1987 Legislative Session: 1st Session, 34th Parliament

HANSARD

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.

The printed version remains the official version.

Official Report of

DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

(Hansard)

TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 1987

Afternoon Sitting

[ Page

353 ]

CONTENTS

Routine Proceedings

The Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Conflict of Interest Act (Bill M201).

Mr. Sihota

Introduction and first reading –– 353

Oral Questions

Layoffs in B.C. steel industry, Mr. Harcourt –– 354

Mr. Rose

Ministerial travel expenses. Mr. Williams –– 355

Provincial Museum whaling sculpture. Mr. Huberts –– 355

Ministerial travel expenses. Mr. Williams –– 356

Regulations at uranium mine site. Hon. Mr. Davis replies to question –– 356

Tabling Documents –– 356

Interim funding for social services contract consultants. Hon. Mr. Richmond replies to question –– 356

Committee of Supply: Ministry of Social Services and Housing estimates. (Hon. Mr.

Richmond)

On vote 56: minister's office –– 356

Hon. Mr. Richmond

Mr. Cashore

Ms. Marzari

Ms. A. Hagen

Mr. Loenen

Mr. Rabbitt

Mr. Blencoe

Mrs. Boone

Appendix –– 377

The House met at 2:08 p.m.

Prayers.

HON. MR. PARKER :

I'd like to introduce to you today, sir, and through you to the House,

my constituency secretary, Mrs. Chris Shaffer, from Terrace; friends

from Stewart, Bonnie Kennedy and Jack Elsworth; and a friend of ours

from Cranbrook, Mrs. Sandra Hodgson. Would the House make them welcome,

please.

MR. JONES : Seated in the House today are

some 45 grade 11 students from Burnaby North Senior Secondary School

and their teacher, Mr. L. Cooper. They've traveled all this way today

in making these young people feel very welcome.

HON. MR. STRACHAN :

Would you please welcome my wife Beverley, who is visiting with us

today in the precincts and maybe even the House, although I don't see

her. I'd also like to ask the House to welcome Evelyne Fahselt, a guide

outfitter and president of the Guide-Outfitters Association of British

Columbia; Midge and Barry Brandow, who are guide outfitters from Grand

Forks; Keith Connors, a guide outfitter and past president of the

association from Victoria; and Don Caldwell, who is executive director

of the Guide Outfitters' Association of British Columbia.

MS. CAMPBELL :

Mr. Speaker, every year your office and this House sponsor the program

for legislative interns. Today a number of young people are visiting

Victoria in order to be interviewed to become legislative interns in

1988; a number of them are in the gallery. But more particularly, I'd

like to remark that this is a very successful program in which young

university graduates become familiar with the caucuses and with the

bureaucracy, and some of us are very fortunate to have graduates of

that program working for us. So I'd like to ask the House to welcome

those who are here to be interviewed today, and more particularly my

constituency assistant and former legislative intern, Nancy Peck.

HON. L. HANSON :

In the gallery today we have several mayors. From the riding of

Okanagan North: Her Worship Anne Clarke, mayor of Vernon; His Worship

Dave Simpson, mayor of Lumby; His Worship Ernie Palfrey, mayor of

Coldstream; and from Shuswap, His Worship Terry Fergus, mayor of

Enderby. We also have in the gallery Mr. Greg Schroeder, president of

the Vernon and District Chamber of Commerce. Would the House please

make them welcome.

MR. CHALMERS : It's my pleasure to

introduce two very special people: my mother, Jean Chalmers, from

Enderby, and her dear friend Edna Cope from Vancouver. Would you please

make them welcome.

Also in your gallery, Mr. Speaker, we have two members of the delegation down

to talk about the importance of the early completion of the Coquihalla Highway.

I'd like you to welcome Chief Robert Louie of the Westbank Indian band,

accompanied by Bruce Hollett, who is the Westbank Chamber of Commerce president.

MR. SERWA :

I would like two special people in the gallery to stand up: Norm

Stevenson, president of the Kelowna Chamber of Commerce, and William

Dobbin, rookie alderman from the municipality of Peachland. Would the

House please make them welcome,

MR. DE JONG : It

gives me great pleasure, as a result of the visit of our Premier to

California and the efforts on behalf of the Minister of Tourism, to

have in the House today Gwen and Bill Chavarria from Visalia,

California.

MR. RABBITT : I have with us today two

members from the great riding of Yale-Lillooet: from Princeton, the

southeast corner, Mayor Gloria Stout; and from the centre of my riding,

Mayor Harry Kroeker. I ask the House to give them a warm welcome.

HON. MR. REID :

We have in the precincts today, from the dynamic Surrey-White

Rock-Cloverdale constituency, Mr. Ike Unger, who is here to witness the

estimates of the Minister of Social Services and Housing (Hon. Mr.

Richmond). Would the House make him welcome.

Introduction of Bills

THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY

AND EXECUTIVE COUNCIL

CONFLICT OF INTEREST ACT

Mr. Sihota presented a bill intituled The Legislative Assembly and Executive Council Conflict of Interest Act.

MR. SIHOTA :

The purpose of this legislation is to provide some leadership in trying

to resolve the perplexing problem of conflict of interest and full

disclosure. The bill that we're introducing today recognizes that

people with business interests should be allowed to participate in

politics, but sets out some very clear rules for that participation. It

takes into account the comments made by the comptroller general in his

report yesterday with respect to full disclosure; it takes away the

ability of the Premier to be judge, jury and executioner on conflict of

interest and places that matter squarely before the courts; it

establishes a clear set of penalties for violation of the

conflict-of-interest legislation; it places strict limits on lobbying

after leaving office; and it states clearly that one cannot serve on

municipal bodies while being a member of this chamber.

[2:15]

Mr.

Speaker, it is clear to me that the events not just of the last few

days but of the last few months demonstrate that the government has

serious problems in dealing with matters of conflict of interest and

full disclosure. It is clear to me that the Premier in particular does

not understand the need to have clear disclosure and

conflict-of-interest guidelines, and that clear guidelines are required

that have the force of law.

Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, we

are proud, as New Democrats, to introduce this bill and would hope that

the government sees fit to embrace the legislation we're placing before

the House today.

Bill M201 introduced, read a first time

and ordered to be placed on orders of the day for second reading at the

next sitting of the House after today.

[ Page 354 ]

HON. MR. STRACHAN :

Just for the member's benefit and, I guess, for all our benefits,

practice recommendation No. 5, which allows a statement accompanying a

bill, says it should be for two minutes and simply to explain the

purpose of the bill. I don't notice any comments here about entering

into debate. That's something I would commend to all members.

Now I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if I might have leave to make a further introduction.

Leave granted.

HON. MR. STRACHAN :

I have another birthday. The horoscope says you are dynamic,

independent, creative, sensitive, determined and stubborn. How

appropriate. Would you please wish many happy returns of the day to the

Minister of Education (Hon. Mr. Brummet).

Oral Questions

LAYOFFS IN B.C. STEEL INDUSTRY

MR. HARCOURT :

Mr. Speaker, I understand that Western Canada Steel in Richmond is

laying off 65 workers because of the dumping of Mexican steel. I'd like

to ask the Premier if he has taken any steps to get the federal

government to protect this very important local industry from Mexican

steel — Mexican steel which is being dumped into British Columbia at $100 per tonne less than in Mexico.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM :

Mr. Speaker, the provincial government previously has assisted this

particular industry, through the critical industries commissioner.

We're very pleased that through that particular initiative we were able

to keep people employed and to keep the plant in production.

