Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

CONTENTS

Wednesday 7 October 1992

Ministry of Community and Social Services

Hon Marion Boyd, minister

Charles Pascal, deputy minister

Sandra Lang, assistant deputy minister, operations

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

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

*Acting Chair / Présidente suppléante: Haeck, Christel (St Catharines-Brock ND)

*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:

*Elston, Murray J. (Bruce L) for Mr Ramsay

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

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

*Rizzo, Tony (Oakwood ND) for Mr Perruzza

Also taking part / Autres participants et participantes: Wilson, Jim (Simcoe West/-Ouest PC)

*In attendance / présents

Clerk pro tem / Greffière par intérim: Manikel, Tannis

The committee met at 1537 in committee room 2.

MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES

The Vice-Chair (Mrs Margaret Marland): I call to order the meeting of the standing committee on estimates to continue. It's the critic for the third party. Mr Jackson, would you like to proceed in your rebuttal of the minister's opening remarks?

Mr Cameron Jackson (Burlington South): Yes, I will, Madam Chair. I'd like to welcome the minister to her first estimates in her capacity as the minister. It's an opportunity for us to get a greater sense of the personality, policies and priorities, and not in that order.

I think it's very clear that in the two years this government has been responsible for this ministry it has seen the upheaval of two ministers and two deputies. I, for one, was not afraid to vocalize my support for the change to the new minister in the position. I welcome this opportunity for those three reasons. I think our dialogue will be very effective and helpful.

Although the Chair referred to the comments that I make as a rebuttal, I hope you will accept the fact that I do bring my concerns from my own personal philosophy, which my political party has allowed me to be responsible for focusing at this time, that I bring my seven years at Queen's Park as someone who's been consistently and completely involved in children's services and community and social services issues and that in fact I've also had the privilege and opportunity of working with your predecessors in their capacity as critics, the former member for Hamilton West, Dr Richard Allen, whom I consider a neighbour and a friend, and Richard Johnston, the former member for Scarborough West, with whom I have shared in fighting for various causes.

So at the outset, when I say what I'm about to say, I hope you won't take it out of context, but I was somewhat disturbed by your opening statements. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of how social democrats would approach the general issues of social justice and empowerment and I thought I had a clearer understanding of how they might react and operate when given the opportunity of governing. Clearly, Minister, I'm having great difficulty, having reflected -- and I appreciate the opportunity I've had to reflect on your comments more than others, since you shared them with us yesterday. I am somewhat disturbed by some of the positions and the arguments but, perhaps most important, the philosophy underlying your comments in this discourse.

I don't wish to deal with who participated in the authorship of those 40-some-odd pages. That is not the issue. The issue is that I'm sure the minister was consulted, and that in presenting those, they were in fact the concerns and the priorities you were setting.

At the outset, let me say that no one in this country is pleased that our federal government, Conservative, has put the cap on the Canada assistance plan, but it is abundantly clear that the philosophical approach of the federal Conservative government in matters relative to social services is to link social services to economic recovery. So you'll forgive me, but I was completely caught off guard and unaware that for the first time in this province's history we have seen social services so directly tied to economic recovery, and in so doing, we have put recipients in a far more vulnerable position, because what social democrats have articulated for years is an entirely different approach.

During the course of these estimates and in the brief time I have allotted, I wish to respond to a couple of the comments you make because I am genuinely confused at this point as to why, on the one hand, you would link social justice to economic recovery and not free and separate the two and deal more with a model which I understand traditionally social democrats took, a power based on empowerment, a model based on basic levels of dignity and subsistence, and an understanding that government was there not with a handout but with a hand up, that this was to become a springboard for additional opportunity but that there was a basic level of dignity and support that a citizen in this province, in our society, at this time, could reasonably expect.

I see that various groups have been put in some degree of jeopardy by some of the policy decisions of your government and, more important, by some of the spending decisions that are clearly contained in the estimates briefing book, which has been very helpful in terms of describing programs and clearly showing where substantive cuts to programs have been made, but also, Madam Minister, in your opening statements as we begin this estimates process.

You chose five specific areas as priorities, and very few of us would disagree with your selection of these five priority areas. But I would like to try to address them with you.

Again, as you try to tie social services to economic recovery in what I believe is somewhat out of sync for social democrats, you use economic arguments to talk about income payments and support to the poor. There's only one reference to empowerment in your entire presentation, but you make references in your presentation to the economic impact, that somehow these people who are forced, through their circumstances, to be on FBA or general welfare assistance, contribute to the local economy, pay their rent and so on and so forth.

I was struck by your reference to that, and I know you're aware of the actual circumstances of what's going on out there, when you consider, for example, that municipalities recently, in reaction to your budget cuts and in reaction to growing numbers, have cut some of the discretionary funding which enabled emergency funding to flow to cover first and last month's rent. In Metro Toronto alone we're looking at something in the neighbourhood of $40 million in those kinds of discretionary funding.

We're looking at a whole series of programs involving volunteer support where people are working with empowerment models -- I have a list of them, and we'll go over them -- where those fundings have recently been cut by your ministry, and those are specific to your decisions. But in terms of general issues decided, we have to understand that, for example, when we cut 180 over-the-counter prescriptions from the Ontario drug benefit formulary, this is having an effect on social service recipients. I'm not talking about seniors who may have pensions and income support; I'm talking about ODB recipients who are now being told they have to come up with the rather large expense of buying over-the-counter medication, drugs. Whatever the rationale, the net effect is that it's out of their pocket.

When you consider that Hydro rates will go up by 9.6% -- and there's a variety of reasons, but the decision was clearly made that the consumer will pay that in this province. Nowhere have we anticipated -- I mean, I could be unfair and talk about casino gambling and its impact. The minister knows these arguments and she's aware of them. But my point, simply put, is that if you're going to make economic arguments and then I will argue with you on economic arguments, how come we're making these kinds of decisions and putting the poor in this province in that kind of position?

You talk about new partnerships. You talk about looking at different ways of doing business with all the partners. The truth of the matter is that you and I basically disagree on the issues of how accessible welfare assistance can be in this province, of people who defrauded or cheated and of getting more value for our welfare dollar.

Yet I'm struck by the fact that the municipality of Hamilton wrote to your ministry with a proposal two years ago and never received the courtesy of a reply. They were delighted when you became the new minister, and they received a polite staff response from a staff member, not from you, that the ministry would look into this suggestion. Well, Madam Minister, within a couple of weeks, because of the initiatives of the city of Hamilton, they will save your ministry $4 million on rebates from the federal government, on moneys they had difficulty collecting, legitimate overpayments. The implications for this are as high as $40 million to $50 million in Metro Toronto alone. Yet they couldn't get more than a simple staff response.

If you're going to use the economic recovery argument, I'm prepared to come to estimates and argue with you on that point and encourage you. But against the evidence of these kinds of experiences, I'm not sure whether you believe that but haven't caught up with it or whether you've stated it but are not 100% sure how you're going to go about doing it.

I'll give you another example. The growing number of people on food banks is assuming crisis proportions in this province. The Daily Bread Food Bank drive is the largest one-event food drive that occurs in the world. We have over 350,000 people who will use a food bank once in a given year in the city of Toronto -- one in seven children. In my own community -- I'm in the middle of our food drive as the chairman of Burlington FoodShare -- we're servicing 1,400 children a month.

In the midst of all this, we get municipalities writing letters -- and I referenced it earlier -- about cutting back discretionary funding. Specifically, in Durham region a letter was written to the Salvation Army which said, "Get ready for a whole host of increased use of your food bank."

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If food banks are going to be used as a fallback position in planning within Community and Social Services, then we should be listening to food banks on how to get creative, low-cost solutions. Yet if you talk to Gerard Kennedy at the Daily Bread Food Bank, he's been trying for months to get an audience with Community and Social Services to deal with the issue of getting a cheap Metropass for the poor in this city. If you know and understand the poor, you'll know they have a mobility problem, and poor people with low incomes end up buying the $2 fare, the most expensive fare. They can't afford to buy strips of tickets at a time; rich people can afford to lay out that kind of money and buy strips of tickets.

Yet the TTC won't raise its fare because that will reduce ridership. We have an opportunity to increase ridership off peak hours, to help these people get to food banks so that they can get the relief without the impediment being, "We can't afford a taxi" or "We can't afford public transit to get to the food bank to feed our children." Here we have a situation where the municipalities are reacting. It's having an impact with poor people all across this province, and in particular in this city, and we can't get somebody to sit down and coordinate something as simple as helping with a Metropass.

As I've indicated, thanks to Alderman Dominic Agostino, the chairman of the health and social services committee in Hamilton, they have unlocked a formula with the federal government that will allow a $40-million rebate, which is your portion -- it will be $10 million to the city of Toronto, so you can bet the city of Toronto's going to be interested in this right away -- but there's $40 million we could reinstate in the emergency funding program.

Again, I now understand you want to deal with economic arguments, but where am I seeing evidence within your ministry that you're responding to these suggestions and that you have the capacity to work with them quickly in order to ensure that they are felt and that they are put in place so the taxpayers get better value? That's always a wonderful argument, but it's more important that we can respond to this crisis other than by simply using the economic argument; we are all going to have to work to deal with this crisis. There are many things we can be doing.

I know I'm going to use up all my time on this issue, but it's the issue that in my view is the most crucial at this time, affecting the most number of residents in this province. I'm not going to dwell on child care conversion, because you know how I feel about that. If you were going to use the economic argument, I would expect you as a social democrat to argue differently as to why you're doing what you're doing to private day care. But if you're going to use an economic argument, Madam Minister, then why are you putting capital dollars, that are scarce enough, into building non-profit day care centres when there are thousands of vacant spaces in this province? Your Minister of Health cannot and will not do it as long as there's vacant hospital space. Your Minister of Education -- and you were that minister -- cannot and will not build a school or a school classroom as long as there's vacant space. But somehow your ministry and your government are so committed to this issue that you're prepared to proceed with these dollars when you can walk down the street -- there are architects all over this province designing day care facilities, and they're walking into vacant ones to get good ideas.

If you're going to use the economic argument, Madam Minister, then I plead with you, why are you not listening to what the social democrats are saying? They're saying, "Put that money into subsidies for those poor families that need that empowerment model to get out there and free themselves so that they can seek work beyond training programs and so on." We know that's not exactly what's happening out there. We're engaged in an ideological grudge match that is costing taxpayers far too much money.

When you have to make the cuts you do, cuts that are unpleasant for a minister with your background, you have to be reviewing the question of, "How can I justify those capital dollars?" But more importantly, it contradicts your opening arguments, your thesis that your social policies are tied to economic renewal.

On long-term care, let me just say I'm deeply disappointed that your references are to more consultation. I believe that under the Liberal government there was a reasonable degree of consultation. We know certain groups were not given as much primacy in those consultations, but they were balanced. You've chosen to renew the process. With pride, you talked of 75,000 people coming to meetings.

