LEGISLATIVE
ASSEMBLY OF
Monday,
May 3, 1993
The House met at 8 p.m.
ORDERS OF
THE DAY (continued)
COMMITTEE
OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent
Sections)
FAMILY
SERVICES
Mr. Deputy Chairperson
(Marcel Laurendeau): The hour being eight o'clock, committee will
resume. We are going to deal with item
4.(b) Community Living and Vocational Rehabilitation Programs (1) Adult
Services (a) Salaries $1,110,600.
Mrs. Sharon Carstairs
(Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Deputy
Chairperson, I would like to get into the payments to external agencies.
In
the House and outside of the House, the minister indicated that they had to
make tough choices, so they, in essence, decided that they had to give money to
support organizations that were providing service. So they cut funding to those that, in their
judgment, provided primarily advocacy.
Is that correct? I do not want to
put words in the minister's mouth.
Hon. Harold Gilleshammer
(Minister of Family Services): Mr.
Deputy Chairperson, that was one of the criteria that we looked at. I certainly have had discussions with a
number of these groups that do provide advocacy. They, in some cases, may also provide
services to their members and some services to the community. Certainly the ones that were providing what
is generally known as advocacy were part of a group that had some reduced
funding.
I
think that when the Finance minister made his announcement across government,
one of the things that were said was that advocacy groups were one of the
targets. As well, there were agencies
that were providing programs that were not of the highest priority within our
department and what our department mandate is.
Some of them, of course, had gotten into other service delivery to do
with their work within the community.
Mrs. Carstairs: First off, payments that were made today, the
recipient organization, I found it rather interesting that the first two list
in their name that they are advocacy groups, the Brandon Citizen Advocacy Inc.
and the Winnipeg Citizen Advocacy Inc.
While their funding was reduced from, I think, a high of $38,000 to
$34,200, they did manage to maintain a large chunk of their funding as opposed
to, for example, the Association for Community Living.
Can
the minister explain why these two, by their own definition, advocacy groups
managed to survive but the Association for Community Living did not?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I can well understand why the member has
asked the question. I guess part of the
explanation is that these are two groups who work with mentally disabled
clients and perform an advocacy function for their clients and, as such, a
service for those clients.
The
Brandon Citizen Advocacy Inc. assists that organization that is working, again,
primarily with mentally disabled individuals in day‑to‑day living
and in a sort of big‑brother, big‑sister fashion and of course as
indicated, within the city of
The
Mrs. Carstairs: Surely that is a definition of what the
Association for Community Living does.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Again, I do not think there is a clear‑cut
definition of advocacy. Many of the
groups were probably in a broader advocacy role representing their particular
client group advocating government on certain programming and certain
directions. These, it was thought and
felt, because they provided a service to the mentally disabled, were providing
a service that we wanted to maintain.
Mrs. Carstairs: The only new recipient organization that I
could find, unless of course it is a pullout from one of the others, is the
CareerStart transition. Is that a brand
new group that is being funded this year?
It was not found last year.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, it is part of our community living
initiative that we announced in the subject that we spoke about earlier.
Mrs. Carstairs: Can you tell me what was the function of
Abilities Network, because they seem to also be one that does not have its
funding this year, but received some 76.6 last time?
Mr. Gilleshammer: This was a nonprofit association that was
fostering and promoting the effectiveness and relevance of those organizations whose
primary purpose is to provide continuing education, training and development
for adults with intellectual, physical and psychiatric disabilities.
Mrs. Carstairs: It would sound, from the description, that
they were providing a direct service.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Again, I think there is a gray area here
where the previous two groups that the member was asking about certainly
provided a direct service to individuals.
In this case, the Abilities Network was an umbrella organization that
encompassed a number of groups that in fact do provide service.
Mrs. Carstairs: Was there a percentage figure which was used
for all the recipient organizations other than, for example, the ones who had
their grants eliminated altogether?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, there were some that lost 100 percent of
their funding. Others, there was a 10
percent reduction. With some others,
there was a 4 percent reduction.
Mrs. Carstairs: What was the determination for one percentage
vis‑a‑vis the other percentage?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The 4 percent was agencies that we felt could
achieve the workweek reduction model that government is imposing on civil
service staff. The 10 percent was on
larger agencies with a capacity to achieve some savings in efficiencies within
their organization.
Mrs. Carstairs: The housing type models like Ten Ten Sinclair
received no reduction in their funding at all between '92‑93, '93‑94,
whereas some of the other agencies seem to require more of a cut even though
they are also providing accommodation, for example, Main Street Project Inc.
which received a rather massive reduction of some hundred thousand dollars.