Unfortunately — and the member is correct — we've seen the

dumping of steel from other areas, which certainly has affected the

marketability of the product from this particular plant. Upon hearing

that, perhaps a month ago now, I immediately made contact with the Hon.

Pat Carney in Ottawa, and I've had further correspondence with her

since the initial letter, and they appear to be addressing it, although

I haven't had anything conclusive as yet. But we will certainly pursue

it again.

MR. HARCOURT : A supplementary. Mr.

Premier, I'm aware that you have had those contacts and that the hon.

member from Little Mountain has sent a telegram about this particular

matter. But Algoma Steel had to wait two years for a tribunal to deal

with it. That's not going to help Western Canada Steel. I'm wondering

if you have pressed for immediate action by the federal government to

save those jobs of your constituents.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM : Mr. Speaker, I've not only pressed for that,

but I've also outlined to Ottawa that in fact normally the process takes

215 days from the time of a complaint being filed until it goes through the

process and is acted upon by the federal authorities. Unfortunately, during

that period the offender or the alleged offender can continue to ship, and there

is no retroactive penalty should they be found to be in error or to in fact

be dumping, as was suggested. This is being considered by the ministry in Ottawa;

they've acknowledged this, and they are attempting to expedite. So really

the information I'm waiting for now is how quickly they can act on this.

Perhaps there's something in the office now; if not, there should be soon.

MR. HARCOURT : Specifically, Mr. Premier, are you pushing for a change to the process in Canada, where the delays are cut out —

the method that's used in other countries where the dumping is stopped

immediately? Have we moved to that kind of process to protect our

industries? Are you pushing for those specific reforms for all

industries that are threatened by dumping?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM :

Mr. Speaker, the answer is yes, we are, in that we're aware the federal

process is definitely taking too long in addressing these, and it's one

of these issues that will not only be taken up or has been taken up by

me but will similarly be addressed by the council of federal and

provincial ministers, which we expect will be meeting very soon.

MR. ROSE : I wonder if the Premier is aware — because he has been promoting a buy–British Columbia, buy-Canathan policy —

that a large number of the drilling rigs that are, operating in the

interior of British Columbia are using vast amounts of Korean steel as

opposed to Canadian steel in their operation.

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM :

Mr. Speaker, certainly I don't suppose we want to be parochial

entirely, and I think perhaps we ought to take into consideration that

many of these industries that are wanting to operate in British

Columbia must be competitive in order to provide the jobs and keep the

people employed. If in fact they are able to secure a better

arrangement from Japan or Korea because of its closeness or because

it's cheaper to ship the material.... I think we need to keep in mind

as well that when we look at what we sell to the Pacific Rim countries

and the number of jobs that are provided in various industries because

we're able to sell to these Pacific Rim countries, we can't be cutting

them off or shutting them out in favour of perhaps a central Canadian

firm where in fact we don't have that big a market for some of the

products. If, on the other hand, the product can be supplied by a B C.

firm, then we would like, if at all possible, to provide the

opportunity there. Again, that is something that will be actively

pursued through the Ministry of Economic Development in a variety of

ways.

MR. ROSE : I'd just like to ask one final question. I understand that we have to trade and we have to diversify — there's no argument there. But many countries — Mexico, Australia and a number of others —

have arrangements in their manufacturing.... Certainly they buy from

foreign countries; but they also have a policy called sourcing. We have

it in our Auto Pact. An equivalent amount to the amount sold in a

particular country — it could be Canada — is actually manufactured in Canada. Has the minister considered that as an industrial strategy?

HON. MR. VANDER ZALM :

The Auto Pact is covered by an agreement between Canada and the U. S.

We don't have such an agreement ourselves with any country, on the

Pacific Rim or otherwise, and couldn't have, unless we could have

[ Page

355 ]

this initiated federally. So no, there is nothing like this in place now, and

we've not pursued it.

MINISTERIAL TRAVEL EXPENSES

MR. WILLIAMS :

I have a question for the Provincial Secretary. On page 4 of his report

yesterday, the comptroller general indicated, regarding travel advances

for the former Minister of Forests and Lands, that they "could find no

record" of requests or recalls "by the Ministry of the Provincial

Secretary which issued these advances, nor any record that they had

been repaid." Can the Provincial Secretary advise the House why there

was no monitoring of these substantial advances?

HON. MR. VEITCH :

The comptroller in the Provincial Secretary ministry does the

comptrolling, as you know, for the Legislative Assembly and the

Speaker's office, and as such is comptroller for parliamentary

secretaries' expenses — as was also the custom, I'm sure, back

when you were a minister, hon. member. Some travel advances are given

out in advance of a minister or parliamentary secretary travelling. In

practically all cases the particular minister or parliamentary

secretary has more outstanding debt owing to him at that time than the

amount of the advance. In the case of the hon. member for Omineca (Mr.

Kempf), I asked a few weeks ago, just as a matter of routine, to have

all of these advances brought before me so that I could examine them,

and in fact two days ago I noticed that there was an amount

outstanding; I believe it was some $5,600.

Every person

that has an advance.... Sometimes a parliamentary secretary will

transfer from one ministry to the other or a minister indeed will

transfer from one ministry to the other. They normally just transfer

that indebtedness and they sign that they owe that, the same as a

promissory note.

As far as the member for Omineca goes, I

have asked my staff to get back to me and to tell me whether or not

that promissory note was indeed signed. I'll report back further as

soon as I find that out.

MR. WILLIAMS : Mr. Speaker,

I don't think I had an answer in terms of why there is not a monitoring

of these advances. Can the minister advise us if he has monitored all

advances now under his jurisdiction?

HON. MR. VEITCH :

Yes, I am sorry. There is a monitoring of all advances. Each year the

comptroller in my office, as far as those things that report to that

comptrollership, sends out a request to confirm that the amount is

outstanding. If you had any amount outstanding as a result of a trip or

anything, we'd do the same confirmation for each member of the

Legislative Assembly.

Additional letters are sent out asking if the confirmation isn't received

in time, and that, I am assured, is done on a regular basis; but if it is not,

I have also asked them to ensure that they look very closely on any of these

things in the future. I have looked over all of these outstanding advances and

I see nothing untoward. Every individual has signed for them. I am not completely

sure on all of the ones for the member for Omineca, but I will advise the House

very shortly on that one. They are completely monitored.

MR. WILLIAMS :

Mr. Speaker, the comptroller-general says clearly, "We could find no

record of them being recalled," which is the duty of your ministry.

HON. MR. VEITCH :

The hon. member sometimes doesn't understand things too well. These are

travel advances and the expenses continue to go on, so normally, let's

say out of a $500 travel advance, sometimes you might have $500 or $600

that you've spent on a particular amount of travel. There would always

be a cheque outstanding owing to a member or owing to a minister.

these are simply travel advances and you transfer those things. All you

do is certify that you indeed owe that amount of money to the Crown. It

is no different than a promissory note or a travel advance that you

would have when you were in office, hon. member. So you don’t recall

them unless the member moves from that position, unless they are no

longer in the position of parliamentary secretary, or unless they're no

longer in a position of minister, or unless indeed they pay them back,

or you think there is something untoward about them. They're not

recalled; they're simple travel expenses the same as they are in any

industry or any government anywhere. They are monitored, they are

checked, and they're not recalled, because it's an ongoing amount of

money that keeps rolling over.

MR. WILLIAMS : Clearly these things, then, can balloon. A balloon credit system —

is that what you're operating in your ministry, where these things can

expand? Clearly the numbers were very substantial. They weren't dealt

with; they weren't recalled. Clearly there was inadequate performance

in your department. Have you dealt with those inadequacies?