I can tell you, I went to two meetings; there were 200 people at one meeting. The question was asked, "How many people are here to discuss long-term care reform?" About 12 people put up their hand. But when it was asked how many people were there to talk about a community-based program which had been cut by the Ministry of Health, to talk about the beds cut from Halton Centennial Manor, to talk about the cutbacks in the VON support programs, everybody in the room, without exception, put up their hand.

So yes, there's been a process called consultation; you can say that. But in fact the large majority of those people were responding to the notion that we are deinstitutionalizing to a degree but do not have the support services in place.

Your Premier moved this issue out of your ministry; regretfully, I believe it was over personalities, and that's unfair. I believe long-term care should be in your ministry. I believe this government's got to get on with the business of making some decisions about the funding models and which support services will work. A lot of people are being caught in the middle, such as the Mohawk Rehabilitation Centre, which is an outpatient program, a two-ministry-based program, community-based, unique in this province, and it is about to collapse for want of half a million dollars. We're servicing a lot of people at less cost, and we're getting nowhere. We got a one-year reprieve, but we're told now, "Don't come to us because we're not ready with our long-term care reform model."

I am deeply disappointed that we're talking in 1993 terms for legislation or a framework. That is not going to be received well by many who have been waiting, when the Minister of Health clearly indicated that we would have something, as a matter of fact, late last year.

I appreciated your reference to violence and your fight against violence. There have been some moves and improvements in this area, and I have publicly stated my support to you and your government. I think there's a limit to how much we can educate people. Even the most cynical of people will tell you that the more you advertise violence on TV as a problem, you almost in effect desensitize people to it, so there's a point at which too much advertising is not helpful. Crisis intervention centres or counselling agencies, which are all suffering under budget cuts, will tell you how they now have to juggle clients on the basis of their degree of suffering to determine how they can get in the queue to get access to counselling support services. I respect very much the minister's background and virtual lifelong dedication to this issue. I would like to offer her my encouragement and add my voice to hers, not oppose her in this area.

I'm sorry; I went through long-term care and I didn't reference my concerns with respect to the developmentally disabled community. Again you used your economic argument. One of the few areas where you dealt with raw numbers was on your cuts to developmentally disabled sheltered workshops. This disturbs me. If you were going to use an economic argument, one would suspect that income supplements, STEP, supports to employment, and sheltered workshop environments, where there is a component of either wage guarantee or subsidized wage, are the very kinds of programs that are supportable when social services are tied to economic recovery.

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But they're not, in terms of your practice. Your practice is that the pilot projects in your own city of London and in Thunder Bay were cut on April 30. The differently abled individuals who were participating in the program are now at home doing nothing. They were given skills. Three or four individuals who were working regularly at the Tim Horton shop I attend in order to wake up sufficiently to do this job every day are no longer working there, in some instances. It's clear that your government is not supporting specifically that approach when dealing with the disabled community with respect to these clients. They're not included in your long-term care reform document. All we can offer them is that in these economic times, "We're not prepared to let you work for lower wages, therefore we're not going to put you in the sheltered workshops."

I'm rather confused as to how you're approaching this issue. I know the New Democratic Party and organized labour have had some difficulty with sheltered workshops and paying people below minimum wage, but in these economic times, with an economic argument, dignity comes from having meaningful work, learning some skill and trade and the benefits of socializing in that environment. As we take these away from hundreds and hundreds of young and middle-aged people in this province, we have to be asking ourselves why we are doing it.

You say that of the $4 million you've cut, $2 million will go back into enhanced opportunities -- I forget the exact wording from your statement -- redirected to employment, but I draw your attention to a program you've cut that achieved basically the same thing. I'm trying to determine just how you're approaching that issue, and when we have time to go through the estimates in detail we'll examine those numbers.

I'll leave my last few minutes --

The Vice-Chair: Six minutes.

Mr Jackson: Thank you, Madam Chair, six minutes left.

The integration of children's services is a concern to me. Again, under the Liberals, we started with the Children First document. I understand you have someone on staff who's responsible for that document; I hope they have an opportunity to come and speak to us. You indicate that you are only at the interministerial committee level, that you might have a draft policy framework available at this point; I would like to ask that if you do have that plan, even if it's a draft, whether you could share it with this committee, and to what extent your estimates have funds available to begin the implementation of such a plan.

But if your draft policy framework is a precursor to a year's consultation and a year's analysis and a subsequent year of drafting legislation, I must point out to you that we have some serious problems. We have some serious problems with children on waiting lists for mental health services. The last legitimate number we've seen is 10,000, with no evidence that that has been reduced. We know that children's aid societies and their deficits, which will be raised during the course of these estimates, are cutting off staff. When you cut off staff, you're cutting off access for the children who are abused. We have a growing amount of abuse and drug-dependent and substance-dependent families who are in complete dysfunctia, and those children are suffering badly. The crack cocaine impact in the GTA area is one of the most cruel things happening to families and children; it's not been reported widely, but I know all of our CASs have quantified it.

In that context, Madam Minister, school boards and your government are proceeding with junior kindergarten. Again, if your philosophy is moving towards tying your social policies and social services to economic recovery, then one has to ask why we're proceeding with one when in fact we have so many thousands of children who, because we cannot intervene at the appropriate time, are ending up in schools, filling classrooms and not learning, not capable of socializing and not capable of interacting. It just doesn't make sense. On an economic argument, one would have suspected something different.

I wanted to raise quite a few issues, which I will during the course of estimates, and I am hopeful that we will be able to divide some of the policy areas and bring forward the appropriate staff to respond to those questions.

Perhaps I spent far too much time with Richard Johnston or worked too long with Richard Allen on food banks and problems in the greater Hamilton area, but I thought I had a clear understanding of what a social democrat stood for on social issues. I am somewhat disturbed that the circumstances with your Treasurer and your Premier have forced you to make the kinds of cuts and decisions you have made.

I'm hopeful that somehow we can move social services back to an empowerment model, recognizing that ultimately the dignity of the individual in our society is the mission statement for Community and Social Services and that our policies always have to be sensitive and aware of that if we're truly to be able to call ourselves an enlightened society. I thank you for listening to my response and I'm looking forward to getting into detail with each and every one of these issues.

The Vice-Chair: You actually had two minutes left, Mr Jackson. Now we're into the normal rotation.

Mr Jackson: No, Madam Chair. The minister has 10 minutes left in rebuttal.

The Vice-Chair: That's fine. I was told the minister was using her rebuttal time in her original 50-minute opening comments. If the committee wishes the minister to have her rebuttal time, the Chair will take direction from the committee. The minister had 50 minutes in her opening statement and my understanding was that because the minister had arrived with a lengthy speech prepared, the half-hour would be ruled unnecessary and she would be allowed to proceed and not have rebuttal time. I'm simply taking the direction that the Chair of the committee gave me.

Mr Jackson: I'm sorry for not being that specific, but the standing orders say that the minister has up to two one-half-hour segments and I believe, by agreement, all parties have suggested that if the minister wishes to take 10 minutes for her rebuttal, that would be freely offered. I think we have unanimity on that.

The Vice-Chair: That's fine. Minister, would you like to proceed.

Hon Marion Boyd (Minister of Community and Social Services): Obviously I can't possibly touch in 10 minutes on all the issues that were raised by the critic from the official opposition or the critic from the third party. I hope very much that we do get an opportunity to discuss, as we go through the estimates line by line, those issues that I don't touch on, because I was quite struck by how important it is for us to deal with some of the concerns and some of the misconceptions that both those members raised.

In terms of Mrs O'Neill's comments yesterday, she also raised the issue of child care conversion and the issue of vacancies within child cares. I cannot do more than emphasize to you that we believe the investment of $75 million over five years in transforming the provision of child care into a more systematic and managed system, which puts public funds into publicly accountable child care centres, is a major focus. We see it as an investment, definitely as part of our economic renewal prospect.

The kinds of comments the critic from the third party raised are ones he has raised all along, and he is quite right: We simply have a fundamental disagreement about how you provide an essential public service to the people of Ontario. We believe that as we move towards a child care system that indeed does provide affordable and accessible child care to every child who requires it and every parent who decides to use it, that needs to be done in the public forum with parent contributions through boards of directors. That is the most effective way we will be able to provide that education.

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I would say, in response to the last remarks of the member for the third party, that we believe very much that junior kindergarten and child care are major preventive concepts. They are absolute focuses for us in terms of providing children with early identification of problems and early supports for them when they are in situations of risk. The evidence that has been seen from many of the research projects in the United States shows that early childhood education in safe settings is one of the major determinants of health for young children. So we see this as a preventive measure and not as something that in any way takes away from our commitment to try to improve the health and safety of children.

I hope we get a chance to talk, over the period of time, about the prevention of child abuse. The member of the official opposition claimed there were cutbacks to the Prescott investigation. I want to state very clearly that I agree with her, that as a community we have all been shocked and dismayed to find the level of abuse in that community and we indeed have not cut back on our support.

We are trying to make that part of the regular procedures of the children's aid society. We understand that the OPP office will remain available for ongoing police investigation and that the actual operation of the child abuse program through the CAS will become part of that CAS and will continue. Additional funds have been granted to that CAS for the upcoming year because there are more claims that are coming forward, so I was puzzled by her concern and I'd certainly be prepared to go into more evidence on that.

In terms of supervised access, the member expressed concern about the few programs, the 13 programs, we were able to put into effect as pilots this year. This is really the responsibility of the Attorney General's office. It is his budget that is involved in supervised access. We certainly support his efforts and will continue to help him argue for the expansion of that program. We agree with Mrs O'Neill that it is a very important program in child protection.

When we talk about the integration of children's services -- both my colleagues talked about that -- I think we all recognize that some fine work was done in the consultation process for Children First. The focus of the Children First document seemed to be on major government restructuring and major legislative change first. We agree that eventually this may be the route we go, but there are many things we can do in a regulatory way that help us to move farther along in that area.

We as a ministry are giving every support to our communities as they work together to try to identify barriers and gaps try to move to a more integrated position at the local level. We will be offering them support in very tangible ways as projects come forward. We feel that's a very important thing. We need to try things out. The notion in Children First that there is one particular method by which you integrate children's services concerns us, because we have very diverse communities that have a different mix and a different combination of services. We believe we need to be trying out various models and seeing how we can achieve flexibility, and yet equity, through that kind of situation.

When we talk about social assistance reform, I'm just totally puzzled by the member of the third party's claim that we aren't concerned about empowerment. Empowerment, of course, has to underline absolutely every part of a system. We have to look at child care as part of the empowerment of social assistance, and frankly, the kind of trickle-down aspect that's so common in very traditional and conservative views of social assistance I think does not do us any good. We need to be offering opportunities, quite rightly, for training and for jobs for people, and that of course is the focus of what we are doing.

My comments about the economic effect of the allowances within the economy were made quite deliberately, because one of the things Mr Moscovitch, who headed up the advisory group, found in the consultations they had around the province was that people seemed to think the dollars that are spent on social assistance are somehow removed from the economy, and of course they aren't. They're immediately recycled and continue to support the economy. So it is not an extractive system in that sense, and we were just simply emphasizing that this is the case.

