been changes made. Some of the questions that are being asked are: "Have incentives really changed? Are the exemptions a handicap now?" Our statistics that are coming into my office are indicating that there are people on social assistance who would not be there, at least in my community, if the STEP program was as it had been before August 1. I really hope there is a very strong assessment of the initiative that was taken then.

I know there are risks involved in this program, but I also think its focus is correct. I think it also ties in with the opportunity planning, it ties in with what I read into the record as the self-worth of individuals, people making their own choices. I think the administration of the project in all the municipalities has been a great challenge, because it is very complex and it really demands that people are treated individually. That's one of the reasons I kind of like it, because I feel that it's time we took that quantity of time with an individual. We're asking them to turn around their life. There may be even a life cycle that they have been into. So I hope we will see that program continued and evaluated as closely and as efficiently and effectively as possible.

There are so many people -- and again, you've put out a little wand of hope today. I'm not sure how helpful three or four sentences are going to be in the correspondence I've been saving for your answers on the long-term care reform.

Our government had done major consultation previous to 1990, as you know. We felt in fact the consultation was almost finished, but now we find that we've been waiting two years. I think many people expected your colleague Ms Lankin to make announcements throughout the summer. The one question I get from people in the field, professionals, is, "When?" I get this almost every single weekend, "When are we going to get this long-term care?"

The seniors are getting pretty impatient. They're feeling pretty fragile, because they really don't know what direction, and your hearings of course showed you that and you indicated some of the doubts that were presented to you in your remarks. I was very happy to hear that, and I'm going to be very interested to see how the rehabilitation and wellness factor for the developmentally disabled and the disabled will fit into this. Somehow or other that seemed to be overlooked in the beginning, and I think that did create a lot of doubts and concerns in people's minds.

I suppose in conjunction with this, I will want to ask some questions about attendant care, because the people who are working who are disabled are also feeling very fragile.

If I go back now to the seniors, the integrated homemaker program again has been in jeopardy in many communities across the province. Many of the social policy committees of the municipalities, as you know, were off and on on this particular initiative. For the most part, I think they have decided to maintain it even at local expense, which is a choice they've made. I tend to think it's a good choice.

I hope we can continue to encourage that kind of focus because I do think that seniors have dignity and much of that dignity can be preserved with very little support. Two or three hours or four hours a week, it amazes me how much of a lift that gives an individual in need.

You did talk some about the regulations of the nursing homes and that too is a concern. Of course any time there is neglect or an abusive situation this is highlighted, and many people have to choose to use the nursing homes and communities. They don't have other choices and we somehow have to guarantee that we have a standard of service, and that should be across the province, that will be again protective of people who are in need.

You did make, and I will use that in my correspondence, pretty strong statements about the sheltered workshops. I guess if I talk about the letters that seem to be the most heart-wrenching that I've had, they've been from the parents of people who are no longer young, who may be 35 or 40, 45 even, and their parents are 70.

They see a change of policy here which is very threatening to them, when they somehow felt they had a support system. They had a routine built into their lives and, for them, there were meaningful activities and they felt their adult children were in an environment they felt was both supportive and stimulating.

You have said you're going to provide a range of services for that group, in that age group, that may, in my humble opinion, involve continuing until people are phased out over 20 years. I don't know what your thoughts are on that, but I think we have to give those people some guarantees pretty soon. They're very tired. Many of them are isolated. They have lived in small communities and, particularly in the rural areas of the province, they've made sacrifices to plug into services in nearby communities. Now they see they may even have to give up the contact with their adult children if they have to remove them to another centre for a different kind of program. That to me is a real concern and, as I say, one I will quote you on very soon.

The other questions I have, which are not nearly as numerous but are questions that seem unanswered, are those on vocational rehabilitation, which has always been a challenge. You may have an opportunity, I hope, in the rest of these estimates to talk about that, because of course what it means is people wanting to choose the very best. Often that's not within the borders of this country.

Those are very difficult decisions and I'd like to know what your government's criteria are on those decisions and where you feel they are in the process, where the decision is being made and how. I guess I just have concerns about the criteria that are used, the opportunities that are presented and the time frames that are involved.

One of the things has lost profile in the House, but I think with today's announcement unfortunately may need more profile, and that is the credit counselling. I felt very strongly when that program was cut because again I think it falls very closely into the independence that I mentioned, the self-worth, the turning around of people's lives, getting people on to a more regular way of handling their own resources.

I know that Community and Social Services, even though it's almost $10 billion of the provincial revenue, or expenditure is maybe what I should say -- we have difficult choices to make, but the choices we have to make I feel have to be reflective of real needs and not just of government priorities that sometimes have ideological backgrounds. That's a concern I have about some of the decisions.