HON. MR. VEITCH :

I would suggest if the hon. member wanted to understand, maybe he

would, but he clearly doesn't. It's an outstanding travel advance. He

knows what it is. He's merely trying to confuse the House, and that's

all there is to it.

PROVINCIAL MUSEUM WHALING SCULPTURE

MR. HUBERTS :

To the Minister of Tourism, Recreation and Culture. There have been and

continue to be a number of concerns expressed to me about the removal

of the whaling sculpture from the foyer of the Provincial Museum. Is

the minister aware of these concerns, and is there anything that can be

done that will see this popular and rather dramatic sculpture put back

on public display?

[2:30]

HON. MR. REID :

Dealing with the question of the sculpture being removed from the lobby

of the museum, one of the problems we have with our museum in Victoria

is that it's the most successfully attended museum in North America.

With 1.6 million people going through that lobby last year — and we anticipate a further increase this year —

the structure in the lobby was creating a hazard, so it was incumbent

upon us to relocate it. In the meantime, we've provided ongoing

facilities and museum artifacts which are drawing further people into

that facility. We are going to provide to the artist another location,

probably in proximity to the other native Indian artifacts which are to

the east of the museum at the moment.

[ Page 356 ]

a result of that sculpture and others and the attendance at the

Victoria museum, we have a legacy of that museum at the Southwest

Museum in Los Angeles, which is attracting record crowds on behalf of a

legacy from this museum of similar attractions, bringing tourists back

to the province of British Columbia.

So the answer to your

question, hon. member, is that the artifact will be on display

somewhere in the vicinity of the museum in Victoria sometime in the

future.

MINISTERIAL TRAVEL EXPENSES

MR. WILLIAMS :

To the Provincial Secretary. If this monitoring is going on that the

minister says has been going on, can the minister advise us why these

problems weren't caught a year ago or at an earlier stage?

HON. MR. VEITCH :

The hon. member perceives a problem, I guess. But as far as we're

concerned, hon. member, if the amount is ratified by a member as owing,

unless there's some compelling reason to ask the member to return it,

such as leaving the ministry or leaving his job as a parliamentary

secretary, normally — and I'll explain it one more time to you —

the amount of money would simply roll over as an expense account, and

it would be an advance. It's generally very little. I wasn't aware of

the amount, as far as the member for Omineca was concerned, until two

days ago when just as a normal course of events I had asked the

comptroller to bring any of these to my attention. These are normally

only moneys that were transferred into ministers' accounts when they

were parliamentary secretaries, and they simply roll it over and put it

into the ministry account, and we still keep them on our books.

Hon. Mr. Couvelier tabled answers to two questions. [See appendix.]

REGULATIONS AT URANIUM MINESITE

HON. MR. DAVIS :

Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Minister of Environment (Hon. Mr. Strachan)

took on notice a question which gives me an opportunity to describe how

the new uranium guidelines work. I want to thank the hon. member for

Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood) for asking the question.

Whenever a company looking for uranium, or indeed for any other

mineral, discovers either uranium or thorium in amounts exceeding the

Canadian health standards, they are obliged to report that fact, and

then automatically the area in question is designated for control, and

baseline studies are required before any further exploration or

development occurs. The area which the member mentioned does not

contain significant amounts of uranium or thorium, but we will be

monitoring the situation there.

Hon. B.R. Smith tabled the audited consolidated financial statement of the B.C. Steamship Company Ltd.

INTERIM FUNDING FOR SOCIAL

SERVICES CONTRACT CONSULTANTS

HON. MR. RICHMOND : I would like to respond to a question

taken as notice by myself last Friday. The question was from the member

for Surrey-Guildford-Whalley (Ms. Smallwood), and it pertained to the

provincial emergency preparedness program. This program received

funding would be available for the joint emergency planning program,

project 11. Under this project the ministry contracts with individual

consultants to help local municipalities develop emergency social

service programs. This will ensure the program will continue until the

end of March 1988. So I thank you for your question, but it had already

been looked after by the time you asked it.

Orders of the Day

The House in Committee of Supply; Mr. Pelton in the chair.

ESTIMATES: MINISTRY OF

SOCIAL SERVICES AND HOUSING

On vote 56: minister's office, $216,355.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

Mr. Chairman, as we get into the estimates of my ministry and in

particular my office, I am pleased to give a short

preamble as to the

workings both in the immediate past and the future of my ministry.

Since my ministry does spend a substantial amount of the provincial

budget, I think it only fair that we outline for the next few minutes

just where that money goes and what we have been doing with it. So I

would just like to inform the House that my opening remarks will

probably be about 15 minutes.

This is the plan, of course,

for the expenditure for the Ministry of Social Services and Housing for

the fiscal year 1987-88, but before outlining our major priorities, I

would like to just take a few minutes to acknowledge the many

contributions of people who work every day to make our social services

program in British Columbia one of the best in the country.

First

of all, the dedicated staff of the Ministry of Social Services and

Housing. Secondly, the thousands of foster parents and staff of

agencies and small businesses working in partnership with the ministry.

Thirdly, the many volunteers who give freely and tirelessly of their

time to help our handicapped, disadvantaged and senior citizens.

Fourthly, the churches, community groups, friends and neighbours who

daily extend individual acts of kindness and generosity to others

during their times of need. On behalf of my government and the people

of British Columbia I say thank you very much.

Next I would

like to outline our expenditure plan for the coming year. We refer to

it as an investment in people, our most valuable resource. The

government has dedicated $1.38 billion toward helping British Columbia

citizens most in need in 1987-88. This $1.38 billion will be spent on

programs and services to help people during times of need and to assist

them in regaining or achieving self-sufficiency. Our expenditure plan

addresses four major priorities: (1) assisting our handicapped and

disadvantaged citizens to become full participants in our society;

(2) maintaining or restoring the integrity of families; (3) assisting

people to retain or regain financial independence; (4) a coordinated

approach to delivering quality services. I wish to discuss each of

these priorities in greater detail.

First, assisting our

handicapped and disadvantaged citizens to become full participants in

our society. My government remains committed to the goal of assisting

handicapped

[ Page 357 ]

individuals

to achieve maximum independence and participate as full members of

their communities. My government recognizes that achievement of this

goal requires a continuum of services from infancy to adulthood, with a

strong emphasis on support to families with a handicapped child. The

Ministry of Social Services and Housing, in partnership with other

ministries, agencies and families throughout British Columbia, has been

working hard to ensure that such a continuum of service is in place in

1986-87.

Some 2,165 parents of handicapped children

received support and training in methods to encourage their infants'

development through the infant development program, while 300 families

each month were provided with in-home assistance in caring for their

handicapped youngsters through the special services to children and

family support homemaker programs. Some 2,823 handicapped children were

integrated into regular day-care and school settings through the

special needs day-care and Chance programs, and 3,662 mentally

handicapped adolescents and young adults were provided with training to

improve their personal, social and work skills. Community living

arrangements for 1,868 mentally handicapped adults were in place in

communities throughout British Columbia. In 1987-88 we will spend an

additional $19.7 million, a 15 percent increase, to expand services for

handicapped infants, children and their families, to assist mentally

handicapped adults moving away from home or out of Woodlands or

Glendale to establish themselves in community living arrangements, to

expand and restructure training and day programs for mentally

handicapped adults living in the community, and to provide coordination

and monitoring of services to ensure the safety and well-being of

mentally handicapped individuals in community living arrangements.

addition to these services, my government will continue to work with

the federal government to develop housing units for handicapped and

disadvantaged people. In 1986 the provincial and federal governments

signed an agreement to build approximately 6,000 units over a

three-year period, cost-shared 33 percent provincially and 67 percent

federally. The year one program is in progress, with 1,895 units

committed in 1986; the proposed year two program includes an additional

1,886 units to be delivered in '87-88 through nonprofit and leased

private market units to those in need: priority groups, seniors,

disabled, special purpose and lowincome families.