On the sheltered workshop situation, again, I know the newspapers reported that people lost jobs as a result of our deciding not to go forward with wage policy. That was entirely contrary to the instructions the sheltered workshops were given, and in fact we have assurance from both London and Thunder Bay that the policy as we provided it was that we were not going forward with wage policy, but that no client and no program would suffer as a result of that change in policy, because people had been generous in participating with that policy as it was set up by the previous government.

The person at the Tim Horton is a part of supported employment, not a sheltered workshop, of course, and we have put additional dollars into supported employment. We know there are many people who are not yet able to participate in that because of the few dollars we are able to provide at this point in time, and I can assure the member that we are working very, very hard to increase that budget. But in the realities of today, it needs to be reallocated from other less empowering services.

There's no question in our mind that the sheltered workshops have not been places of empowerment. If we listen to self-advocates and People First, they feel very strongly that in fact they have been very much exploited in that system and that it is not an empowering place. So when the member talks about our not being concerned about empowerment, I am very puzzled, because that is indeed the direction we want to go.

It's difficult in the time available to go through all the issues that were raised by both members, but one thing I certainly did want to talk about was the poverty aspect, because both of the members raised that. Of course we in this government believe in providing a better standard of living through the level of support for families. That in fact is a focus for us, and always has been in social assistance reform, to try and improve the adequacy of benefits so that parents and families can take responsibility for their own spending and spend those wisely.

The issue of food banks is a real concern to all of us. I'm surprised at the comments Mr Jackson made about Mr Kennedy, because we have talked to Mr Kennedy. He has not asked for an appointment to talk about his particular Metropass, although he was mentioning that as one of the things they had done with their dollars they got last year. If he has been seeking a visit around that, I would be happy to meet with him.

The issue is, though, that if we provide that in Metro Toronto, we will find every city that has a transportation system asking for the same thing, and that will then very quickly add up to a tremendous cost, which would have to be reallocated from someplace else. If we go along with a scheme like that, we would need to have some sense and to be working together at how we could reallocate funds to support that, rather than simply add more money into the system. We don't have more money to add into the system, and our problem is, if we reallocate, would we create a stress in another part of the system?

But certainly we are open to looking at those possibilities, particularly if they are more empowering. Mr Kennedy and Mr Jackson are both well aware that there are many people who think food banks in and of themselves as institutionalized efforts are in and of themselves disempowering to all of us.

Mr Jackson: Exactly.

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

Mr Jackson: Madam Chair, if I can, it would be helpful if we understood how much time we are going to get allocated in rotation and if we are going to go on regular rotation. Perhaps if the Chair could guide us, we would know how to organize our thoughts and our questions.

The Vice-Chair: All right. We have five hours and 20 minutes of the allocated time remaining for the review of these estimates. That divides into one hour and 46 minutes per caucus. I'm at the direction of the committee as to how it would like to rotate -- in 20-minute segments? Or if the government members don't wish to have any rotation, the minister will be freed that much earlier. So what is the wish of the committee?

Mr Jackson: I have no difficulty if we want to just proceed through the votes and take questions as they arise, or if you want to go straight time allocation. I've done both, and I find recognizing people when they have questions in a certain policy area works well. Some ministers find that better, some don't.

The Vice-Chair: I think the problem with going straight through the votes is that if other members wish to come in -- and speaking personally as the Vice-Chairman of the committee who does have some questions, I wouldn't want to come in after the vote had been taken and couldn't ask the questions covering that subject. I noticed that Mr Wilson has been in, and there may be other members who wish to drop in.

Mr Jackson: But you would know on what days those votes are taken. If I'm going to be given my 20 minutes, I'll raise the issues I want during the 20 minutes and we'll be skipping all over the place. But that's fine; we can go that route.

Mr Bisson: How much time again? You said five and 20.

The Vice-Chair: It's an hour and 45 each, really.

Mr Murray J. Elston (Bruce): Why don't we just start by allocating equal amounts of time as we go around? At the end of the day if there is a series of consecutive votes that require some interventions, then we could plan on it. But for today, perhaps, let's just start.

The Vice-Chair: I think it's always worked very well in estimates to rotate 20 minutes per party. So if you would like to start, Mr Eddy.

Mr Ron Eddy (Brant-Haldimand): Minister, we're pleased to have you here. I'd like to start with the statutory appropriations at the main office, ministry administration on page 9. We're looking at a cut of 38% in services. I wonder if you would explain that. We would like to know the impact of this cut. Do you have a copy of our questions on the administration, the statutory appropriations?

Hon Mrs Boyd: No.

Mr Eddy: Oh, I understood that had been forwarded to you.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Not to the best of my knowledge.

Mr Eddy: We will just take it item by item, then. Okay, we can proceed: page 9, a cut of 38% in services. We'd like your comments about the impact of this cut.

Hon Mrs Boyd: If you look at the lines across, you'll also see an increase of 128.2% in supplies and equipment. My understanding of this is that it was a realignment of the other direct operating expenses account to reflect the actual pattern of expenditures.

Apparently, the expenditures had not followed the lines in the way they were set out for some years, and this is a reallocation of those things to account for that. From now on we'll have sort of a baseline to go by.

Mr Eddy: So under supplies and equipment, then, the plus 128%, that's the explanation tied in with this other one: a realignment. Okay, thank you very much. So how do the dollars line up, then? Do they match? Is it an overall reduction?

Hon Mrs Boyd: It's an overall reduction of 3.7%.

Mr Eddy: Any comment about the effect of that reduction?

Hon Mrs Boyd: As I said in my opening comments yesterday, in the non-salary portion of ODOE, we had a reduction throughout the ministry of between 16% and 18%, depending on the area; there was a little bit of flexibility there. In salary items, an overall reduction of 3%.

So the issue for us, of course, was doing our part in terms of the constraint exercise. So, yes, it certainly affects our availability. There's no question about that. It will make it quite a challenge, I think, for the personnel and the ministry to provide the level of service we want to provide to our transfer payment agencies and to our own facilities.

Mr Elston: At this point, Minister, could I just ask about the idea of your constraint or restraint programs with the ministry. Is it the idea of the Treasurer to take the expenditures and administration and other things back to a particular fiscal year that he thinks is sound in terms of your spending on these issues or is it just really an ad hoc grab-bag?

Hon Mrs Boyd: No, it's really much more planned than that. The notion is that each ministry must look at the way in which it provides services individually and really look at how those economies can be effected, either through legal organization or through looking at the way we do business. Are we, for example, requiring too many levels of approvals for things? Could we streamline? That is the kind of thing that we're looking at. Of course, there was a very definite constraint on the things that we spend on in administration.

Mr Elston: I was really asking the question about the actual dollar target. Is there an actual dollar figure that the minister of the treasury has asked you to comply with?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Last year we had a number of targets, actually. We had in-year spending targets that we had to meet, and then we had overall targets that were assessed depending on what the flexibility would seem to be in each ministry. Obviously, as one of the larger ministries, we were expected to do our share. We were faced with a situation where we had to make some decisions about the effect that this might have on transfer payment agencies -- that had their own problems, of course, in raising their funds -- and how much of it we were going to take out of our administration. We made the decision that we had to definitely share that pain; we had to lead the way and show that we were prepared to take cuts in ours. So our percentage cut was fairly high in terms of ODOE.

Mr Elston: I notice that the difference between the actual expenditure in 1990 of $43.5 million in this head and the estimate, which was $45.7, is roughly a $2-million increase on just the administration of your ministry year over year, and then your actual had actually gone to $44 million. So in actual fact, over 1990, if that was a target of reasonable expenditure, you're still well above that in expenditures for administration. So when you talk about cutting back in your administration, all you're doing is getting close to the expenditure on administration in 1990.

My suggestion to you is that while you may have said that there's been a penalty suffered with respect to administrative spending, you're really not very far away. In fact, you're over what you spent in 1990. The real difficulty is not in administration; it is in fact in the field where the real crunch has come with respect to the cost of delivering a service. It is in that sense that I asked the question initially, "What is the target for administrative spending for your ministry?" because that is key to the people out in the field, who want to believe that you're actually sharing the pain that they are. They don't have to deal day-by-day with the request for assistance for a child, for a mother in need of assistance or a parent in need of counselling or whatever. I want you to tell me why it is that you haven't done anything to get back below the 1990 level.

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Hon Mrs Boyd: In fact, we have taken about $1.6 million out in these estimates. We are doing what we can to get back. We can't do it that suddenly when we also have, as you know, some of the major --

Mr Elston: But you went up by $2 million in one year.

Hon Mrs Boyd: The ministry did, that's true. What we're trying to do it pull that back. I can't tell you that it's going to be targeted at the 1990 level. In fact, we may make decisions that target lower than that or somewhat higher than that in the coming year because we're just in our estimates process, of course, for 1993-94. But we have made a commitment that certainly the administration of the ministry will share in the pain; it will do that. If you go through all of our lines, you'll see that in fact this does represent a reduction and that we will be looking further in our estimates for this year.

I quite agree with you. There was an increase and now we're trying to pull that back. All I can tell you is that I'm certainly committed to ensuring that we do not get administratively top-heavy on this whole process.

Mr Charles Pascal: I have just a complementary comment to the minister's response. I very much appreciate the spirit of Mr Elston's comments. We have to demonstrate in our own backyard the kind of restraint that we expect of our over 7,000 transfer payment agencies. I think it's important to note that we perceive, I perceive, our ministry's expenditure on administration to be lean to begin with -- about 1.2% of the entire operation including field services. The context of the last couple of years and the kind of within-year 10% across-the-board cuts that we endured -- it was also at the same time as the CPI for 1991-92 was up I think about 4%.

It's some things over which we'd like to have more control going up and at the same time we're trying to demonstrate, as I think you've proposed, that we're enduring the kind of evenhandedness in our own backyard that should be expected.

Mr Elston: Is any of the administrative decrease in expenditure associated with the transfer of long-term care or any of the associated overhead with respect to any of that?

Mr Pascal: No.

Mr Elston: None?

Hon Mrs Boyd: None.

Mr Elston: So there were no administrative charges assigned to the administration of long-term care associated with your budget.

Hon Mrs Boyd: None of this is a decrease in that area.

Mr Elston: As a result of that.

Hon Mrs Boyd: As a result of that.

Mr Elston: Okay.

Mr Eddy: The next question we had was on page 15, "Ministry Administration -- Operating, Human Resources." We note that the 1991-92 estimate of $3,775,600 is the same as the 1992-93 estimate; however, the actual for 1991-92 was much higher.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I'm sorry, I just didn't quite catch your question.

Mr Eddy: The question is, why is the actual so much higher than the estimate for 1991-92? And then it follows you have the same amount for 1992-93 estimates again; why is it back down to the same as the estimate for 1991-92? Is that not right on the first --

Hon Mrs Boyd: I don't believe so. I see a reduction, an underexpenditure, from the 1991-92 estimates to actuals of $62,800 and some. So there was in fact a --

Mr Eddy: I'm looking at "Salaries and Wages."

Hon Mrs Boyd: The "Salaries and Wages" area?

Mr Eddy: Yes, that line, sorry.