1720

Another area that you likely get a lot of mail about, and I do too -- and again the letters are usually pretty heart-wrenching, because often they're people who have been dealing with a problem in some cases for 40 years, keeping a secret -- is the adoption disclosure registry information. Some of these people are finding it very difficult now that the 1-800 line is not there. Somehow or other 1-800 has an anonymous quality to it that some of these people feel they need.

I haven't been able, of course, to satisfy them that there are other alternatives. They just somehow feel they have been shuffled aside. They really didn't have the opportunity to make the right decisions at one time in their lives and now they're not being given the supports necessary to make right decisions at this stage in their lives when they're often, some of them, turning 40 or 50.

I'd like to just quote from the speech from the throne of April 6, 1992, because I know these are the decisions that must be made:

"Governments must balance the cost of services people expect and need and what we can afford. Every dollar that goes to pay the interest on borrowed money is a dollar that cannot be spent to improve our health care system, educate our children or provide a vital service."

That is quite frightening, when we know that we're at least into $10 billion this year. We were into almost that last year, or I think more than that last year. That cumulatively is pretty frightening, and the interest rates are now going up, which is very bad news for Ontario.

We know we're in a very difficult financial situation in Ontario. Your government has stated -- and I think this was in one of the speeches from the throne -- that the vulnerable people would still be a profile and that you would not be getting us out of the recession on the backs of the poor. I think I'm paraphrasing there.

That is why it was such a great shock to those of us who were watching that the social service agencies were given a 0.5% increase in social services. The other transfer agencies got 100% more -- very modest, mind you, at 1%. That was very hard to explain to people.

I'm sure that you, as I, feel that many of the people who meet with us are real mission professionals. They really give their best selves to the job and many times do an awful lot of overtime, for which they know they will not be paid. So that was a very hard message.

When I look at these five areas that you have designated as your ministry priorities, I hope you will be strong at the cabinet table and I hope you will carry the message that the ministers signed in 1991, that this is what it's all about and that moneys spent here, particularly in the prevention areas, are going to have their payoffs from other ministries.

There was one real lack in the whole presentation today. Perhaps it was part of the final-cut syndrome that we were led through, but I didn't hear you mention capital projects. I know you have mentioned a few Jobs Ontario Capital projects, and I think maybe part of the statement that Mr Beer made in the House today could spring from that, but of course I have not the knowledge you do to know that. But the interministerial coordination often has to be focused on some kind of a facility in a community, particularly if we're talking about a child service or a multiservice centre or a program for the developmentally handicapped.

I really hope you will go to that table next year and suggest that a $40-million cut in capital in community and social services is just not acceptable, particularly if the thrust is -- and it does have very wide support -- deinstitutionalization. There are many supporters of this form of residential care, and I certainly feel that there has to be that attention, then, to follow up. We can't be saying, "This is the process we're into, folks, but it just can't happen," because people have to be brought along if they're going to make major transitions. When we're talking about vulnerable people, and we are, in any one of these facilities that would be being built, whether it's beds for young offenders, which are certainly needed in this province, whether it is housing for the young offender who is in the community or whether it is a group home for the autistic, those things all need a residence.

I have certainly been lucky to be one of the few in the community of Ontario who got a very good centre for the abused women of our community. That was a very long time coming. It's at the top of my street, and I'm very proud of it. But I'm proud of the fact that the community saw fit and that it has met a need and that the board is very involved with many agencies within the community.

My closing remarks are going to be that if we are going to build community partnerships -- and you do travelling, as do I, to parts of the province -- what I find is that the professionals who work, particularly within the municipalities, are finding that there's an awful lot of top-down instruction. Maybe it's the guidelines, maybe it's the frameworks and maybe it's just the words, but there is, and I certainly find it in my correspondence, a real feeling in many of the places: "We're not being listened to. We have experience. We have a knowledge of the community. We know our clients, and even the sense that we're being listened to is not there."

I don't know whether you know all the deliverers of your messages, but there seems to be a feeling that the grass-roots people are not as important as their experience would demand. I feel very strongly, as I have throughout my whole time in public office, that we at Queen's Park can get extremely isolated. We can neglect to use the resources that are there, often for free, so to speak.

1730

I think we have to do more than consult; I think we have to let people know that we truly listen. The example I gave of such very little notice of Time for Action is one of the areas I'd like to point to, because I do think that the authors will be disappointed when they read your remarks today that there wasn't just, "Well, we really feel this or this or this is a useful recommendation." That's the kind of demand they make on me; I'm sure they must on you. They want some commitment to reinforce the work they have put in.

Those are my closing remarks, Madam Minister. I thank you for bringing us as up to date as you have today. As we follow the questions through, I will no doubt have more specific requests of you and extend the opportunity to you to respond.