Next, Mr.

Chairman, I would like to address maintaining or restoring the

integrity of the family. People are our most valuable resource, and

families continue to play the most important role in protecting and

nurturing that resource. There are approximately 450,000 families and

800,000 children in British Columbia. In the majority of cases,

families successfully face the challenges of today's society on their

own or with the help of friends and community. But sometimes families

need additional help. In providing that help, my government is

committed to the goal of maintaining or restoring the integrity of the

family whenever possible.

In recognition of the importance

we place on the family in our society, funding for programs to assist

families and children will be increased by 9.6 percent to $88.8

million. This additional $7.8 million will be used as follows.

(1) To

build on the existing network of family support services, In 1986-87,

some $9.7 million was spent to assist 2,200 families with a range of

family support services.

(2) To support the many dedicated foster homes

and resources providing temporary care for children while parents are

assisted to resume care. Approximately 25 percent of children in care

are returned home within six months, and the majority of children are

in care less than two years.

(3) To find adoptive homes for children

with special needs.

The next program, Mr. Chairman, is

assisting people to retain or regain financial independence. My

government remains committed to providing financial assistance to those

families most in need and to assisting people to retain or regain

financial independence. We intend to provide help through higher

income-assistance rates, a major increase in day-care funding, and

training and job programs for income assistance recipients. Effective

June 1, 1987, support allowance for families will be increased by 5

percent, with a further increase of 5 percent on December 1, 1987. The

maximum shelter allowance under GAIN was raised by 4.7 percent last

October, and will be raised further on December 1, 1987. by an average

of 6 percent. These increased benefit levels are expected to cost $51.7

million. We are increasing funding for regular day-care assistance by

$6.1 million, from $20.6 million to $26.7 million, to make it easier

for single parents and low-income earners to retain or regain

employment or participate in training. Funding for special-needs day

care has also been increased by approximately $800,000, representing a

14 percent increase from $5.9 million to $6.7 million.

[2:45]

The

majority of employable income assistance recipients are both able and

anxious to work. Seventy percent of the employable income assistance

recipients regain financial independence within seven months, through

their own efforts. For those people requiring extra help to enter or

return to the workforce, my government has been working closely with

the federal government to implement a comprehensive employment and

training strategy. In May 1986 the government announced an employment

and training initiative called JobTrac. In 1986 it provided $25 million

in new funds, as well as another $18 million under existing programs.

JobTrac

is a coordinated, interministry initiative which helps get people into

worthwhile jobs in the following ways: provides a roadmap through

provincial and federal programs and helps people find their way to the

right program; helps people on income assistance rejoin the labour

force through job preparation, training and work experience programs;

helps youth, unemployed persons, workers needing skills upgrading and

the disabled through work experience programs and rehabilitation

services. From $43 million in '86-87, this program will almost double

in '87-88 to $81 million. Approximately $56 million of this amount will

go directly to assist income assistance recipients to regain employment.

Just

a brief note on a coordinated approach to delivering services. In

helping people most in need in '87-88, the government is committed to

maintaining a coordinated and top-quality service delivery system. The

key ingredients are: a corps of dedicated and experienced staff around

the province, supported by effective recruitment strategies and a

strong on-the-job training program; a network of agencies and small

businesses working in partnership with the ministry to deliver services

in communities throughout British Columbia in '87-88; an additional

$5.3 million to assist agencies to meet increased costs of delivering

services; a coordinated approach to planning across ministries at the

local and provincial level; a strong voice in federal-provincial

discussions and a fair share of federal revenues.

[ Page 358 ]

couple of concluding remarks, Mr. Chairman, just to repeat our

priorities. One, assisting our handicapped and disadvantaged citizens

to become full participants; two, maintaining or restoring the

integrity of families; three, assisting people to retain or regain

financial independence; and four, a coordinated approach to delivering

quality services. We will be working closely with local community

groups in providing the broad range of programs and services aimed at

meeting these priorities. Through our joint efforts we will carry out

our commitment to assist those most in need in our province.

Mr.

Chairman, that winds up my opening remarks. I realize we can't cover

everything in a few remarks. I'm certain there will be questions from

the opposition, and I'll be most happy to answer.

MR. CASHORE :

Mr. Chairman, I would like to echo the congratulations of my hon.

colleague the Minister of Social Services and Housing in acknowledging

the many people who work within the delivery of social services and

housing throughout British Columbia, the many people who work as

volunteers and the many people who participate in the various programs.

We owe them a debt of gratitude. Clearly, there is a participatory

reality within our province, and it draws in all aspects of the

community. I'm very pleased about that.

At the outset I

would like to say that I'm new at this. This is an exciting and

refreshing new adventure for me. I feel something like a rookie hockey

player who has never tied on skates, going up against one of the old

veterans here in the House. I'm going to need a lot of support from my

colleagues, and I know I will have that support; and I'm going to need

a lot of patience on the part of you, Mr. Chairman, and all my

colleagues in the House.

Also, I would like to acknowledge,

as we get into this process of estimates, which is a new process for

the majority of us in the House at this time, the presence of the

deputy minister Mr. Noble, who is here to assist us with finding the

information that we will be seeking as we go through this process.

Especially because I am a rookie, I would hope that one day when I am here — that is, during the next two or three years —

I would be able to have with me one of my researchers to assist me in

this process. Of course, after three years the situation will be much

different, and I probably won't be making that request at that time.

want to start off, since this is a new exercise, to say what I think

the purpose of this exercise is, Do we do this because we are involved

in some kind of posturing that hopefully will get us profile within the

mind of the body politic? Or are we doing this because we share a

mutual concern that is a concern for delivering the very best possible

services to the people of British Columbia? I believe it is the latter.

I believe that part of the purpose of this exercise is to ask where we have been, especially within this ministry —

and with its predecessors, the Ministry of Human Resources and the

Ministry of Land, Parks and Housing, or a portion of that ministry —

and where we are going. What kind of a vision do we see implicit within

these estimates and implicit within the tracking that might be done

through the activities of the last five or six years that would give

some indication with regard to where we are going as a society, as a

compassionate society, and what kind of a product are we producing?

would like to refer at the outset to a statement I made in the House on

Friday where I stated in a portion of my remarks: "I don't believe

there is one member in this House who would intentionally cause stress

to seniors." The response of the Minister of Social Services and

Housing (Hon. Mr. Richmond), while agreeing with that, was: "But we

always tend to get the feeling that only over there on that side do

they care."

I find that a curious response to a

conciliatory statement, and I would hope that we might be able to

conduct our affairs in a manner that respects the perspective from

which questions are coming, while realizing that what we are putting

forward at this time are two different philosophies. It is up to us as

we go through this process to go through a learning experience and to

go through a process of discovering what philosophy is the philosophy

that is going to work for the people of British Columbia.

Obviously,

I believe that the philosophy that I espouse is the one that will work.