Hon Mrs Boyd: The actual salaries, the cost of living increases that were given were not in the estimates, so of course the ministry's had to bear those. But under our managed savings strategy, we did manage to cut additional dollars out of our spending on salaries and wages. So in our managed savings aspect, we in fact cut salary dollars. We had to absorb about $27,000 in terms of the actuals because of the increases that weren't covered, but we did manage to take about $90,000 out.

Mr Eddy: So is it reduction in staff on that line that brings it back --

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes, through attrition.

Mr Eddy: Thank you. Page 17 was the next question, and that one was "Communications Services." There is a reduction, a cut, there.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes, there's an underexpenditure from estimates to actuals of $109,004, and there's a reduction again in estimates from one year to the other of $156,300.

Mr Elston: Can I ask why it is that in each of the situations of supplies and equipment, they're all up in the 200% increase area? Is that all just realignment?

Hon Mrs Boyd: There are two major areas in each of these lines where you'll see realignments: one is in supplies and equipment and one is in employee benefits. In both those areas you will see that there has been a realignment that is very noticeable in terms of percentages and dollars. It is simply correcting some historical patterns that had grown up. I suppose this happens in ministries from time to time. We wanted to get ourselves so that we were dealing with realities. When we came into government, we thought we were cutting an alignment that in fact wasn't the same value we thought it was, so we had some unexpected effects in terms of some of the cuts we made in our first year. We want to realign these things so we're sure of what we're doing as we look at managed savings.

Mr Elston: It seems to me then -- this may be more of a general comment for the committee at some stage -- that there should be a recommendation that where there are major realignments that go with any estimate, there ought to be a notation right at the beginning of the estimates to ensure that none of this is lost. It is very curious for some of us who know how the line of supply and equipment is sometimes used. It makes sense. I think it also tells the people out in the field who are looking for any clue about something going on that there is an explanation that is valid and not something that is being put over on us.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think that's a good suggestion. We'd be happy to actually do a summary of those two areas if that would be helpful to members of the committee.

Mr Eddy: Yes, it would. It would answer the questions that come up.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Sure. It shows up everywhere and it might just make that more orderly. We will do that for next Tuesday.

Mr Eddy: That would be very helpful, because of the questions we have.

There is an increase in transportation and communications of 43.2%. We'd request your explanation, and how much went towards child care reform.

Hon Mrs Boyd: In terms of transportation and communications? Some would have been in that area, I'm sure.

Mr Pascal: Madam Chair, this flows from the discussion we just had. This is also part of the realignment problem. I think Mr Elston's suggestion is a good one, because otherwise it would be natural for members to focus on those major aberrations. I mean, they are, and we should have provided that explanation up front.

Mr Eddy: That will be very helpful; we'll get that on Tuesday as you stated.

While there is a decrease of 54.6% in services, this would reflect any contract work. The question is, how much was contracted out and for what purposes?

Hon Mrs Boyd: In terms of communications?

Mr Eddy: Yes.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I'd be happy to get you some details on that. As you know, one of the things we are attempting to do is limit the amount of contracting out that happens, to try to build the expertise within the ministry. We can certainly get you some details within communication services as to what was on a contract basis.

Mr Pascal: In addition to being able to provide that, this is also part of the realignment of past practice. I'll include that in the note.

Mr Eddy: Thank you. Page 21, the same thing, an increase of 125.7% in supplies and equipment. All other lines in this area experience a 0.0% increase or a decrease.

Hon Mrs Boyd: That's right, it is very much the same thing. I should tell you that was the first question I asked as well, because it looked very puzzling to me. It really is a matter of trying to put this into some kind of order so that we know where we are and so forth.

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Mr Eddy: The next one is on income maintenance, but I've been asked if we could leave that till Tuesday, when our critic is back.

Page 33, French-language services: The French-language services project ends, according to the changes on page 33. We'd like to know, have all the goals of this project been achieved and has there been an assessment done as a result of the project?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I think it's fair to say that there are areas of the province where consumers still feel they're not getting the services they want. In terms of the estimates, this was the end of the period for French-language services, and each ministry was required to incorporate into the ministry the services that would go on to provide that service both internally to the ministry and to consumers. Deputy, do you want to comment on the particular evaluation of that project? I know we have had a number of meetings to talk about where the gaps still arise.

Mr Pascal: Simply put, the evaluation has shown successful progress. It's also delineated clearly where there are some service gaps. The conclusion of the project, of course, suggests that at this point in time we are now internalizing the French-language services process through the ministry and its operations. I would be pleased to provide for the member a more specific summary of the evaluation on Tuesday, if he so desires.

Mr Eddy: That would be helpful, thank you. This department is also responsible for the facilitation of implementation and coordination of services in the community planning process with agencies, municipalities and other organizations. Can the minister explain why participants in two large initiatives, which are both community-based, that is, the Ontario Association for Community Living and the child care community, feel they are not being listened to by the ministry? We understand the Ontario Association for Community Living has in fact pulled out of the multi-year plan.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I'm afraid that is not correct. In fact, we have probably entered into one of the more fruitful periods of work, together with the associations as well as with other partners, in terms of the multi-year plan.

The association did refuse to participate in two forums that were held because it was afraid those would become too contentious; in fact, they were afraid they would affect their ability to manage within communities.

As an alternative, what we are doing now is sitting at a table with representatives of those groups, the unions involved -- People First, L'Arche, the advocacy centre and so on, the adult protective service workers, a whole range of people -- and starting to talk about the implementation difficulties we have with the multi-year plan, in that kind of diverse group. We believe that what is coming about is a better sense of where we all agree we need to make improvements. We all agree that there needs to be improvements, a set of common goals, and we'll continue to work at that.

My own sense of it is that we're building the consultation ties in a very different but very real way. We have decided, with that group, not to go forward with any more of the community forums at present. They did serve their purpose but they aren't the kind of forum that really gives rise to some decision-making and common action. But we are moving forward on the multi-year plan in conjunction with all those partners.

Mr Eddy: As this department approves subsidies and payments to individuals and agencies in accordance with the legislation administered, could we get a list of the agencies receiving subsidies and payments?

Hon Mrs Boyd: You want a list of all transfer payment agencies?

Mr Eddy: Yes.

Hon Mrs Boyd: All 7,000?

Mr Eddy: Can they be grouped?

Mr Pascal: Are you referring to individual agencies, or associations that represent agencies through named grants?

Mr Eddy: Individuals and agencies. You say there are over 7,000?

Mr Pascal: Individuals is probably not doable, but you really do want a list of these 7,200 transfer payment agencies? We just want to clarify that.

Mr Elston: What you could probably do, particularly where it comes with individuals, is if the legislation were named and the number of the people in receipt of payments under that, and if there were sort of umbrella granting, clustering. That would be more reasonable than asking for a printout of 7,200 people.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I'm not sure that isn't here in terms of each line of the budget. Certainly in terms of social assistance, we have the numbers who are receiving and what their categories are in here. We do talk about the number of child care services, the number of supported housing beds and so on.

Mr Eddy: We'll take a look at that.

Hon Mrs Boyd: We're happy to do what we can to give you the information you want, but I think you will find that the detail under the particular areas gives you that. Of course, we can't name individuals who are in receipt of social assistance. When we talk about 7,000 agencies, some of those might be individual group home owners and that sort of thing, and that could give rise to some difficulty for us. We can certainly group them and give you that information, but I think it is summarized under each budget line.

The Vice-Chair: For today, would you like to go to half-hour rotation, let Mr Eddy continue till 5 and then do the final half-hour each? It's just that we were accommodating you while you were out of the room.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): May I make a suggestion? There's going to be about an hour and 20 minutes left by the time we're finished on Tuesday. We'd be prepared to give our time today for an agreement that we could finish Tuesday.

Mr Jackson: I think we understand that we were going to discuss this one. We're not using up valuable time to discuss ordering of our business. I will proceed with my questions now, Madam Chair.

The Vice-Chair: Okay.

Mr Jackson: Mr Eddy introduced some questions, and I look forward to receiving some of the detailed responses. In the estimates as prepared by your ministry, I can identify your operating total at $9.487 billion, I can identify your capital total at $85 billion, but I do not see nor is it clear to me where your salaries and wages totals are. That's important to me, as the Treasurer's directives deal with isolating that from your other expenditures. Perhaps you can let me know where those numbers sit and where I can get that.

Hon Mrs Boyd: If you look at page 4 in your estimates briefing book --

Mr Jackson: The large version?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes, the long version, page 4, gives that totally.

Mr Jackson: What figure is that?

Hon Mrs Boyd: In the total?

Mr Jackson: Yes, help me out here.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Salaries and wages, $443,451,257.

Mr Jackson: Are we in the process of determining what that figure was in the previous estimates?

Hon Mrs Boyd: In terms of the total of the realignment, the realignments we were talking about with Mr Eddy were in employee benefits and supplies and equipment and so on, but if you want it done for salary and wages as well, it is 4.7% of the total ministry budget.

Mr Jackson: I understand that. Those are your estimates. I want to know what Ms Akande's estimates showed and what Mr Beer's estimates showed. That's what I'm looking for, not right at this moment --

Hon Mrs Boyd: The differential from 1990-91. We can certainly provide that for you.

Mr Jackson: I would appreciate getting those figures, if I can. The copy of the treasury board document from your meeting on March 31: Those figures all conform in the estimates, and I'll be referencing some of the cuts that were noted in that treasury board meeting.

If I can leave numbers for a moment and move to an issue, I'd like to raise the issue of children's aid societies. Is the ministry staff person responsible for children's aid society funding here? If so, could I invite them to the chair?

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Hon Mrs Boyd: The assistant deputy minister for operations is Sandra Lang.

The Vice-Chair: Welcome, Ms Lang. If you would identify yourself at the microphone, we'd appreciate it.

Ms Sandra Lang: Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Sandy Lang. I'm the assistant deputy minister, operations.

Mr Jackson: Welcome. Thank you very much. I have a couple of questions with respect to the exceptional circumstance review and where we're sitting with CAS deficits. I wondered if you could share with the committee how current is your data on CAS deficits, and can we get a list of those?

Ms Lang: We keep quarterly statistics on CAS budgets, so we would have up to -- I don't think we have a document at the moment, but we would by the middle of October -- the end of September. We could certainly give you till the end of June, within the course of --

Mr Jackson: Of 1992?

Ms Lang: Yes.

Mr Jackson: Could we request that through you to the deputy? Could we get those? As I understand the funding mechanism for exceptional circumstance review, there is a gap or a lag here because the CASs are on annualized budgets -- you're on our Queen's Park year, which is April to March -- and that there is the exceptional circumstance review funding for 1991 which has all been approved and transferred. Is that correct?

Ms Lang: That's correct.

Mr Jackson: Could we get a list of those transfers, because are not some of those in these estimates because of the lag?

Ms Lang: Yes, they would be in these estimates.

Mr Jackson: So it would be helpful if you could identify for us the amount of transfer in these estimates earmarked for 1991 and then we would have a more accurate look at how much the ministry will have budgeted for the 1992 ECR applications, which I'm sure are coming in. A lot of them are coming in.