Mr Jackson wants me to continue. I don't know exactly how long I've spoken; I know I've spoken longer than I wanted to. Usually he doesn't give me this kind of deference, so I'm quite suspicious. Anyway, Madam Chairman, everything is in your hands.

The Vice-Chair: Ms O'Neill, the reason you were probably being encouraged by Mr Jackson is twofold: One is that we have a vote at 10 to 6. The time is now 5:33, and obviously Mr Jackson does not wish to get started into the use of his half-hour for rebuttal. We have two things going on here. One is that our mikes are locked on, those of us who have them on, so we have a technical problem with the mike system at the moment. The ones that are on are locked on. The others that are not on are locked off.

We can do two things. We can allow Ms O'Neill a few more minutes, which is extra bonus time, or we can adjourn and make it fair and that it's half an hour each member. Tomorrow we would start the committee meeting with Mr Jackson as the critic for the third party, and tomorrow we start at 3:30.

Mrs O'Neill: Have I used my time?

The Vice-Chair: Yes, you've had 32 minutes.

Mr Bisson: Would it be opportune at this point to raise the point I wanted to at the beginning?

The Vice-Chair: No, because I think, in fairness, when we get into rotation --

Mr Bisson: It was a procedural question, not to the minister.

The Vice-Chair: I'm sorry. Yes, if it's a procedural question, by all means. I thought you had a question to the minister.

Mr Bisson: Not at this point, because it will work out well. The only thing is that I was looking at the list of all the agenda items that we can talk about.

I noticed that there's a bastion of assistant deputy ministers and different ministry people over there. I'm just wondering, is there a way we can proceed by which we can maybe deal with specific areas so that we don't have to have all the staff here and spend that money having people here at a time when they can be out in the ministry and fixing some of the problems? I guess it's a question of cost. We have a lot of people sitting over there. It's costing some money for some three days of hearings. I'm just wondering if we can block it off differently.

The Vice-Chair: This is part of the procedure with the estimates.

Mr Bisson: I realize that.

The Vice-Chair: It is a problem. We always feel the same way about having all the ministry staff here at one time, and I think it's up to the minister to decide who among her staff need to be in attendance in order to answer the questions.

If the critics want to negotiate with the minister about what particular areas they need to address in the next five and a half hours we have left, then it's up to the critics and the minister to make that decision.

Mr Bisson: I just put it out for suggestion, if they'd be interested in doing that, just as a question of costs and trying to keep --

Mrs O'Neill: I really have difficulty with the request, and I think the minister realizes we're talking about one ministry here that has this monstrous budget. The minister has this request to do interministerial stuff all the time. Certainly, within her own ministry, almost everything has some kind of interlocking component to it. I wouldn't want to say, "You know, I just want to deal with social assistance today." I just don't think I can do that, because particularly one question leads to another. This is the first opportunity we've had since 1990 to do the estimates on social service, I think -- isn't it?

Interjection.

Mrs O'Neill: I guess just since I became critic then, okay. So I'd have a lot of difficulty with that, simply because the things are so interrelated.

The Vice-Chair: That's well understood, Ms O'Neill. The minister wanted to comment.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Well, we did have a proposed agenda. I really acknowledge what's been said, and I certainly am prepared to answer, outside of the proposed agenda, interlocking questions. We were suggesting that we do the ministry administration first; go to the Social Assistance Review Board, because of course the chair is here and available to assist with any questions; then go to income maintenance, then adult social services, children's services, developmental services and then capital, in that order. But I certainly would agree that I would be most prepared to answer interlocking questions or to take notice of questions and ensure that you do get the answers, because I do appreciate your sense that it is an interlocking problem. It is a very comprehensive kind of questioning that you probably want to do.

The Vice-Chair: I think too, in fairness, the problem is that the opposition party is entitled to another member being present, as is the third party. So we're in a situation where, even if we all agree today on what order and what areas to be covered, there still is a right of other members of the committee to come in and ask questions. So I guess the answer to your question is that it's too difficult to design any differently.

Mr Bisson: I respect this final submission. I respect what the opposition is saying and valid points that were made in regard to this. I'm just trying to find a way to minimize the cost.

The Vice-Chair: When you said it would be nice to see all the staff out trying to resolve the problems, I think that part of the problem, as the minister has addressed, is that although the staff would like to resolve a lot of the problems, it's a matter of how that is achieved in terms of dollars. I'm happy to see, if all these people are ADMs, that there are so many women. Anyway, if the committee is in agreement, I think we should adjourn now and return to the House for the vote, and we will see you tomorrow. If we could start promptly at 3:30 tomorrow then we can catch up on some of our time, or immediately following routine proceedings. The committee is adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 1737.