Obviously, you believe that the philosophy that you espouse is the one

that will work. But this is not a war between personalities to score

points. Mr. Chairman, this is a public measure of government priorities

and opposition alternatives, and I would hope that we could treat each

other in the light of that perspective. Let it not be said when this

debate is over that we failed in our mutual desire to do what is best

for the people we are here to serve.

Mr. Chairman, among

the people that we are here to serve are families and children, and I

note with regret the abrupt departure of Mr. Andrew Armitage. I would

like at this time to call on you, Mr. Minister, to rise and to give an

explanation to this House with regard to the sudden departure of Mr.

Armitage.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Mr. Chairman, the

matter of the superintendent of child welfare is a personnel matter

within the ministry, and I have absolutely no intention of commenting

any further.

MR. CASHORE : Mr. Chairman, when Mr.

Armitage came to work within the Ministry of Human Resources, a number

of people who are involved in the delivery of child and family services

in British Columbia rejoiced, because knowing something of the

background of Mr. Armitage — his experiential background, his academic background — and

knowing the quality of person that Mr. Armitage is.... There was a

rejoicing because of the belief and the hope that the delivery of

social services in British Columbia was going to move from a more

reserved crisis-intervention system into a more open system, a system

with more fresh air, a system that would truly be preventive in the

delivery of these services. There are many people in British Columbia

who saw in Mr. Armitage a signal that the Ministry of Human Resources

was beginning at that time to get a glimmer of the kind of vision that

would help us move into the more responsible approach; not a

crisis-intervention approach, but a preventive approach that would be

fair and open and full of opportunity for the people of this province.

I would like to read from Hansard ,

dated April 7, 1986, almost a year ago. These are the words of Mr.

Nielsen, who was the acting Minister of Human Resources at the time. He

said:

"A superintendent of family and child service has been appointed.

Mr. Andrew Armitage was formerly with the Ministry of Lands, Parks and Housing

and

[ Page 359 ]

has had an extensive career in social work, including a period

of time when he was instructing in this matter at a university. Mr. Armitage

is undertaking his new role with great vigour, and we expect to have the opportunity

of seeing the results of his labours very soon."

Those

people in British Columbia who were very pleased to welcome the

announcement of the hiring of Mr. Armitage might well have been

expecting an announcement at this time, but they were not expecting the

announcement that they received. The statement on the part of the

minister that he is unwilling to give an explanation to this House

because it is a personal matter is very difficult to deal with. It

leaves us with a problem. It leaves us with the problem of the

questions that exist within the minds of those people who cared deeply

about the delivery of social services to the people of this province,

and the people who were hoping for a more open, more consultative, more

developmental approach that would be more fitting for a preventive

approach in this province.

[3:00]

a result of this, I am today calling on this government to set up a

commission of inquiry which would inquire thoroughly into the delivery

of family and child services in B.C. Such an inquiry should be

accountable to an all-party committee; such an inquiry should look into

all aspects of the delivery of family and child services; such an

inquiry should be conducted with dispatch; and it should involve

commissioners who have no political bias. This is required because

there is an obvious need for an independent child advocate in this

province. The children of this province require a person who can stand

up for them. They require a person who is not too closely tied to the

deputy minister. They require a person who would have a role that is

somewhat similar to the role of ombudsman. They require a person who is

an advocate for children and a facilitator of the hopes and the

potential of families.

Mr. Chairman, it would be a bright,

new day for the children of this province when we have a child advocate

firmly in place. I believe that if a commission of inquiry were to look

into the delivery of children's services within this province, such a

commission would come forward with some kind of a recommendation, given

the kinds of problems that exist for children within our society at

this time, that would be there, independent, to look after the needs of

children. I therefore have some questions that I would like to state at

this time and would hope that the minister would respond to these

questions later on.

The first one is: will the minister

support my call for a commission of inquiry into the delivery of

services for families and children, a commission of inquiry that would

be accountable to an all-party committee? Another question: will the

minister guarantee that Ms. Leslie Arnold, who has been appointed to

this position, will be given a free hand in the conduct of her

responsibilities? Will the minister guarantee that she will be given

the freedom that is necessary in order to advocate adequately on behalf

of the children of British Columbia? Will this person be free to

criticize the ministry itself if, as often happens within human

organizations, we become worthy of criticism or need reproach? Would

this person be guaranteed the freedom to present such criticism on

behalf of children, even to the very ministry and government of this

province?

Mr. Chairman, I believe that when we look at the accounts of our House — I know that the Minister of Finance is aware of this —

when we look at the expenditure of finances, we look upon that as so

important a resource, the financial resources of our province, that we

have appointed an auditor general, a person who has the scope to be

able to criticize even the Minister of Finance if that person so feels

that the Minister of Finance has erred in terms of the monitoring, or

the expenditure, or some process within that department.

AN HON. MEMBER : Perish the thought!

MR. CASHORE :

Perish the thought. Mr. Chairman, I believe that our most valuable

resource, our children, requires and deserves and should have the same

kind of consideration, someone who would have the same scope of

responsibility and of freedom as an auditor-general, in terms of

looking to their interests.

Mr. Chairman, we will be coming

back to issues pertaining to family and children's services later in

the debates on the estimates. My colleague the second member for

Vancouver-Point Grey (Ms. Marzari) will be commenting on some of these

issues.

I'm fortunate that my colleague is not beside me at

this time, because I see myself spreading papers all the way along this

seat here as we go along.

I would like now to turn to the issue of GAIN —

guaranteed annual income for those in need. During the time, Mr.

Chairman, that I was commenting on the budget during the budget debate,

I spoke to the issue of fairness with regard to the plans that the

ministry has to increase GAIN rates on July 1 and again on December 1,

5 percent on each occasion. At that time I attempted to make the point

that there were two ways in which that was inadequate. First of all, it

was inadequate in the sense that it discriminates against GAIN

recipients; and secondly, it was inadequate because it was not enough.

I had hoped that the minister would recognize that that was apparent,

especially in view of the report of the Social Planning and Research

Council, and that he would take measures to make that program fair, and

I see that no such announcement has been forthcoming.

pointed out at that time and I point out again that while we have from

time to time referred to the poverty line as a

scientifically-arrived-at measure whereby we would look upon the

financial wherewithal of a large segment of people within our society

and see the 220,000 people on income assistance, the 220,000-plus

people on GAIN, the additional people who are the working poor— the people of minimum wage, the people who are finding it very, very difficult —

the 50,000 people who are referred to in the Cosh report as coming from

those 250,000 households in British Columbia which are in need and

which it identified as 50,000 households not receiving any kind of

assistance at all.... I refer, Mr. Chairman, to a very large number of

people within this province, and we have referred to these people in

the past in terms of the poverty line, but the Social Planning and

Research Council has come in with what might be called another line,

and it's a line that's much lower than the three poverty lines that we

have talked about from time to time. This line we might call the

subsistence line. I think it's quite shocking that in this day and age

in this province we would be getting into a Third World syndrome.

Three

minutes? Mr. Chairman, I understand when I have three minutes that if

the second member for Vancouver-Point Grey were to rise and ask me a

question, then I could carry on. Is that correct?

[ Page 360 ]

MR. CHAIRMAN : That's right, just go right ahead, hon. member.

MR. CASHORE : Okay, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

we're talking about subsistence here in British Columbia, and we're

talking about a Third World concept. We're talking about a shopping

list of items that people absolutely need to live on. There's no

mention in the budget of singles receiving an increase in GAIN. And

yet, given your language — I'm not going to accuse you of using buzzwords; I'm just going to say given the language that you use — in your throne speech and in your budget, you talk about an increase for those who are most in need.