Ms Lang: We are keeping current on the growth in the CAS situation, yes, so we would have some appreciation now of the extent to which we are seeing growth in children in care, which is the large cost associated with exceptional circumstances.

Mr Jackson: Ms Lang, this is a difficult area to budget in because of the fact that you're anticipating growth in trying to respond to it after budgets have been approved at the municipal level where they pay their proportion. One of the criticisms, not of the government but of the process, is that this is a lengthy process because you have to get approvals from the local municipality to ensure they will contribute their 20% when you ultimately put in your portion at the 80% funding rate of the exceptional circumstance review fund.

Ms Lang: Yes. I think we're also all aware that this is a very time-consuming process and we are, quite frankly, taking a look at the policy associated with this kind of financing and attempting to work with the association representing the CASs to determine if we can come to grips with a different way to make this thing much easier for all of us, to simplify it and also give the organizations managing these services some degree of certainty.

Mr Jackson: Is there a mechanism available, then, that where CASs have to react to the crisis of the day, are forced -- we have a list, and you know the list far better than I do, of layoffs of personnel and extended waiting lists. Is there any mechanism at your disposal now or in this budget which will allow you to react to that in a more timely fashion, or do we have to wait for this invitation to consult and discuss ways of funding flowing sooner?

Ms Lang: To some extent, we're looking at the potential for changes in how we fund child welfare agencies and that may have some legislative implications. If that's the case, then we would have to work through some of that. But ideally, we would try to do it in a policy context, and of course it would have to be dealt with in relation to how we do our estimates and the degree to which we can achieve some approvals on anticipated expenditures that would be within what are considered reasonable costs associated with children in care.

Mr Jackson: I notice on page 75 we have 1992 December forecasts, which seem rather old. The forecast figures that I've heard literally start moving off the end of the page in terms of increased demand. In my own CAS at Halton region I've seen 30% increases in sexual assault; 28% increases in abuse; reported cases that have to be investigated and assessments done and programs developed. I have to assume that's fairly typical of GTA experiences.

Could we get the updated figures that would have appeared on page 75? In fairness, they're not here partially because this was printed six months ago, but it would be very helpful to the process if we could get updates for page 75 so that we can compare the deficits and the increased demand figures which your ministry is struggling with.

Ms Lang: I will take that and determine if in fact we can provide that update for you, yes.

Mr Jackson: Are you monitoring the number of employees who have been laid off by CAS? Do you have a protocol in place to determine if CAS is laying off staff or cutting programs, and are you giving any direction with respect to which programs should or should not be cut?

Ms Lang: The answer to your first question is that we do have some information on where societies have settled their budgets and are in fact laying off staff. There is an attempt to pull that together on a quarterly basis. I'm sorry, could I have your second question again?

Mr Jackson: The second one had to do with, perhaps the deputy and I, and the minister, for that matter, know all about what is called program protection. Is your ministry following any such policy that certain programs cannot be cut, such as child sexual assault?

Ms Lang: Yes.

Mr Jackson: Of course, the programs cannot be touched, and in that instance the ministry directives would clearly define that, that you can cut here, you can cut there, but you can't cut there.

Ms Lang: Yes, we have. We have had major communication with our own staff and with the organizations indicating that we would not tolerate cuts in mandatory programs, and those programs are defined both in law and in policy, so that has been communicated very clearly to our agencies and to our own staff.

Mr Jackson: Recently?

Ms Lang: That was back in the spring, yes.

Mr Jackson: Could we get a copy of that ministry memo to CASs?

Ms Lang: Yes.

Mr Jackson: Could I ask you then, on that basis is there evidence, in your mind, based on the data, that mandated programs that are required by law are not being met at this time as a result of increased demand, so that we have a service gap? In other words, they don't have sufficient budget moneys to hire additional staff and they're talking about cutting people, but they cannot do their case loads because they are unable to hire additional staff in order to meet the requirements of the law. Has any CAS identified that specifically to you? That's entirely different from cutting a program, which is an implied threat.

Ms Lang: Not to my knowledge have we had a CAS tell us that it is not able to meet its mandatory requirements under the law.

Hon Mrs Boyd: If I may add to that, as we, the deputy and I, have been going around and talking to the various communities involved, it's one of the issues that comes up and we reiterate those concerns that we be very clear about it. But I think it's important to say here that the societies are very different in the way they provide those mandatory programs. We see a wide range of numbers of children who are taken into care and numbers of children who are cared for in other ways; whether things are done on an individual basis or a group basis; what kind of family support societies offer. So in one sense, we're convinced that people are being very mindful of the mandatory issues, but they do deliver in a wide variety of ways and that makes it confusing when we try to compare from one society to another.

It's part of that diversity of the population and the way in which services have grown up, and I'm constantly amazed at the great diversity in the way in which those services are delivered. I'm always hopeful that it means it's reflecting the needs of the particular community, but it certainly is something that we're looking at in terms of how the funds are allocated in the first place.

One of the things we are looking at with the children's aid societies through their provincial organization is a new way of allocating funds that really takes account of some level-of-care issues and really is much more transparent to the societies themselves, because they also are concerned that there is an inequity in the way we allocate the funds.

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Mr Jackson: In your current estimates, Minister, do you have built into that a plan to have the ECR funding built into their base budget?

Hon Mrs Boyd: The ECR funding has traditionally been built in --

Mr Jackson: I'm sorry, I understand all that. Yes or no, are you able to, within this estimates year, before now and March 31, move that into their base funding?

Hon Mrs Boyd: We are specifically doing this on a fiscal basis this year while we do this negotiation around the allocation of funds.

Mr Jackson: Can you give us the figure, then? Are you aware of the amount of moneys that you have in your budget for ECR 1992 budget?

Hon Mrs Boyd: It's $17 million.

Mr Pascal: Just a comment: As Ms Lang explained a few moments ago, we are working diligently to ensure that we have a system that is more responsive, more predictable with respect to societies and how they manage today and the immediate future. None of us believes the ECR process is working in that regard and as a result we are moving towards some resolution with all the partners. We have not at this particular point in time moved to put those dollars in the base. The solution will arise out of this process of partnership.

Mr Jackson: Are we dealing with municipalities in these discussions, with their 20% contributions, and if so, what actual organization or what group is discussing this and who are the players at the table?

Mr Pascal: One important player is the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies.

Mr Jackson: I heard that. I'm asking who else is at the table besides the minister and the Ontario association. Are municipalities involved, since they pay the 20% and have a lot of hard opinions about ECR funding?

Hon Mrs Boyd: At the local level, of course, when we're dealing with this, they are involved in the local discussions around the particular budgets and of course, as you know, are in a position where they can require child welfare reviews if they have any concerns about the way things are done.

Also, as you know, this is one of the items that potentially needs to be discussed as part of the disentanglement process. Some municipalities are very anxious for that to come on to the table very early and others are quite reluctant. They don't see that as something they would like to see dealt with early in the discussions, so at this point in time they are not subject to those major disentanglement discussions between the province and the municipality.

Mr Jackson: I guess I'm a little disappointed that when the Ontario Association of Children's Aid Societies clearly has difficulties, when it has to go on bended knee for a second time in a year to say, "Oh, by the way, we can have X millions of dollars to help our children, but you've got to kick in Y amount of dollars," they're at the mercy of municipal councils that are making all sorts of other decisions and trading it off, quite frankly, against day care and a whole series of other items. So having said that, I guess it's just my sense of disappointment.

I didn't want to bring up the Ron Book report. I brought it with me. It's a damn big book, but it was a good report. Are there any items in the Provincial-Municipal Social Services Review Committee recommendations that you're currently sitting down with AMO to discuss or are these for future discussions at some point?

Hon Mrs Boyd: They are on the list of things for future discussions at the moment. What we decided, as both a provincial and a municipal group, was that we needed to deal with the welfare issues first and the tradeoffs for those, and that was a mutual agreement. But I think you make a really good point. I know I was up in Huron county yesterday talking to the county wardens about their concerns around their CAS and they have had a child welfare review in that county every year for the last five or six years. So there clearly is a dispute. It's very difficult for both those municipalities, and I think you make a good point that in the discussions around the funding formula it would be very wise for us to try to involve the municipalities.

I just make the one caution that if you found, in talking about disentanglement, there was a real difference between the sense of this on the part of some municipalities and others -- the large regional municipalities often take one tack, the smaller municipalities another -- getting that kind of representation through AMO would be very important, because there are very different interests depending on the size of the budget.

Mr Jackson: At that point, Minister, I'm basically hoping we can get them to a table when you're at that table, and that was my question. What I'm hearing is, they're not at that table.

I guess my time has fairly expired, but I want to thank Ms Lang for her responses. I guess most of what I've asked will come back to the committee before next Tuesday, if possible, and if it can be obtained before the weekend, it would be helpful to the committee.

The other snapshot I'd be very interested in having a look at is what the current ECR funding totals requests look like as they're coming in now. Thank you very much. My time has expired.

The Vice-Chair: It has. Thank you. Yes, Mr Bisson.

Mr Bisson: I'm on my time now? Now that I'm on my time, we'd be willing to give our time today to other committee members from the opposition parties in order to be able to save some time for Wednesday. If they want to go, we'd be prepared to do that.

Mr Eddy: Speaking to a point of order, it's been decided on the time allocation for the estimates. The committee rules, I believe, set something out in that regard, and I'm not at liberty to agree with that. I am at liberty to agree with the reallocation of the time between the parties, and if the government does not wish to use its time, then we would be --

The Vice-Chair: I think that's what we're talking about here, a reallocation of the time. If the government wishes to forgo its 20-minute portion at this point today and then we revert to you --

Mr Jackson: The mutual agreement would have to be that this becomes a reduction of the total time of the estimates. I don't believe the member opposite is offering to just yield 20 minutes.

The Vice-Chair: No, that's the understanding.

Mr Jackson: That's what I think should appear in the record, if that's what we're about to do.

Mr Bisson: Because on Wednesday we'll have to come back here and bring all of the ministry staff for about an hour, I'm just trying to find a way that we can get finished by Tuesday.

The Vice-Chair: That's right. The government member's time will be banked, and if the government members choose not to use it at the end, then that will be the end of the rotation.

Mr Bisson: That's good. We pass. We'll note that we're giving our time, putting it in the bank, and we'll see what happens. Always leave your options open, because they have to go back and talk to their caucuses.

Mr Jackson: Do you have any new CASs you'd like me to raise on your behalf?

Mr Bisson: We're going to do it on Tuesday.

Mr Jackson: Oh, okay. Good.

The Vice-Chair: This leaves us 50 minutes, so why don't we split the 50 minutes, 25 minutes each, for the rest of this afternoon? Is that agreeable to you?

Mr Eddy: Yes.

I'm pleased that we've had the discussion regarding the children's aid societies. They're very important services, of course, and we all realize how crucial their services are. Certainly, the experience of many of them has been mentioned: great difficulties at this particular time with increasing case loads.