Mr. Gilleshammer: With the Main Street Project there was a 10
percent reduction in the grant funding that we gave them. With Ten Ten Sinclair there was a 4 percent
reduction that it was felt they could achieve on the salaries portion.
Mrs. Carstairs: So they got 758 last year and 731 this year.
All right, I see that.
Mr. Doug Martindale
(Burrows): Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I would like to go
back to some of the comments the minister was making at five o'clock. I could not let his remarks go unnoticed or
uncommented on. He ended on quite a
rhetorical flourish at five o'clock.
Unfortunately, I have forgotten most of what he said. It went in one ear
and out the other, I guess.
However, I would like to say that the main
point of difference between us is his alleged reference to fairness. I know that the minister has heard us say
this before in Throne Speech Debate, in Question Period and in Estimates. We believe that the pain is not being shared
fairly and we will continue to repeat that.
I just wanted to make sure that I got that on the record in reply to the
minister's remarks and then I have some questions.
Mr. Gilleshammer: I might respond with a challenge again. The member has consistently said that in
Family Services we have not made the appropriate decisions, that we are not
showing a sense of fairness within our budget.
I have challenged him to give us some options that he would see as a
direction as a member potentially of a government that may someday have more
realistic thoughts of forming government, and we are still waiting for those
options.
* (2010)
Again I say to the member, the reality of
government is the reality faced by the Premier of Ontario and the Premier of
We
believe in this department that we have shown a sense of fairness in finding
the savings within our department which allows us to make the increases in a
number of areas where we are dealing with very vulnerable Manitobans. I know that before the Estimates are over the
honourable member is going to tell me what some options are within Family
Services that he would lobby for should he ever have that opportunity. I say to the member, these were difficult
decisions that your Leader has recognized on numerous occasions and I am sure
before we are finished maybe the honourable member will also recognize them.
Mr. Martindale: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, there are some very
specific examples of how we feel that this budget is unfair, for example, the
total elimination of the grant to the Manitoba Anti‑Poverty
Organization. In conversations with many
organizations, particularly external agencies that are funded by your
department, we know that different organizations are dealing with their
reduction or even elimination of grants in different ways.
For
example, some executive directors or board members have told me that they are
going to sit down and redo their budget for this year. Others are going to save money primarily from
the workweek reduction that the minister just referred to. Others are going to charge fees to their
members, in some cases, for the first time; hopefully, in that way they will
keep their organization afloat.
However,
Manitoba Anti‑Poverty Organization really does not have any of those
options. They feel that their staff are
underpaid for the kind of work that they are doing now. They have no ability to reduce staff wages to
continue, because such a large part of their funding comes from your
department. They cannot charge fees to
their members because they are dealing with poor people who probably would not
be able to pay, let alone willing to pay, for service. So I think that is one organization whose
ability to rebudget or to take workweek reductions or charge fees is either
severely constricted or impossible. They
may well end up with having one staff or no staff, and if there is no staff,
there is no organization.
Now
the minister knows that out of the 56 organizations that received no funding,
there are only a very few that we have gone to bat for, and Manitoba Anti‑Poverty
Organization is one of them. If the
minister were to reconsider any decision of the externally funded agencies,
that is the one that I would probably pick out of all of them for the minister
to reconsider. Since this is the first
time we have really gotten into payments to external agencies in any detail, I
would like to ask the minister if he would reconsider the funding decision
regarding Manitoba Anti‑Poverty Organization.
Mr. Gilleshammer: I would be pleased to answer that and note
that the alternatives that were requested by myself have yet to come forward.
The
Manitoba Anti‑Poverty Organization is one of the groups that I have met
with frequently and will be meeting with again in the not too distant future to
discuss the work that they do. Again, this was one of those difficult decisions
that we had to make within this budget, to achieve any degree of savings. I recognize what the member is saying, to a
large extent, is correct.
Again, these are services that are provided by
the department and where we have staff who work with individuals on social
allowances. So, in some ways, there is a
bit of a duplication of service there, although I do recognize that the
organization did advocate for the system and, in some cases, for individuals,
but then there are other organizations that do that as well. I know that the WORD organization, which is
not funded by government, the
The
other organization that has provided good advice and good background to the
department and to the minister is the Social Assistance Coalition of
As
well, I would point out that the member has indicated that because of the need
for funding, the organization cannot maintain its profile and its work. There are thousands and thousands of
volunteers in society that provide service and provide advocacy for individual
groups. I do not think the member and I
would ever agree whether there is sufficient service and sufficient advocacy
for the disadvantaged who are on social assistance. I would say that there are other groups;
there are other individuals and we do have departmental staff that provide
service to the many thousands of cases that we deal with.