I know, through you, Mr. Chairman, that you, Mr. Minister, commented on this SPARC report in the Sun

and you said that the SPARC report isn't really fair because it doesn't

go into all the kinds of crisis grants, etc., that are available, and

you painted a counterbalancing picture to their report that was

obviously an attempt to downgrade the scientific quality of what they

were saying, But I would remind you that this report is dealing with

subsistence, and were it not that people are able to go for a crisis

grant and sometimes get it — it depends....

MR. CHAIRMAN : Your time is up, hon. member. Just take your seat, please.

MR. CASHORE : Thank you. I'm learning.

MS. MARZARI :

Mr. Chairman, I would like the hon. member who is critiquing the Social

Services budget to continue on with his speech regarding the

subsistence levels at which people live in this province.

MR. CASHORE : So having recognized that there are some crisis grants and having recognized — and I'm sure you will recognize —

that this scientific study, this SPARC report, points out that one of

the groups that you left out, the single employable male under age 25,

faces a shortfall of 71.6 percent.... We could find variations in this

if we were to apply it to other singles in other parts of the province.

The SPARC report happens to mention somebody who lives in the lower

mainland — in Kerrisdale; but if were to go to Prince George,

Prince Rupert, Dawson Creek or the Kootenays, we would find this type

of situation repeated again and again and again. There might be a

variation in terms of the shortfall — in some cases it might be 65 percent; in other cases, I dare say, it might be 85 percent — but it is a shortfall, and if you don't include these people it's unfair.

question, which I hope you will make note of and answer later, is: what

are you going to do about it? It's unfair. I am sure you will recognize

it's unfair, because it's based on a scientific study. I would also

point out that there are very, very prominent members of the citizenry

of British Columbia on the board of directors of the Social Planning

and Research Council, responsible people, people who represent a

spectrum of our political life. This is not a left-wing document. This

is a document that must be taken seriously. I want you to tell me, with

regard to the single unemployables, what's fair about it. I want to

know, and they want to know. I've had a lot of phone calls about this

and a lot of letters.

[3:15]

The same thing applies to couples. According to the SPARC report, more than

30 percent are under subsistence with the Guaranteed Available Income for Need

rates. What are we going to do about those people? That's unfair. I could

go on, but I think I've made the point. Okay, that's the first point:

the announced increases are unfair because they discriminate.

The

second point is that the announced increases are unfair because there

is a very minimal increase for some people after five years. If we look

at the increase in the cost of living, which has been at least 23

percent during that five plus years, what are you providing them with

here?

Please remember that you announced that there were

going to be increases in income assistance rates. Too often the public

thinks: "Oh, isn't this wonderful. Now the poor people in the province

are suddenly being looked after and they won't have to go to food banks

any more." But you know, Mr. Minister, that these people are still very

desperately in need. They are not being provided for in a way that

enables them to put adequately nutritional meals on the tables of their

children, on the tables of their households. I think that if you stop

to think about it, you will recognize that this is a process that

increases what is sometimes referred to as a welfare syndrome, whereby

more and more members of our society are added onto those rolls, and

therefore more and more of those people find it difficult to emerge

from that situation. As that happens, it becomes a way of life for more

and more people.

Now I realize that, in some ways, to get

into the area of job creation is to go outside the estimates of the

Ministry of Social Services and Housing; but I would say that in the

responses we heard to the debate on the budget, again and again JobTrac

was referred to as the salvation of the unemployed. I would like the

minister to rise a little later on and admit to the House that JobTrac,

while it may have some merit, is really a program recycled from other

programs that have been tried before and is at very best a questionable

system for shifting poverty around among those who don't have jobs. I

would like him to recognize that, so that we know that this program is

indeed severely limited in terms of its potential — recognizing

that it is not completely limited and that it does have some merit,

although my colleague, the member for New Westminster (Ms. A. Hagen),

will be asking some questions a little later on that will be getting

into some of the deeper aspects of that program.

With the

projected increase.... We know that you're also going to remind us that

there was to be a 6 percent increase in the budget for shelter

allowances. That amounts to, for one particular family we were looking

at, $25.74, and yet, because of the news releases that have gone out, a

lot of our citizens think that we've done a wonderful thing for these

people. I'd like you to comment on how many days you see people being

able to live at subsistence on the amount of $25.74, which is the first

increase that they have had in that area for shelter, other than the

minimal increase of somewhat less than that that came through in the

fall. How do you see that really enabling them to get on with their

lives?

Mr. Chairman, I will sit down now and invite the minister to respond to some of my comments.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

Mr. Chairman, I will try to go through the list of questions in order

as presented by the member. I think I got them all, but if not, I am

sure he will ask me again.

First of all, in the member's opening remarks, I would just like to correct one thing that he said. He said I referred to

[ Page 361 ]

the

matter of the superintendent of child welfare as a "personal" matter.

That's not true; I referred to it as a "personnel" matter, and there is

quite a difference. So I just wanted to point that out to him and for

the record, so it goes down as a personnel matter.

The next

thing the member raised was a commission of inquiry regarding children

in the province. If, Mr. Member, I thought there was a need for a

commission of inquiry for such, I would be the first to admit it and

the first to appoint same, but I don't perceive such a need. First of

all, when the member says that the children need an advocate in the

province, they have many in this province. They have the superintendent

of child welfare, whose job it is to be an advocate for children. On

top of that, they have 69 other advocates who sit in this assembly

room; they're called MLAs, and they are all advocates for children in

this province. I don't know of any one of my colleagues on either side

of the House who would not be an advocate for any child in this

province.

Secondly, the member asked if Leslie Arnold would have a freedom in her job — I think he put it; I can't remember his exact words — to operate as she saw fit. Absolutely she does. In fact, she is accountable directly to myself, the minister —

whoever the minister may be; it happens to be me at the moment. Of

course, she is free to offer suggestions and criticisms at any time. In

fact, in my ministry I encourage such behaviour. The member spent quite

a bit of time discussing the SPARC report, and I did prepare a written

response to their report, and you are correct that it was published in

the Vancouver Sun . I find it

a little bit puzzling to hear that the member feels that the SPARC

report is a scientific report. Going through it, we felt that it was

anything but scientific. It was from information gathered from across

the country, but it certainly couldn't be classed as scientific.

some of their recommendations, they are quite a way off base. For

example, their shelter costs in the lower mainland are based on

averages calculated without allowing for the possible inclusion of

utilities; therefore the shelter and utilities components of the

assessment will be inflated.

Secondly, accommodation for

lower-income families usually comes from the low end of the rental

spectrum. But SPARC has used an average based on all rents in the lower

mainland, all rents including very expensive apartments, penthouses,

etc. So by doing that, you get a tremendously inflated shelter cost for

the lower mainland.

The other thing that is bandied about a

lot in this House, and it was during the budget estimates, is the

poverty line. Let me say at the outset, Mr. Member, and for the

edification of all members, that Canada does not have an official

poverty line. So people tend to use various figures as it suits their

purpose.

Statistics Canada low-income cutoffs are the most

frequently cited and used lines and are commonly misrepresented as the

official poverty line, but they are not. Stats Canada clearly states

that their design and construction were never intended as denoting

poverty.

The GAIN benefit system can be seen as analogous

to a poverty line which has been constructed through the political

process with benefit levels which are acceptable to and affordable by

society, The GAIN figures are often underestimated because of the

additional benefits to which a family of four might be entitled. For

example, medical benefits are not shown in GAIN figures; diet, school

startup, child tax credit allowances, family allowances, etc. When you

add all those to the GAIN figures, it changes the picture substantially.