One of the things that has always bothered me, of course, about children's aid societies is the lateness of the annual budget approval, and that's been an ongoing problem for many years. There are some other provincial agencies, but this is one, it seems to me, in which the budgets are approved quite late in the year. Has that improved somewhat in the last year? It's so much better to have the allocation there to start with; we do in so many other things. But it seems to be much more difficult in this case.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Part of the objective in the negotiations that we are having with children's aid is to try to regularize the process a little bit more. The level of the work plan that some children's aids submit to the municipality is really huge, and when we know the kind of workload involved for them in separating out what are mandatory programs and all that sort of thing, it's fairly high.

I have a concern, as you do, that when people go through a large portion of the budget year before that final approval it really isn't good for orderly planning, and that certainly is one of the issues that has been raised and will continue to be raised as part of the negotiations.

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Mr Eddy: I'm pleased to hear about that. I'd like to raise the question of domiciliary hostels. There was to be a study regarding domiciliary hostels and the service. There is a considerable controversy in some municipalities -- I'm thinking of one in particular, Brant, but it is happening in other places -- where some of the municipalities responsible for social services do have agreements with domiciliary hostels and are sharing the cost with the province, others do not have and have never had any, some others have discontinued the agreements, and some are thinking of doing that. I know there's been a considerable controversy about that. Do we see that progressing towards a solution within some time frame?

Hon Mrs Boyd: There are of course the two reports happening. There was the Lightman report on all sorts of unregulated residential accommodation. There's also an in-ministry report that is being done through the consultants Ernst and Young. We expect to have their report by the end of October, and that report is to detail for us all the different levels of service provided by the different forms of hostel. As you know, there are quite a few. There are the emergency hostels and so on. We've had quite a good input from municipal officials as well as hostel operators and consumers around where they see the future direction of the hostel program going.

The other thing that you should know is that one of the aspects of the discussions on disentanglement with the welfare assistance is the hostel allowance as part of that, so it's at that table as well. This information will be very helpful to us at the disentanglement table because it will lay it out in a much clearer way for both municipal officials and provincial officials when we are discussing where that fits with the whole process.

Mr Eddy: It must be an awkward situation where some municipalities participate and some don't.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes. We've been in the situation where, in a couple of cases, municipalities have suddenly opted out and left people without emergency shelter. The ministry has had to move to protect the vulnerable people involved.

Mr Eddy: The other problem about domiciliary hostels is the matter of licensing or certifying them in some way, because there is a tremendous difference.

Hon Mrs Boyd: A tremendous difference. When you read the Lightman report, it is just incredible to see the wide range of things we're talking about. Certainly, some of these operations are very creditable in the way they operate, and in others, it's quite clear from Mr Lightman's report, there's real concern about what the effect is on the individuals who participate in those programs.

Mr Eddy: Thank you. With regard to the integration of GWA with FBA, I think you mentioned some changes in your report. There were several pilot projects integrating GWA and FBA in the province, and that program was stopped suddenly. I've forgotten the term that was used, but the process was tabled in some way and there were no others. Then there was the matter of the single application. What did they call that system where the local social services would take applications for --

Mr Pascal: Joint intake.

Mr Eddy: Joint intake, yes. That system and some of those have been discontinued, I guess, over agreements of funding.

Hon Mrs Boyd: That's not my understanding.

Mr Pascal: That would be news to me, as well. We haven't taken any new pilots on for experimentation and evaluation, but to the best of my knowledge the pilots that were set in motion are still ongoing.

Mr Eddy: Are there nine of them? Sorry, I was speaking -- the discontinuance was in joint intake. That is one case I knew about. But let's go back to the integration. Those pilot projects have continued and are working well. Minister, in your report you mentioned, I believe, a new system of consolidating. Can you explain more about that?

Hon Mrs Boyd: The recommendation from all the study that's been done, both from SARC and from Back on Track and then again from Time for Action, is that because we have in the two different systems such a variation in terms of application, particularly when you do have municipal discretion and GWA and so on -- it is such a variable system that the two systems should be collapsed. We've got 23 different categories under the two acts, and that is one of the reasons why we have so much confusion about who is eligible, who is not, why we have so many applications for review by the Social Assistance Review Board and so on.

We certainly agree with the thrust of SARC, Back on Track and Time for Action that we need to integrate those two plans and make the whole system much more transparent so it's much more immediately obvious whether you are going to be eligible or not. We really hope to cut down on the number of review applications and so on. Certainly, the programs that have done some integrated intake show that there are ways in which we can get some economies of scarce personnel and more time for people to spend with social assistance recipients doing front-door screening if we look at a much more simplified system, so we're certainly committed to that.

Part of the purpose for our being at the disentanglement table with municipalities around the cost of welfare is that if we are going to make a very significant change in the way in which welfare is administered and delivered, then it's really important to sort out where the provincial interest is and where the municipal interest is and not have fears about those issues around the who's-going-to-have-to-pay-what part of the picture when we really look at integrating the systems.

Right now, as as you know, there are whole portions of the system that are available in one municipality and not in another. Some municipalities spend more on bus tickets than they do on anything else, as you know. So we are really looking at a situation where, in order to get to that point, we need to be sure that the provincial interest is the primary interest in terms of redirecting the system.

Mr Eddy: Will the system of delivery be part of the -- it won't be part of the disentanglement process, but --

Hon Mrs Boyd: At one time we thought it would. In fact, when we sat at the table, the first item was to be the allowance issue, how that's split down. Then the next items were to be the various supplementary allowances and then the delivery system.

What we found is that this isn't a very fruitful place to be talking about the whole issue of delivery unless we have a sense of how the redirected system is going to work. It's very clear, both in SARC and in Time for Action: We have to have locally available delivery. It has to be something that's accessible and very possible for people to feel at home with as they access the system. But whether it has to be delivered by one level of government or another or in another way has not been determined at all. We're definitely looking at that.

Mr Eddy: So you'll be looking at all possible systems or ways of doing that.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes, and on the evaluations of the integrated systems that are going on, we've got auditors in I think two or three of our locations right now looking at how the efficiency of that integrated system works. Added to the other reports that have come out of it, that gives us a very good idea of what works and what doesn't in rural and urban areas, and it is different.

Mr Eddy: Yes, it is different, and of course some rural areas are with their cities for deliveries and some are not.

Hon Mrs Boyd: That's right.

Mr Eddy: It could still be delivered there, but --

Hon Mrs Boyd: When you add the complication of some places having district welfare boards on which people participate variably -- I mean, we've had visitations from some of the district welfare boards where they feel they're unrepresentative of the population that's actually being served. Those are all questions that need to be looked at as we look at the reform of the system.

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Mr Eddy: I had heard at one time that as of January 1, 1993, municipalities would not be paying a share of the cost of social assistance and that the delivery system would be dealt with, but that's awfully soon.

Hon Mrs Boyd: It is awfully soon, and obviously things have taken a long time. What we hope for is that we will have a decision early in 1993 about how we're going to proceed. We can't anticipate at this point that it would actually kick in before 1994 at the earliest; that again has to be an issue of mutual agreement at the disentanglement table. We have not yet looked at what the benchmark year would be in terms of cost-sharing and so on, and that has to be added into the mix.

Mr Eddy: You are a member, I understand, of the provincial-municipal disentanglement process, so you're at the table. That's good, because I think it's one of the first things that needs to be settled.

Hon Mrs Boyd: The evidence has been really overwhelming, and every other government has had similar concerns about the need for us to come to grips with the entanglement we now have and how we can be more streamlined and gear our systems much better for customer service. So we feel, and I think the municipalities do too, that in doing this work we're carrying on in the tradition of our predecessors in trying to come to grips with some of these issues.

It's very hard, because the interests of the municipalities vary quite substantially depending on what their responsibilities are, whether they're upper tier or lower tier, whether they're urban or rural. I think the interests of the various ministries that have to negotiate also are a little different, so it's a tough process, and I think other governments have also found it a tough one to come to grips with.

Mr Eddy: There is a difference in legislation regarding the responsibility of delivery too, because in some counties I believe social assistance is still at the local level; separated towns and cities are usually on their own. But with the counties it was a system of agreement, where they negotiated an agreement, which included 50% of the approved cost of administration, of course; there are some restrictions on that from time to time now.

Hon Mrs Boyd: And some improvements from time to time.

Mr Eddy: That's right. Thank you for adding that; I should have included that. Whereas I believe that for all of the regional municipalities it's been a mandated responsibility, and it's loud and clear and certainly has been expanded upon a great deal.

Hon Mrs Boyd: And as a result, their interest in delivery is quite different than it is in the ones that aren't consolidated into a particular area.

Mr Eddy: Are there still some counties?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes.

Mr Elston: I understand the issue around disentanglement, but in fairness to you, you've had a very strong position with respect to responsibility of the provincial government in providing social assistance. Do you think it's fair to be using social assistance payments as a bargaining chip with the municipalities over assuming other obligations? Isn't it, in the purest sense, your responsibility to assert the provincial requirement to fund social assistance without asking the municipalities to trade by picking up some of the responsibilities? Doesn't that really inhibit your ministry from delivering the service in the purest sense?

Hon Mrs Boyd: I would simply have to disagree with you. We went to the table with the clear understanding between the parties that this was to be a zero fiscal effect, either on individual taxpayers or on the different levels of government and the different tiers in the municipalities. That was the ground rule for going to the table, and frankly I have no reason to disagree with it. The issue was not trying to shift the burden from one area to another on this particular round of negotiations, although the Fair Tax Commission, as it does its work, may certainly be looking very seriously at that kind of thing. We didn't want to pre-empt the work of the Fair Tax Commission in the work we were doing at the disentanglement table. That was why that was the ground rule for the negotiation in the first place, and I don't feel it inhibits us in terms of the work we're doing.

Mr Elston: I don't think it inhibits you, but my question is basically with respect to the theory of providing social assistance. My colleague from Burlington South sort of anticipated my next question: If social assistance and social programming are to be guaranteed under the new constitutional accord, which the assertion by the Premier and others has been, don't you therefore think it becomes fully the responsibility of the signatories of that accord, namely, the provinces and the federal government, to deliver, as opposed to putting any requirement for social service delivery upon the backs of the children of the province, the municipalities?

If you're going to ride with the theory that it is a provincial mandate, that it is a provincial requirement, that it is a citizen's right, I just think that you as the upholder of the rights, and you as a funder of the social requirements of the people here, should pick it up without asking the municipalities to pay you something to take over the entire obligation.

I don't mean to be blunt, but in a way, when you reduce disentanglement to its most basic form, it is: "Okay, municipalities, you're complaining about the cost of social assistance right now," and social services, but let's just talk about social assistance. "We'll take that off your hands, but you buy into paying for" -- the Minister of Municipal Affairs has told us it won't be roads -- "but you pay something else as an equivalency to offset us picking up the costs of social assistance."

Don't you think that really runs contrary, first of all, to the culture of your ministry, and second, to the new accord which has been settled upon, which speaks so highly of the motivation of the federal, provincial and territorial and native signatories to that accord?

Hon Mrs Boyd: No, I don't. Very clearly, an open-ended human program like the social assistance program does belong more appropriately with an income-tax-based way of paying; I certainly agree with that. But there are many things the provincial government pays that more properly belong with the property tax that is raised by municipalities. None of the municipal leaders at the table with us have raised that issue in that way --

Mr Elston: But they don't have a choice.