Mr. Martindale: Will the minister not agree that there is a
fundamental difference between the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization and the
other two organizations he talked about, namely WORD and the Social Assistance
Coalition of Manitoba?
The
fundamental difference, in my view, is that the Manitoba Anti‑Poverty
Organization had a paid staff and an office at
Would the minister not agree that those are
fundamentally different functions of those organizations?
Mr. Gilleshammer: As much as I would like to find some area
where the member and I can agree, I am surprised that he is so critical of
those organizations which have really provided valuable input to the department
and valuable input to government on a number of issues. I can assure him that they certainly provide
individual service.
* (2020)
We
met with the co‑chairs of SACOM many times and listened to the number of
cases that they do individual advocacy and work for. They have many times assured me that they
work with clients on a day‑to‑day basis to help them achieve some
of their goals in terms of education, some of their goals as far as working
within the social allowances system. I
sense from the vast knowledge they have of the legislation and of the system‑‑and,
certainly, I have not asked for any documentation, but I take them at face
value that they do a tremendous amount of work for individual clients who come
to them.
Similarly, with the WORD organization,
although they are small in terms of membership and they do not have a permanent
full‑time staff, they have achieved a number of gains for the disabled
community as a group and for individuals.
I think it is an example how groups like that, which in many ways feel
unencumbered by government, do provide both a service to individuals and good
advice about the system.
Mr. Martindale: Well, the minister is trying to put words in
my mouth. I am certainly not critical of
either of those organizations. In fact,
I support nongovernmental organizations that advocate with government on behalf
of individuals or groups of people. I
would repeat that they are fundamentally different from MAPO, another
difference being that, as far as I know, neither of the other two groups are incorporated
or have a board of directors.
I
can appreciate that the minister gets advice from them and appreciates that
advice, but the fundamental difference is still there. One was an organization with paid staff serving
large numbers of people, and the others were serving less people without any
paid staff.
I
would like to go back to Community Living and Vocational Rehabilitation and ask
the minister what positions have been eliminated by staff cuts to the civil
service in three areas: behavioural specialists, family services workers and vocational
rehab workers.
Mr. Gilleshammer: My understanding is that we have two fewer
staff in that area.
Mr. Martindale: For clarification of those three areas, there
are two fewer staff?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, that is correct.
Mr. Martindale: Can the minister tell us what he sees as the
role of his department in meeting the needs of aboriginal people with a mental
handicap?
Mr. Gilleshammer: There is an understanding that in
The
example that I am most familiar with of course is the whole area of social
allowances, where there was once an understanding that as aboriginal members
moved off reserve, the federal government were responsible for them for the
first year.
Similarly in child welfare, the federal
government played a larger role there.
In the area of citizens who access programming through this area of the
department, the province is responsible for off‑reserve services to
Status and non‑Status and because this does not come under the CAP cost
sharing, this is a service provided by
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 4.(b) Community Living and Vocational
Rehabilitation Programs (1) Adult Services (a) Salaries $1,110,600‑‑pass;
(b) Other Expenditures $413,400‑‑pass; (c) Financial Assistance and
External Agencies $38,586,800‑‑pass.
4.(b)(2) Children's Special Services (a)
Salaries $223,900.
Mrs. Carstairs: In the last line of this particular appropriation
it talks about Financial Assistance and external. I am presuming that means
External Agencies, but what External Agencies would be covered under this since
none of them are listed?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I am told this is primarily through per diems
and primarily to St. Amant.
Mrs. Carstairs: What kinds of Children's Special Services
would come under that?
Mr. Gilleshammer: This is the way in which we flow money to St.
Amant, that there is a budget line around $13 million or $14 million that is
accessed by St. Amant for individuals who are clients there.
Mrs. Carstairs: I did not really want to get into this one,
but I was shocked when I saw the St. Amant Developmental Day Care program line
under Child Day Care because it was 413.4 in '92‑93 and in '93‑94,
it is 158.2. I would have thought that
would have come in here.
Mr. Gilleshammer: The daycare program at St. Amant is funded
under the Day Care line.
Mrs. Carstairs: But the Day Care line for St. Amant, and we
can discuss it in detail later on, is some $300,000 less than it was last year.
Mr. Gilleshammer: That is correct. As part of the review of the St. Amant Centre
that we did in conjunction with them, there has been a change in the way the
St. Amant Day Care Centre is operated.
In this budget year the advice of that review committee was to treat the
St. Amant Day Care in a similar fashion that we treat other daycares in the
province so that the funding levels for the St. Amant Day Care now reflect the
formula we have for funding all daycares.