The

member dwelt for quite a while on single employables on welfare. He's

quite right; we did not increase the allowance for single employables

on welfare. But let me add, first of all, that they will be eligible

for the increased shelter allowance when it comes later this year. The

member talks about a welfare syndrome. You state that if we don't give

enough income to single employables we will find more single

employables on welfare. I counter to you, sit, that if we pay too much

for single employables on welfare, whatever that figure is, we will be

perpetuating a welfare system. So it's a two-edged sword.

It's

always difficult to know where the figure should be. I think we differ

only in the philosophy of it: how high the safety net should be from

the ground. Welfare is not designed to be a way of life for those who

are employable, I think we're doing something better for those single

employables — that is, we're doing our utmost to try to put them

back into the workforce. Agreed, it is difficult in difficult economic

times. In fact, I would tell you that the number of single employable

people on welfare is not governed by welfare rates; it's governed by

the unemployment rate. It has really nothing to do with what you pay,

as you suggest; it has to do with the unemployment rate. We can track

it on a graph, just as plain as the nose on your face. As unemployment

goes up, so do single employables on welfare; as unemployment goes

down, so do our caseloads. They are very closely tied together. We can

show you graphs and track it as almost identical.

The member did mention that there was an increase in shelter allowance last fall —

4.7 percent. This December it will be roughly 6 percent. So there will

have been two increases in shelter allowances by the end of this year.

Unless

I'm mistaken, I think I've answered all of your questions. I've tried

to keep track of them all and answer them as best I can. If I've left

anything out, I'm sure you'll let me know.

MS. A. HAGEN :

I would like, first of all, to associate myself with the comments of my

colleague the member for Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) around

the issue of adequate financial support for people in our society who,

for whatever reason, are unable to have financial resources from jobs

and require assistance from us as a province and as a people; also with

his comments on a particular concern for children and families. I'll be

returning to those scenes later in my comments, Mr. Chairman, but I

would like to perhaps shift our focus a little bit in our discussion. I

don't imagine it will surprise the minister that one of the areas I

would like to speak about is a portion of his ministry devoted to

services to seniors.

[3:30]

The

minister noted in his comments that the shelter portion of the amount

that goes to GAIN recipients was raised recently by 4.7 percent, and

that a further increase of approximately 6 percent is planned before

year-end. A significant number of older people are renters, and they

are assisted through a services for seniors program that comes to them

under the Ministry of Social Services and Housing called Shelter Aid

for Elderly Renters.

Before I begin to look at this with

some analysis, I'd like to take this opportunity to concur with the

minister about his comments on the service provided by people in his

ministry. I want particularly to make note of and acknowledge in this

[ Page 362 ]

House

the people in Victoria who work in the services for seniors office.

I've had first-hand dealings with those people for many years, and they

are an outstanding group of public servants. It's a good opportunity

for me publicly to say thank you on behalf of older people — and people who work with older people —

for the kind of service they provide. I hope the minister would make

certain that that is conveyed to them directly from many of us in the

field.

The SAFER program has been in place for a number of

years, but in the last five years has shown some serious erosion. At

that time the level of rent that was available for subsidy was capped:

75 percent of the rent which exceeds 30 percent of an older person's

income is covered by SAFER up to a maximum rental, which has not

changed since 1982. That rent now stands at around $330 a month for a

single person, and for a couple or sharing partnership at $365 a month.

was interested in the Cosh report, which took a look at this particular

method of meeting the housing needs of a particular population. As we

note, many people who are elderly do rent. They have analyzed the

program under service to those in need, proportion of population

served, adequacy of benefits and cost effectiveness. In two categories,

service to those in need and cost effectiveness, the program is rated

as good. But there are a couple of very major issues around the

delivery of this program that I think very much need some explanation

and some attention by the minister.

First of all, in terms

of the adequacy of benefits, because of the fact that there has been no

increase in the ceiling of rents that are covered, there has been a

very significant deterioration in the benefits that are available to

older people. In fact, an example is given in the Cosh report, in the

final report on page 100, that takes the older person with the most

basic income, one that comes from the old age pension, guaranteed

income supplement and GAIN, looks at the SAFER that is available to

that person if their rent is in fact at the ceiling of $330 a month,

not an unusual ceiling and in fact a very low one in many parts of this

province, and finds that with SAFER added to that person's income,

instead of paying 30 percent of their income for shelter they are

paying closer to 35 percent — 34.8 percent, to be exact.

What

we find, however, is that we have situations that are far more serious

than that in the discrepancy between the portion that goes for rent and

the portion that is covered by SAFER. Many people in fact have rents

that are higher than that $330. I've just taken one that's very common

in my own community with a number of seniors to whom I've been

speaking, where they pay a $350 rent for a very modest apartment in a

three-storey walkup. If we look at the fact that there is a $20 amount

there — a small amount again but a $20 amount where there is no protection — we find that the percentage that that person pays for shelter rises to 44 percent.

would like the minister, when I conclude my comments, to respond to a

question about the adequacy of benefits available through the SAFER

program, and to give some indication that this particular matter is one

that his ministry will be addressing.

I note the ministry,

in its projections for the coming year, is actually looking at a

decrease in the number of dollars that SAFER will make available to

people in the province, a decrease of about $100,000 from last year.

That is because in fact the ceilings have not been increased and other

pensions that seniors have are indexed, and people are finding that

they are moving more and more to a high level of cost for shelter. It

is a program that needs to keep pace with the cost of living if we are

to achieve other cost-effective goals of independent living and

affordability for older people. One of the things that causes them to

choose to go into a more sheltered and more expensive housing is that

they cannot afford shelter.

The other aspect of the SAFER

program that is criticized by the Cosh report is the matter of access

to that benefit. Presently, in the last year for which there's a

report, there are about 10,000 people who are in receipt of SAFER.

That's 20 percent fewer than were receiving it in 1980 and 1981, and by

the minister's own projections probably fewer than 50 percent of people

who are eligible for the SAFER program in fact do access it.

Information

is, in fact, a means by which people gain benefits, and I think one of

the areas, in spite of the excellent service in the services for

seniors department within the ministry in Victoria.... One of the main

reasons that seniors are not accessing this program is that they don't

know about it. One of the reasons that they don't know about it is that

if seniors walk into many ministry offices in the regions of this

province, they will be told that there is no information in that office

about services for seniors; that they don't handle that particular

concern; that there is information somewhere else. Possibly they will

get that information; possibly they'll simply say, "We don't have a

seniors' department in this particular local office," whether it's in

New Westminster or in Castlegar or in Prince Rupert.

[Mrs. Gran in the chair.]

have found in my work with older people that there are literally dozens

of people that one will encounter in any given month who have never

heard of this service and who are trying to manage their financial

affairs with something in the order of 60 percent of their income going

into housing. I would like some assurance from the minister that his

field workers in the regional offices throughout this province will

recognize that they are in fact information givers and information

providers and service providers to those who are among the most in need

in our population and who especially need to have access to this

program so that we can see something much closer to the ministry's

estimates of approximately 24,000 people who should be in receipt of

SAFER receiving benefits to which they are statutorily entitled.

would like to ask the minister as well if he has any good ideas about

ways in which he could get such information out to the 360,000 seniors

who may be eligible for that program without them necessarily having to

go into a human resources office. Because for many of them that is an

office with which they associate people who are without income from

other sources, and they are sometimes reluctant to look to that

particular area for assistance.