Hon Mrs Boyd: -- and we went into the discussions with a clear understanding of what the ground rules were. And no, I just don't agree with you that it's a choice forced on them.

Mr Elston: Don't you agree, though, that they have been forced to pay their way out of the social assistance problem? They have been increasing their local budgets for payment of their share of social assistance for the last three or four years, whatever; each area is different. When their complaints have been heard and sympathetic ears have been available at the ministry, they have been told, "We'll get into disentanglement, but the cost of disentanglement is for you to pick up something else that we don't want to pay for any more." Isn't that really a way of purchasing their way out of social assistance? It is, in my view.

Hon Mrs Boyd: When you look at the issue of finding a base year, then the open-endedness of that program for them will stop. Right now they have no control over that expenditure. It's hard for them to set their mill rates and ensure that they can meet their obligations. We understand that and we're empathetic with that. The part they pick up as their share will be much more easy for them to plan, will be much easier for them to phase in for their taxpayers. That is where their interest comes in, to stop the open-endedness of the thing, over which they have no control, and we have real sympathy with that.

We're not in a position, and wouldn't have gone to the table, if it were simply a question of adding a load on to the income tax base and leaving that taxing power completely open to municipalities. When we consolidated counties and school boards previously, we did not see a drop in property taxes, and what we're saying is that if we're going to do a trade, we need to do a trade so that --

Mr Elston: That's my point. Why do you need to trade? Why do they have to buy their way out of this obligation in order for you to take over an area which you have already said, without question, is a provincial sphere? When we talk about disentanglement, it's like you're tripping over each other. That's fair, but you can disentangle by merely saying to the municipalities: "This is our area, the federal government and provincial government" --

Hon Mrs Boyd: But you had the opportunity to do that when you were in office.

Mr Elston: We did, and that's always going to be an easy answer for you, but my question to you is, and still remains: Why, why, why, when you put the case for the provincial and federal requirements of sustaining social assistance payments, are you as a government asking the municipalities, at whatever level -- county, regional, township, town, village -- to buy their way out of social assistance?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Let me just be clear. You're asking us to increase personal income tax or else increase the deficit by taking on something quite additional?

Mr Elston: No. I'm asking you why you're asking municipalities to buy their way out of social assistance payments. That's what is happening right now. And here's the other issue forming with respect to that --

Mr Jackson: I think you're being kind. They're not asking them to do anything.

Mr Elston: They're telling them to.

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Here's the other question that is important for me: You have talked about open-ended situations and allowing municipalities to become more predictable. There is nothing predictable about how much maintenance is going to be required for water, sewer and other environmental systems; there is nothing predictable about the wear and tear the natural environment will have on physical structures like bridges, culverts, on municipal facilities; there is nothing predictable about how many facilities are going to be required to be paid for by the municipality to fulfil the programs the province sets up to administer things like child care.

For me, your simple reply, "You had a chance to do it," is an easy one for you, but it doesn't answer the question. I'm not saying it's easy, but if you really are a person who believes the point she makes about provincial-federal responsibility and the difficulty which besets municipalities, why are you part of a government that tells us the municipalities will have to pay their way out of the social assistance payments? That's the simple question. It doesn't require you even to comment on whether or not we had the nerve to do any of this, but it does ask you to come out and tell us why you're asking the municipalities to buy their way out of this situation.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I just so fundamentally disagree with your characterization of disentanglement that it's difficult for me even to answer you. This was a position we took in conjunction with the municipalities that we both thought was to our mutual benefit.

Mr Elston: They wanted relief from social assistance.

Hon Mrs Boyd: That's what negotiations are all about.

Mr Elston: You said it's right for them to want relief from social assistance because it is a provincial-federal requirement that they pay for their citizens, and now you've said, "We won't take it over, though, unless you pay something else and take that off our plate." I don't understand that.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Well, they're not objecting.

Mr Elston: They can't object.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes, they can.

Mr Elston: You are the dominant partner at the table.

Hon Mrs Boyd: We don't have to come to that agreement and we can go ahead and reform the social assistance system without any reference to them and they'd still be forced to pay part of it, and that's part of our interest. We know we want to move to reform --

Mr Elston: Well, that's what they understand. They know exactly what you just said, and that's exactly why I wanted you to get into this dialogue with me --

Hon Mrs Boyd: But we talked to them at the table about that.

Mr Elston: -- so that you would explain to the public what it is that is forcing the municipalities to pay their way out of social assistance.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I don't believe they're being forced. They have other choices.

Mr Elston: They have no other choice.

Hon Mrs Boyd: They have made the choice that they will be at the table.

Mr Bisson: How much time is left?

The Acting Chair (Ms Christel Haeck): One minute for the Liberal caucus.

Mr Elston: One minute? I was just getting interested in this. As difficult a question as it is, when you speak to people who hear the speeches we make as provincial politicians, and I'm being very serious and upfront with this, they say: "If you are really so much in charge of this stuff and you really believe in what you've just said, why don't you just do it? Why is there always a price exacted from us?" That is something I can't explain, except that the full cost of having to come to grips with economic problems right now forces people to do things they maybe don't want to do, including people of principle.

The Acting Chair: Murray, your time has just run out, and I turn the floor over to Mr Jackson.

Mr Jackson: I thought Mr Elston was being provocative, but argumentative, unfortunately. I guess I'd like to build on his very good line of questioning -- briefly, because I had some other stuff I wanted to raise here.

Mr Elston: I just reminded you of something you might want to get into, right?

Mr Jackson: No. I think you've raised a significant point, but I don't think it's the subject of a debate. What concerns me is what I mentioned earlier, that Richard Johnston used to sit in this chair and David Cooke used to sit in that chair and argue from the social democrat's point of view about the responsibility of the funding, that for years they argued that it shouldn't be on the municipal taxpayer, that it should be part of the income base.

I could keep going back to my thesis of this reawakening of the social democrats using the Mulroneyite arguments that this is all tied to economic recovery, that somehow we're going to be trading off social services. Rather than debate you, Minister, I would basically ask you a question.

I'm aware of all the programs you're currently responsible for and I'm aware that provincial legislation mandates us, our government, to put those programs in place; of the charter, which has no impact on municipalities, quite frankly, but has all sorts of impacts on provinces; and the new Charlottetown accord will have impact on provinces but not on municipalities, as your Premier has pointed out.

Are there any services currently that you're legally required to provide that you could see potentially being handed over to the municipalities, which is another way of asking Mr Elston's question. He's referenced roads, maintenance and other things. I'm more concerned, in the context of social services since it is those human needs that are dealt with, if you see any of those being transferred, such as, is day care a right in society or will it be disparate by virtue of municipalities saying, "We've had a bad tax year so we're cutting our subsidies," which is what's occurring in Ontario today.

One of the reasons I'll support the Yes vote is because municipalities will not be allowed to do that. Once the funding is available, they'll be required by law to provide it. I'm not going to debate whether you horse-trade with municipalities. That's the reality of governing. I'm simply asking you, are there any services you could see transferring to the province and you wouldn't have any worries about being able to guarantee those levels of support? I, for one, can't find a single service.

Hon Mrs Boyd: We have a whole list, frankly, of services. I'm not going to start delineating each one because there are very different views. This is what negotiation is all about and I'm not going to sit here and talk to you as though we're negotiating something that in fact is being negotiated at a different table. It's just not an appropriate place for a discussion of this.

Mr Jackson: Fine.

Hon Mrs Boyd: We have a full list of things and people have different views.

Mr Jackson: That's fine. You answered the question.

If I can go back to your Jobs Ontario Capital program, as the Chair of estimates, we ask every minister this question. Could your deputy please tell us exactly how much is in these estimates, since the Jobs Ontario announcement of June 24 is not clear and evident in these estimates nor supplementary estimates? Could you please advise us of the actual amount and if that's in print form, if they could get us a copy of it?

Mr Pascal: The approximate amount is $29.616 million. Mr Jackson is asking for details with respect to this expenditure?

Mr Jackson: Jobs Ontario Capital for your ministry.

Mr Pascal: It's $29.616 million.

Mr Jackson: For 1992-93?

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes.

Mr Pascal: That's correct.

Mr Jackson: That is the estimated amount. Can you tell me how many projects are involved and how many have been approved to date?

Hon Mrs Boyd: In long-term care, which is community residential alternatives, $3.5 million has been designated; in the family violence area, $2.2 million; in the child care area, $22.5 million --

Mr Jackson: I'm sorry, Minister, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I asked if they were approved. Are you giving me what you've allocated out of the total $29 million?

Hon Mrs Boyd: What we've allocated, and we can certainly give you a list of those that have been announced. There are a number that haven't been announced because they're still in negotiation with the particular groups.

Mr Jackson: Fair ball. What we're trying to get a handle on is that the $29 million is your estimate, and then you will break that down and you'll share that with us.

Hon Mrs Boyd: By category, yes.

Mr Jackson: The next question we generally ask is, how many have been approved, and the deputy usually tells us "2 out of 12 projects; 10 out of 30." I'd like that figure.

Mr Pascal: The deputy would be pleased to do so when he has the specific figure.

Mr Jackson: Then I'll complete the questioning in this area. Then we generally ask how much money will flow in this capital year, how many of these cheques will make their way out of this building between now and March 31.

The final question is -- how do I word this in the positive? -- in order for you to come up with this money, what other areas had to contribute to the success of Jobs Ontario by surrendering their capital projects? Where did you get the money from within your budget?

Hon Mrs Boyd: We didn't. We didn't take any dollars out of our budget, expect the anti-recession dollars that were last year. This is the only reduction.

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Mr Jackson: You're a fortunate minister, because each of the previous ministries has indicated in which areas it had to do cuts. Perhaps I could ask you, then, how do we describe on your capital estimates -- your overall capital estimates are down by some $30 million. Where are our capital estimates? I know you'll help me out with this.

Mr Pascal: Page 109, I think.

Mr Jackson: I have the vote numbers here. The 1990-91 actual was $102 million. The 1991-92 estimates were $122 million. I don't have the actuals for 1991-92, but I'm showing that your capital of $85 million shows that you've reduced your capital expenditures by $37 million. That's what I'm reading in your current estimates.

Hon Mrs Boyd: It does not include the $29.616 million. The Jobs Ontario was a post-estimates amount, so the $37 million does not include the $29.616 million. What it does say is that the $51 million that was there for the anti-recession program has come out; $51 million was a one-time shot for the anti-recession program and it has come out. The increase, then, in our base capital funding of $13,779,100 is added and on top of that, the $29.616 million.

Mr Jackson: You'll forgive me, but I've got to work with simple numbers here. The anti-inflationary $51 million came out of what budget? Your budget?

Hon Mrs Boyd: That was a corporate initiative budget. It did not come out of our base; it was added to our base.

Mr Jackson: Okay, and where does that show in your 1992-93 estimates? Where is the $51 million extra in capital dollars?