Mrs. Carstairs: I do not disagree with that except that I‑‑and
this is where I got confused, because I would have thought that those special
needs for those children within that daycare centre might have shown up under
Children's Special Services, but in fact there is a decline. Where is the money coming from for those
children in the daycare that need Children's Special Services?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Within the global daycare budget there is a
certain amount of funding for special needs children. The funding that flows to the St. Amant
daycare for special needs comes out of that formula in the daycare budget.
Mrs. Carstairs: Would that be in addition to the 158 which is
listed under External Agencies Grants?
* (2030)
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, that is correct.
Mrs. Carstairs: There has been a decline in the financial
assistance. Is this because there are
fewer children being serviced, or is this just a reflection that everybody had
to take less to do that servicing?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Part of the restructuring that St. Amant has
done with their daycare shows some changes in the way which, for instance,
transportation is being handled. There
is a reduction in the transportation allowance, again to reflect the type of
funding that we do with other daycares.
This was worked out with the board of St.
Amant. The changes in that policy to do
with daycare was done in agreement with the St. Amant board.
Mrs. Carstairs: I am now dealing actually with Community
Living and Vocational Rehab Programs under Children's Special Services. There
has been a decline in the Financial Assistance line from 20.6 to 20.5. Is that as a result of fewer children, or is
that as a result of just the downsizing that everybody has been asked to do?
Mr. Gilleshammer: That is part of a budget reduction of 2
percent on the per diems.
Mrs. Carstairs: The 2 percent in per diems for special
services?
Mr. Gilleshammer: For clients of St. Amant.
Mrs. Carstairs: So St. Amant is now receiving less grant to
look after the same child?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The 2 percent is a reduction in the global
figure that we flowed to St. Amant.
Again, I go back to this major review we did in co‑operation with
St. Amant. Part of it was to determine
how they should be funded.
There was some line of thinking that thought
St. Amant should be funded as a hospital.
There was another line of thinking that thought they should be just
funded on per diems. We also had to deal
with an accumulated deficit.
The
outcome and the changes that are taking place in St. Amant are minimal. We have flowed additional money, I think
around $350,000, to deal with an accumulated deficit. Part of our treatment of St. Amant is similar
to other organizations where we have asked them to take 2 percent less and to
find that within their salary structure.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 4.(b)(2) Children's Special Services (a)
Salaries $223,900‑‑pass; (b) Other Expenditures $83,700‑‑pass;
(c) Financial Assistance and External Agencies $20,590,500‑‑pass.
4.(c) Manitoba Developmental Centre (1)
Salaries $20,371,900.
Mrs. Carstairs: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, with regard to MDC, I
think that all MLAs received a recent letter with regard to the staffing
problems or as this individual indicates.
Is it normal for a staff person at MDC to work between six and eight
days in a row straight without a day off?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Well, I am not aware of what correspondence
the member is referring to, but no, it is not a normal practice. We abide by
the civil service guidelines as far as staffing goes.
Mrs. Carstairs: Well, in this particular case, they refer to
Monday to a Sunday shift as a regular type of occurrence‑‑Monday,
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday‑‑and they
admit they then get four days off. My
understanding is that is contrary to the labour code.
Mr. Gilleshammer: We are not aware of that and my limited
experience in terms of what the civil service guidelines are, it appears to me
that there are opportunities within there to raise a grievance over an issue
like that. I would be surprised if
government did not have an appeal process following that if the person's
concerns had not been addressed.
Mrs. Carstairs: Well, I just give it to the minister because
I received it as correspondence and would ask that they look into it just to
ensure that this kind of thing is not in fact going on at MDC.
The
Supplementary Estimates indicate that there has been a decrease in staff years
which reflects workforce adjustments. It
would appear that there has been essentially 10 staff, I think, reduced in this
staff years reduced. There does not seem
to be a corresponding reduction in the number of clients at MDC. What does this workforce adjustment refer to?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Yes, there is a reduction, I believe, of nine
positions at MDC. I can give you a bit
of a breakdown of those if you like. I
am told that four and a half of the positions are from within the nursing
department, and there have been retirements and resignations there. We are redeploying two positions back into
that area from what was called the transitional unit. One position in the vocational training
department was recently vacated as a result of a promotion, and workshop
supervision and program management will be maintained by redeploying one
position from the transitional unit.
I
do not know whether I have to go into the transitional unit. There has been a unit there preparing
individuals‑‑and it was called the transitional unit‑‑for
transitioning out of the institution.