Hon Mrs Boyd: That was in 1991-92; it has come out. It was a one-time amount in 1991-92 and it has come out of our estimates for 1992-93. We've had an additional capital funding of $13,779,100 and then on top of that an addition of $29.616 million of the Jobs Ontario Capital for this year.

Mr Jackson: That sounds great, but you've got a 1991-92 figure of $122 million, and you've got, even at the best look, 1992-93 as $85 million plus $29 million. I'm still seeing a shortfall.

Hon Mrs Boyd: It's not a shortfall. There was a one-time, non-base allocation from the corporate coffers for the anti-recession projects to try and kickstart jobs. That was never considered part of the base capital allocations to the ministry. It was a one-time thing, so yes, it has come out.

Mr Jackson: So you can read it either way. You're either $10 million or $11 million less this year than last, or an amount greater. I know how we do the creative bookworking. I'm just looking at the numbers on this page. We're talking a lot of dollars here. Capital dollars are less.

Hon Mrs Boyd: We're saying $51 million that was in the anti-recession project has come out. We can give you the details on it if you wish.

Mr Jackson: When I asked this question of the ministry last estimates, I was told there was flow-through into this year and that most of the $51 million wasn't being spent in last year's estimates. All that $51 million wasn't spent in the 1991-92 fiscal year.

Hon Mrs Boyd: I believe it was. My understanding is that we may have had to hand some of it back, but I think the actual expenditures we had were in fact $3.617 million over our allocations. We in fact flowed more dollars.

Mr Pascal: I think that is correct. I will verify that the $51 million was totally expended in that year, but I think that is accurate.

Mr Jackson: We did our Comsoc estimates earlier last year. My recollection is that it wasn't all going to be spent in that year. Now, if you were able to do that, all power to you, but I'd sure like those numbers confirmed, because as far as I can see, your ministry's capital expenditures are down by some $11 million from capital of the last two years.

Hon Mrs Boyd: As I said before, that will be true in every ministry because of the anti-recession capital, which was not part of the base.

Mr Jackson: If I can go back to children's aid societies for a moment, in the treasury board document, which was a meeting at which you were present and voted on Tuesday, March 31, "This budget approved" -- I'm quoting directly from the treasury board document, even though it's confidential; it was no longer confidential when the media leaked it to us -- "but the board noted that $17 million was placed on holdback, pending a review of the exceptional circumstance review process by May 15, 1992." Is the $15 million still on holdback or are you releasing those funds is my first question.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Did you say $17 million?

Mr Jackson: Yes. Nodding doesn't help Hansard; I'm sorry.

Mr Pascal: Yes, it is.

Mr Jackson: Okay, so it's now been released; it's no longer on holdback.

Mr Pascal: It's still on holdback.

Mr Jackson: So you're still holding back.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Pending the final negotiation of allocations with the various societies.

Mr Jackson: Fair ball, but it indicates that the exceptional review process would be done by May 15, 1992. That was some months ago. Why has it not been freed up for transfer?

Hon Mrs Boyd: That's a good question.

Mr Pascal: I'll ask for assistance from Ms Lang, but I think we are also awaiting some discussions around the ECR process. There's dialogue going on in relationship to the reports coming forth I think is the answer, but I'm going to have to ask Ms Lang --

The Acting Chair: Ms Lang, perhaps you would like to join us here and make your statement.

Ms Lang: As I understand it, the $17 million that's on holdback is for costs we anticipate will be incurred in 1992, and those funds being distributed to the societies will be subject to our review with those societies and a confirmation of those expenditures. Once we have that as a result of our year-end review of the CAS budgets, we will be looking at the allocation of those dollars.

Mr Jackson: Thank you, Ms Lang, but I guess I'm having difficulty where treasury board and cabinet have approved a document which says that the $17 million which CASs are desperate to get their hands on in order to maintain the quality of their programs (a) is still on holdback at this point and (b) was being held on holdback until May 15, which is some time past the time when this March 31 document was being reviewed.

The Acting Chair: Mr Jackson --

Mr Jackson: I'll finish my questioning, please.

Secondly, having noted that there is a problem with the delay in the flowing of this funding, we now find out that this is still on holdback and that the review is still ongoing, even though the review process was to occur by May 15. I assume members of the cabinet felt that it was important enough to get the review done soon enough and that is why the date May 15 was noted in a treasury board document.

The Acting Chair: Mr Jackson, would you accept an explanation from the deputy?

Mr Jackson: Sure.

Mr Pascal: The May 15 date was the date upon which treasury board asked for a progress report on the ECR process. The treasury board, with respect to its role, obviously is as concerned as the children's aid societies around the province, and the ministry, with respect to the process. They wanted an update with respect to that review. They have not at this point in time received that review. That was meant to be a progress report with respect to developing a new approach to funding CASs across the province. As Ms Lang has reported, until that is codetermined with all the parties in terms of change, the $17 million on holdback is there to continue the process of the ECR reconciliation that has been part of the approach to funding.

Mr Jackson: Let me ask the question a different way then. When did the 1991 ECR funds flow? On or about what day did 1991 funds flow?

Ms Lang: They would have flowed probably somewhere between March and June 1992.

1750

Mr Jackson: Fine, which means, and this document says, "The $17 million we've earmarked is not included in these estimates," and that it's reasonable to suspect that possibly, all things being equal, we will not see that money flow -- I know you can't say that -- until March 1993. I have a document which says that they're not in here, and I'm getting further clarification on that. So our CASs may not anticipate this badly needed relief until March of 1993.

Ms Lang: It will happen in a couple of different ways. We could potentially flow some money in-year if in fact we have evidence that the costs that have been incurred by the societies are indicating they need some additional cash to manage. In addition, we would probably look at reconciliation that would happen as the result of their year-end budget and confirm their costs and ensure that they were in fact costs associated with exceptional circumstances, and then money would flow as a result of that exercise. It is possible that some of those dollars will not flow until March of next year.

The Acting Chair: The minister wanted to --

Mr Jackson: When I'm finished my line of questioning, please. What is concerning me here is that when I asked the question earlier, I asked about the flexibility in order to respond to it, and I was led to believe that there wasn't the kind of flexibility -- we're waiting for the consultation. Now the fine point on it is that there is a possibility.

So if I can now ask the minister, given that the $17 million isn't clearly delineated in the estimates according to the treasury document, but you will have that money on or about April 1 or March 31, how much moneys do you have in this budget to deal with the kinds of emergencies that might emerge between now and March 31?

Hon Mrs Boyd: The $17 million is there. We have not gone with the detail the treasury board needs to release those funds from holdback. But in the meantime, we do have the capacity to flow emergency dollars, as we talked earlier about Prescott. We know that we can do that from the line that we have.

This is the reason we want to change the funding. I keep comparing it to the emergency firefighting in the north. If we know we're going to incur costs and we know that the children's aid societies, when they estimate the kinds of costs they're going to have -- because they have a good idea of their work flow -- why do we have this set out there as something that has to be applied for afterwards rather than something that is flowing through? What we're working on with the children's aid societies is a much more certain way of planning their budgets so that they don't have to wait until all the data is in and all of it's analysed before they get that funding. We don't think that's appropriate either, even though it's been the custom for many years.

Mr Jackson: I understand what a "holdback" means; it means you are going to have to borrow internally in this budget in order to flow moneys prematurely. I'm looking at a document that says you'll have your $17 million from the end of your fiscal year. That's the point I'm trying to establish. It's not that you don't have the money or you do have the money; it's when you have it, based on the circumstances. We will be revisiting this issue when we look at the size of the deficits, the number of children on waiting lists and the serious problems that our CASs are experiencing.

Hon Mrs Boyd: In fact, last year we flowed over 80% of the dollars early because we were confident enough about the figures, and the only thing that was under dispute was a small portion of the dollars. So we can go and get some of the dollars from holdback without the data, and did do that last year, to try to ease exactly those problems.

Mr Jackson: I'm sorry to replay what's obvious here, but I just heard from Ms Lang that the majority of the funds were flowed on or about January 31 of this year. Now you're telling me that a large portion of it was flowed earlier.

Hon Mrs Boyd: Yes. On or about January 31, that's right.

Mr Jackson: Or March, I thought I heard her say. But can we get that, as well, in terms of the data?

Hon Mrs Boyd: We can see when the data came through, sure.

Mr Jackson: The situation out there is rather desperate for some of these CASs. Thank you.

The Acting Chair: Mr Jackson, you have about four minutes left.

Mr Jackson: Four minutes?

The Acting Chair: At least for today, and then I guess we really do have to have some discussion as to what's going to happen on Tuesday.

Mr Jackson: Sure. Can I discuss with the minister then briefly if there are any discussions or plans around the issue of extended care for crown wards, which is continuing to 21. Some are extending beyond that by virtue of their being in school. There's been some discussion shared that this may be adjusted and be put on a FBA/GWA and that that might trigger at an earlier date. Are there any discussions around this at the moment, and if so, what are the budget implications for the saving to you in this regard and what are the increased costs that might be anticipated by tying it to FBA?

Hon Mrs Boyd: We have had discussions around the province with the groups of crown wards. We've had quite an interesting series of discussions with them around what they see as the appropriate action for us as in loco parentis. One of the things that has become clear in those discussions is that different children's aid societies operate in very different ways and some carry it through their services longer than others. Obviously we've been permissive as a ministry to allow that flexibility.

I think the consumers themselves are saying they want some certainty in this and they want some equity and they want the inconsistencies to end. We agree that's wise. We're in the process of developing policy now around how to achieve that and doing some costing about what the difference in cost may be. It may not be as substantial as has been predicted.

There are various different ways in which it's been suggested that it might be dealt with. One of them obviously is sort of a guaranteed access to the OSAP in a way that is appropriate for them. One certainly has to look at the possibility of other training components: training allowances, the possibility of how that combines with social assistance. The decision is not made. The policy discussions are going on, and we certainly will be reporting on the success of those negotiations as they happen, but the policy is not formulated at this point in time.

Mr Jackson: So you're not currently planning to extend these benefits to age 24.

Hon Mrs Boyd: That decision has not yet been made. We're certainly talking to our crown wards about the necessity of being much more responsible for their futures than we have generally been, but that decision has not been made to date.

The Acting Chair: You have about a minute left.

Mr Jackson: We've had an interesting first day and I think it's time. I thank the minister and the deputy and the staff who've been forthcoming and we'll look forward to Tuesday.

The Acting Chair: In turn, I also would like to thank the staff for their assistance, and I believe we have some discussion between the three caucuses about how Tuesday will play out or if there are any concerns about time allocation on Tuesday. Mr Bisson, did you have something that you wanted --

Mr Jackson: I'm sorry, on a point of order, Madam Chair: Is the clock running?

Interjection: No.

Mr Jackson: So we've adjourned?

The Acting Chair: Basically we've finished for the day.

Mr Jackson: That's the basis on which the clerk does the calculation: when we've adjourned.

The Acting Chair: Yes. It's six o'clock, and we basically had about 30 seconds left at the start of this conversation.

Mr Jackson: Then it's adjourned. Could you announce the adjournment, and then I'd love to have a subcommittee meeting.

The Acting Chair: This meeting is adjourned.

The committee adjourned at 1758.