We
are reassigning that staff because of the fact that a number of these
individuals are part of the pilot project that we talked about before, and we
felt that the transitional unit at this time was not necessary. So the positions that we are downsizing in
MDC, nine of them, a number of them, are being covered off by members from the
transitional unit.
Mrs. Carstairs: There have been a number of significant
structural changes at MDC over the last six or seven years, all of them
desperately overdue. I have to say that,
having been at MDC in the mid‑'60s and having gone back to it again this
summer, there was positive upgrading and the government should be
congratulated.
My
first impression, having gone to MDC, was that I wanted to remove all of the
clients and I wanted to blow the place up.
I
was back this summer, and I must admit I had a more positive feeling about the
type of physical plant. I always felt
the staff was very competent and doing a very good job, but I must say that I
thought the physical plant left a great deal to be desired. And pat people on the back when they deserve
it. The government deserves a pat on the back.
Mr. Gilleshammer: I thank you for that, and I will be certain
that staff pass that along to the staff at MDC.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 4.(c)
4.(d) Child Day Care (1) Salaries $1,818,900.
Mr. Martindale: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I think we will be
here for quite a while. Probably till
midnight.
I
have a number of excellent letters‑‑
* (2040)
Mr. Gilleshammer: Could I just ask if you wish to stay on this
till midnight there is a possibility that some staff do not have to remain here
if we are not going into child welfare?
And if you want to change your mind‑‑
Mr. Martindale: We may get into Child and Family Services.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Okay.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Would you just stay in the one level though,
at the administration level and that, or‑‑
Mr. Martindale: I would like to ask all my questions on Child
Day Care all at once, of course giving some time to the other critic.
I
am in receipt of some excellent correspondence from people who are very
involved either as parents or board members or staff in child care
centres. I would like to quote from some
of this correspondence because I think it makes a case that I have been trying
to make in Question Period without success, mainly having to do with the impact
of the changes announced by the minister, particularly the increase in fees and
the capping of subsidized spaces.
The
first letter I would like to quote from is from the law firm, Wilder, Wilder
and Langtry.. Langtry kind of rings a
bell. As the letterhead points out, he
is on leave of absence. However, one of his colleagues there, Leslie Tough, has
sent an excellent letter on behalf of the‑‑actually, she is writing
in her capacity of treasurer of the board of directors of Little Bo‑Peep
Children's Day Nursery Inc.
I
would like to quote some of the facts that she presents. She says that Bo‑Peep
daycare is presently licensed for 32 spaces.
However, she says: We have 40
children in attendance, because many share a space due to the part‑time
requirements of their parents. This is
largely a reflection of the current economic and employment climate where
parents are either unable to secure full‑time employment or have been cut
back to part‑time hours by their employers. Thus, the sharing of spaces meets a real need
in our community and in particular for those families who are already
experiencing financial difficulties.
These are people who cannot afford daycare without a subsidy.
We
were originally told that we had been allocated 25 subsidized spaces pursuant
to the recent policy of the provincial government limiting the number of
subsidized spaces permitted. This created a very difficult situation, but our
director felt that we could try to cope with it. However, this was recently changed to cases,
meaning children. Obviously, this
results in a disastrous situation for the daycare and the parents. We will no longer be able to provide part‑time
care for subsidized parents. We will be unable to fill up all of our 32
licensed spaces. The result will be a
loss of revenue to the daycare and probable staff layoffs.
The
purpose of this letter is to draw your attention to this situation and to
respectfully request a reconsideration of the allocation of our subsidized
cases. We do understand the current
economic situation, but the course taken by the
Mr.
Deputy Chairperson, I would like to begin by asking the minister if the facts
as presented in this letter are the same as what the minister has been saying
in the House. This individual is saying
that they are going to be forced to reduce the number of children in their
child care, and the implication is that they are going to have to lay off
staff.
I
would like to ask the minister if the reason for this is not that‑‑in
the past, two and sometimes more children were sharing one space‑‑that
this will no longer be true and each case will refer to one child.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, what we are doing, as
I have indicated to my honourable friend on a number of occasions, is making a
slight reduction in the number of children who are receiving subsidies. In this particular case, and in all cases, we
have looked at the number of children who are in that daycare who are being
subsidized and have been subsidized over the last number of months. The average change is that we will subsidize
one less child than was subsidized there before.
I
think part of the misunderstanding that the member has is if a daycare had 32
spaces, in the past they were eligible to be subsidized for those 32
spaces. What we have done in terms of
downsizing it is to look at the actuals; and, if they actually had 25 children
subsidized there before, we have indicated that we could subsidize 24
children. So there should not be, by
following that logic, a great disruption for any one centre.
I
tell the member, as I have told him in the past, we are capping the system at 9,600. That is‑‑I do not know what the
percentage works out to be‑‑but a slight downsizing by attrition of
the number of subsidized children that we will accommodate in the coming
year. We have indicated that individual
parents can work with the daycare directorate, and we will promise to give fair
treatment to all who want to access the system.
I
think the confusion in the numbers is the difference between what they were
eligible for before and what their actual number of subsidized children in any
particular centre was over the last number of months. So, in changing the system, and we have got
400 or 500 centres that have subsidized children, we in doing this will not
impact any one organization to any great extent.
Mr. Martindale: In the past I have heard the minister explain
the changes as reducing the number of spaces or cases by one child on
average. This time the minister said one
less. I would like the minister to clarify
the difference between reducing the number by one less or one less on average,
and his explanation just now that there is a difference between what they were
eligible for and the actual number of children.
Mr. Gilleshammer: Maybe start with that first, that all of the
daycares are licensed for a maximum number of spaces, and because there was no
capping of subsidies before, that means that all centres and homes were
eligible for as many subsidies as they had spaces. In restructuring and making a small
downsizing of the system, we want to be sure that there is not any daycare centre
or daycare home that is impacted by more than one or two subsidized children so
that there is a sense of fairness to this.
Now, the centres and the homes always have had
a component of children within them that were full fee paying children. I recognize that there were some centres
where there was a greater number of subsidized children, and we are aware of
that and we do not want to impact them anymore than we would impact any other
centre. So, on average, the centres will
not have more than one or two fewer subsidized children.
Mr. Martindale: I thank the minister for that explanation,
and I will certainly be reading it in Hansard to see if I totally understand it
and agree with it and will also be sending it to Little Bo‑Peep
Children's Day Nursery.
I
would like to ask the minister to consider a couple of particular sentences in
this letter and see whether he agrees or not.
Leslie Tough says, quote: We will
no longer be able to provide part‑time care for subsidized parents. Is that true or not?
Mr. Gilleshammer: There has been no regulation change that
would prevent them from providing part‑time care.
* (2050)
Mr. Martindale: The next sentence reads: We will be unable to fill up all of our 32
licensed spaces. Is that true or untrue
in the minister's judgment?
Mr. Gilleshammer: Well, there are 400, 500 centres, and some of
them have vacancies. They will not have
more subsidies than they had in the past.
They will be eligible for one or two fewer.
As the
world changes out there, people may make decisions to have their children in a
different daycare for a variety of reasons.
Maybe they have moved. Maybe
there is some particular reason that they want their child in a different
daycare, but certainly it is the responsibility of the board and the centre to
attract children and parents to use that centre.
If
they find that there are fewer people wanting care at that particular centre,
certainly they will have to make staff adjustments, just as they have had to
make staff adjustments if their enrollment rises. I mean, that is what the public school system
is doing all the time.
I
understand in the St. James‑Assiniboia School Division that they have
closed 12 schools. I think it is fair to
say that there has been a drop in enrollment and a corresponding decrease in
the staff.
So
there is no guarantee anywhere that all centres will always be full. So there is competition out there, and I am
sure the member will agree that parents will make the decision that is best for
their children and best for their family.
If they decide to go to a different centre, that is their decision.
So
there are always changes at the end of a school year as children graduate from
a daycare and move on to the public school system. There is always, I guess, that pressure on
the centre to try and backfill those spaces.
We are saying that they will have the ability to have nearly as many
subsidies as they had before.
Mr. Martindale: I am also in receipt of a copy of a letter to
the Premier (Mr. Filmon) written on behalf of Inkster Community Child Care
Inc., Maples Day Care, Splash Child Care, Keep Childcare Inc., Sugar‑N‑Spice,
Champlain School Age Centre, Champlain preschool and SPLLASH. They have done a survey of those child care
centres and have discovered that, out of the eight centres polled in Winnipeg
North, we have lost access to 119 potential subsidized cases.
I
would like to ask the minister if he feels that that is an accurate assessment
of those eight centres?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I cannot do the arithmetic for you right
here, but my previous answer should give the member an understanding of
this. If they are licensed for 32
spaces, 40 spaces, their stance on this is that they were eligible for that
many subsidies before. That is true
because we had no cap on subsidies.
Now
what we have done is taken the number of subsidized children that they have had
over the last six months and have indicated that we will be sure that they are
still able, as long as they attract those children, to have the same number of
subsidized children less one or two.
Mr. Martindale: I think these child care centres would beg to
differ. They feel that they have lost
119 potential subsidized cases in their area.
One of the implications for them is a rise in the numbers of latchkey
children. They say: "Parents will leave children to their
own means, and we will see ever rising numbers of latch key children at an
earlier and earlier age".
Does the minister agree that due to the lack of
subsidized spaces, even if, as the minister says, it averages one per centre,
that there are going to be children who are not going to be able to access
child care who will be left at home unattended?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I think the member is getting some
understanding of the difference between the eligible spaces, which were
eligible for subsidy in the past.
Centres that were licensed consider all of those spaces to have been
eligible for subsidy; in fact, that is true in that there was no limit on the number
of subsidies that a centre could access before.
So
we are saying that we have taken a snapshot in time and that those centres can
access the same number of subsidized children less one or two so that they
should be able to maintain the subsidies that they were accessing before with
that small caveat.
That is where the difference is coming. I mean, you can add the number of centres,
and if you have more centres, there were more potential subsidized spaces. We, for the first time, have put some limits
on the number of children that we will provide subsidy for, and we have
indicated that they can work with our daycare staff to make arrangements for
their child care. What the member is
saying has always been true: the parents
will make the decision.
The
parents will make the decision about where their children will receive care,
and surely the critic is saying that decision should not be lodged elsewhere.
Mr. Martindale: Does the minister agree with the eight
centres in north
Mr. Gilleshammer: The parents have the primary responsibility
for making arrangements for their children, and I am confident that the
majority of them will make the correct decision.
Mr. Martindale: I hope that the minister sees the connection
between his policies and what is actually going to happen to some individuals
out in the community.
The
eight centres in north
That is their question, and it is a good
question.
Mr. Gilleshammer: If they have written a letter to me, we will
be sure to answer that for them. What
the member is indicating is that he disagrees with the capping of the
subsidies.
What would happen if we had not done that is
we would continue to be overexpending our daycare budget. Last year, we overexpended that budget by $5
million, and we spent in excess of $50 million on child daycare. Particularly, the major expenditure is in the
area of subsidies.
* (2100)
One
of the advantages of opposition, of course, is that the member can advocate
that we overexpend our budget, but we simply cannot do that.
The
member can look at what is happening in other provinces and see what the longer‑term
results are if in fact you do not live within your budget and you constantly
have these overexpenditures. So I think
that it is important that the member factor that into his thinking.
The
member has not offered alternatives of how we could live within those
budgets. If the member would want us to
reduce the grants, then we would have additional room to pay subsidies. If the member is saying there are savings
elsewhere in daycare, then we could have additional subsidies, but what we are
trying to do is live within a budget of some $47.5 million in daycare. That is $1 million more than last year's
budget.
What we are trying to do is prevent the
overexpenditure of that budget. When
subsidies are available on demand, that is what happens. That is why we were over budget by $5 million
last year. So that is our objective. We are trying to do this in the fairest way
possible so that no centre will be adversely impacted.
The
member did have a glimmer in his eye; I think he has an understanding of what numbers
the centres are giving him as the number of spaces that they were eligible
for. What we are looking at was the
actuals from the last six months, and tried to make a small reduction from that
actual. This is where a big part of the
misunderstanding comes in, and I think that, if the member can grasp that, he
can do a lot to allay the fears of those centres that the amount of dollars
they are going to access through subsidy should not be a whole lot different
from what it was the previous year, provided there is a need in that centre for
subsidized spaces.
Mr. Martindale: I have a letter from the Funshine Day Care
Center Inc. in
Then they make a special case for smaller
centres and parents who live in rural areas, and point out that, unlike urban
areas, rural areas have fewer licensed facilities, and, therefore, parents have
fewer centres to find subsidized spaces in.
They also point out that wages are generally lower in the rural
community; therefore, a large number of people eligible for subsidy will be
vying for a few subsidized spots.
Thirdly, rural daycare centres tend to have many part‑time
users. The author, Lisa Hicks, the
director of the centre, says: I feel
part‑time users should be able to share a subsidized case.
As
a result of this change in policy, will part‑time users be able to
continue to share a subsidized space?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I have referred to the subsidies in terms of
the number of children that were accessing subsidies before, and I do not know
how many licensed spaces they have in that particular daycare, but if they were
accessing subsidies for 20 children on average over the last six months, they
would now be eligible for nearly that many.
As I have indicated to the member, we are going to do this by
attrition. We are going to try and
manage it so that the average is respected and we will not impact any one
centre to any great degree.
I
am seemingly having trouble getting the member to accept that, and I think it
goes back to the distortion of the system that occurs when you accept that all
of those spaces that they are licensed for were eligible for subsidy before,
that no centre will be impacted by more than one or two subsidized spaces.
Mr. Martindale: Just to make the Clerk of Committee's job easier,
I would like to make the point out that I tabled the letter on the letterhead
of Inkster Community Child Care Inc. on behalf of eight child care centres.
(Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Deputy
Chairperson, in the Chair)
In
the case of the Funshine Day Care Center in Virden, they say that they have 25
cases allotted to their centre, and currently have 27 subsidized children. Does that mean that they are going to lose
two children to their centre?
Mr. Gilleshammer: The information I am given is they are
licensed for 35. The six‑month
average was 25 subsidized children; they have been allocated 25.
Mr. Martindale: I would like to ask a general question based
on the minister's answers and this correspondence. I am wondering if, since these decisions were
made a few weeks ago, and child care centres, hopefully, have had a chance to
study them, does the minister believe that child care centres now understand
the changes and why the policy is being made?
The
correspondence that I have suggests that there is still a lot of confusion out
there, although these letters were written‑‑April 21 in one case,
April 21 in another case, I have an undated letter, and April 30. One of them at least is fairly recent. Do you think that the child care community
understands these changes now and how they were arrived at?
Mr. Gilleshammer: I am given information by my staff that there
is a greater understanding of the system now than there was probably when those
letters were written. I guess that is
understandable in that we have had an opportunity to have some face‑to‑face
meetings with centre directors and boards, and that we have been able to return
some of the correspondence that has come forward on this issue.
I
guess maybe it is fair to say that the communication that has taken place
through the press based on comments that are made by honourable members in some
cases served to make the understanding of the issues a little more
difficult. The Day Care office has had
an opportunity now to meet with those directors and, as I have indicated,
return some of the correspondence. Of
course, there are those who put their own interpretation on the changes to suit
their own purposes. Sometimes that plus the communications, because it is
delivered through the media, does not give that accurate picture of the changes
that we are making.
So
we have tried to have as many meetings as possible with daycare centres, their
staff, and to provide them with some understanding of the changes.
Mr. Martindale: Since the minister and his staff seem to have
a lot of detailed information at their fingertips, I would like to ask him
about the Winkler Day Care Centre. They
have written a letter to the editor of local newspapers and pointed out: There is a cap on the number of subsidized
cases each centre can accommodate. For
Winkler Day Care Centre, the cap is at 34.
We currently have a caseload of 41.
This is because rural centres have always had more part‑time
children in care.
I
wonder if the minister could tell us what the changes are at the Winkler Day
Care Centre.
Mr. Gilleshammer: The centre that the member references, I am
told, is licensed for 36; the average subsidized caseload or number of children
is 34; and their allocation is 34.
Mr. Martindale: I would like to go on and quote from this
letter to the editor some more because they talk about the impact of
changes. We may disagree on how the
changes were arrived at, but I am convinced that the impact is, as these child
care centres say.
This one is, I think, particularly worth
reading into the record. They say, and I
quote: These funding cuts will cost the
government more money. Parents who are
unable to access a space because of the cap on spaces will not be able to take
jobs. Parents who are unable to pay the extra $1.40 per day per child are
quitting their jobs. For these families
social assistance is the only alternative.
For a family of two parents and two preschool children, $1,180 lies
within the range of monthly social assistance benefits. The cost of child care for the same family,
even if they are fully subsidized, is $696.
In addition, working parents pay taxes.
Without question these funding changes contradict the very reason they
were implemented. They will cost the
taxpayer more money.
* (2110)
I
would like to ask the minister if he believes that is true. They are giving two different scenarios. One is a parent who is employed and the
children are in a fully subsidized space.
They also point out that parent who is working is paying taxes. The other scenario is that the parent is on
social assistance, and they quote an amount of $1,180 for social
assistance. Does the minister agree with
this letter which says that it will cost the government, cost taxpayers, more
money to pay this family social assistance than to subsidize their child care.
Mr. Gilleshammer: It is difficult to talk about specific parts
of that letter without looking at the total letter and putting it in
context. But let me refer to these
numbers again. They have 36 licensed spaces. They had 34 subsidized children. They will continue to have 34 subsidized
children. So I am not sure that the
catastrophic results that the member is referring to are going to happen here;
they are going to have the same number of subsidized children today and later
that they had over the last six months.
So the member can get into talking about whether people are better off
working or whether there is a cost to the system if they are on social
allowances. That is a completely
different argument, and one that we got into under the social allowances.
What we are saying is, the confusion in the mind of the member still revolves around the number of spaces that they were eligible for before, because they were eligible to have subsidized children in all their spaces. There is no great impact on this centre. So to talk about people having to be referred to social all