I have some other areas

about which I would like to ask some questions, but I think perhaps it

might be productive if I paused and had the minister respond to those

questions on SAFER at this time.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

On the SAFER program, the member is quite right that the caseloads in

SAFER are going down; of course this is because the incomes of seniors

have been going up. As the income of seniors goes up, they are not

eligible for Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters. She is also quite right

that we haven't raised the ceiling on the rent for some

[ Page 363 ]

time,

and in this year's budget we do not plan to look at that. But I should

point out for the record that the senior citizen level of income in

British Columbia is reasonably high, if one takes in OAS — we're

talking about a couple now: $588.86 a month; GIS is $455.78 a month;

maximum GAIN supplement, $99.66; average Pharmacare, $50; average

SAFER, $20.86; subsidized bus passes, $171.34. So we're looking at a

total average per senior couple in British Columbia of $1,386.50 per

month. So I think it's important that we put that into the record. That

does explain why the SAFER registry, if you like, is going down. The

incomes are going up because the federal government supplements have

been indexed for some years.

As far as getting information

out to the seniors is concerned, I have found personally that the best

vehicle for that is the senior citizen counsellors which we have

throughout the province. I know that in my constituency office in

Kamloops we make really good use of the senior citizen counsellors.

They do a fine job. They inform seniors of all of the programs that are

available and what they are entitled to, and we do have pamphlets out

on SAFER. They're in all our ministry offices, and I know I have them

in my MLA office. So I would commend to every member of this House to

have all the pamphlets of my ministry and of every other ministry

available in your office, so that when seniors do drop in to see you,

you have this information.

I am very pleased to be able to

just take a moment and commend the senior citizen counsellors

throughout this province for the fine job they do. They do an excellent

job for us, and it would be difficult to function without them. I think

the fact that they are a peer group of the seniors goes a long way to

helping seniors understand the programs. I should add that our seniors'

counsellors deal with an awful lot of federal programs as well as

provincial, and help people sort them out and keep them separate and

keep our seniors informed as to every benefit they're entitled to.

MR. LOENEN :

There are just so many positive things in the estimates that I'm

delighted to be part of this. We have long awaited the additional

moneys, and I know that the constituents of Richmond will welcome all

these good things.

There's one item that I wanted to

comment on and ask a question about. Over the years that I was an

alderman in Richmond, particularly the last two years, we worked very

hard at integrating some of the disabled people into our society. I was

very happy to hear the minister say that that was one of the primary

goals of his ministry. In particular, we worked with the Canadian

Mental Health Association in Richmond, trying to integrate the mentally

handicapped and the emotionally disturbed. That was not an easy

process, but we hit on a very innovative idea, and when the new

seniors' centre was opened last September, the association contracted

with the seniors' association to provide the janitorial services and

the kitchen or catering services. Now we have a situation where that

particular association can use that contract to train their clients so

that once they acquire some basic skills in the janitorial field or in

catering services, they can then be placed into more permanent

positions within industry.

I think it's just a wonderful mechanism whereby we do take the handicapped — in this case the mentally handicapped —

introduce them to a normal work situation and allow them to develop

their skills and be a meaningful part of society, then move them on

into more permanent positions.

[3:45]

wanted to draw that to your attention, Mr. Minister, because I know

that your ministry has funded this particular project to some limited

extent. My question is: will further funding be available for similar

projects? I think that type of application would be of use in many

communities throughout B.C. It's a very effective way to integrate

people. I just hope that we will support these programs and find money

to fund some of the initial priming that is required. I hope that will

be the case, and I certainly want to recommend the pilot project in

Richmond as an example that can be emulated throughout our communities

in B.C.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Just a brief response to

the member for Richmond. I appreciate his comments. It does give me,

too, just a chance to talk for a moment about the success that we've

had in this ministry with moving mentally handicapped people into the

community. In the throne speech of 1981 this government made a

commitment to deinstitutionalize these people within ten years, and

we've moved a long way towards that goal.

I was very close to the closing of the institution in Kamloops called Tranquille, two or three years ago —

and not without some hardships, I might add. We were doing something

new, breaking new ground, and it didn't go flawlessly, as my deputy

will probably attest to, and myself. We took a lot of heat for it. But

with a great sense of pride I can stand here and say that the people

who were taken out of Tranquille and put into a community setting, into

group homes, have never been better off. The success stories are

phenomenal. We get letters about people who were for years

depersonalized in an institution and are now playing a meaningful role

in society. I would urge any one of you, if you haven't been to one of

these small group homes in a community, to please go and visit one. I

have visited many, and I am very impressed, not only in my own

constituency of Kamloops but in the Kootenays and in the north of this

province and elsewhere. I can tell you it is something you won't forget

when you go and see some of these people who were virtually helpless

while institutionalized and are now doing things for themselves. So the

spending this year for programs for training for the mentally

handicapped are up from somewhere near $12 million to in the area of

$17 million. Those are round numbers, $12 million to $17 million, give

or take a little.

So the answer to your question, Mr.

Member, is a very definite yes, and as far as being on track for that

program, to deinstitutionalize over a ten-year period, we are right on

track, right on schedule, and it is going very well.

MS. A. HAGEN : Could I please ask leave to introduce someone in the gallery before I continue?

Leave granted.

MS. HAGEN :

I would like to introduce to the group, and I think it is appropriate

following the comments of the minister, Connie Clark, who is the past

president of British Columbians for Mentally Handicapped People. I know

that Ms. Clark is in the gallery today because of her particular

interest in services for mentally handicapped people through this

ministry. Would you join me in welcoming her.

I too will later on make some comments around the programs for mentally handicapped people, but I would like

[ Page 364 ]

pursue for another short moment the issue of SAFER with the minister.

It is indeed true that benefits have risen to seniors through an

indexing process for federal programs. However, the issue that we are

facing with SAFER is that that same indexing is not applied to rents,

and rent of course is part of the cost of living and there are

increases there.

If we take a look at the number of dollars

that are available through shelter aid for elderly renters, in the last

estimates a total of $8,100,000 was allocated, of which only $7,500,000

was taken up. We are seeing a further drop, as I noted earlier, to

$7,400,000 in the estimates this year, and we may very well in fact see

a further decline in those people who are participating in this program.

would like again to refer the matter of rates of usage to the minister

and ask him what particular methods he plans to use to ensure that

those people who are eligible for this program, a statutory program,

will indeed have it available to them.

I will leave that

question on notice for the minister and move on to some other comments

that I want to make around community programs for seniors. I too with

the minister would acknowledge the work of seniors' counsellors. They

are a peer group who are a very important group within our community.

However, in my community, which has 7,000 older people, there are two

seniors' counsellors and those people are volunteers. In most

communities there is one or two.

Realistically, given the

fact that these people have families and other activities and given the

fact too that many of them continue with their responsibilities when

they are not always in perfect health, there is no way that those

people can respond to the many needs that older people have for

information and support.

Within the ministry there is a

program called community project funding, and I want to develop the

theme of community project funding around seniors and also around

services for mentally handicapped people. There are other programs too

that we need to look at in this particular regard.

These

project fundings are available usually on a year-to-year basis to

groups that are working with special needs and disadvantaged people. I

would note the minister's first priority in his list of the four things

that he wanted to see his budget and estimates address was that

handicapped and disadvantaged people would in fact receive adequate

service.

Let me just illustrate through the issue of

seniors the kind of short-sightedness that I think has been a part of

this ministry's partnership with community groups over the last number

of years. In 1983 the Ministry of Social Services cancelled outright

community projects as they were available to older people. In fact, in

the budget estimates for the ministry at this time, for all services

relating to information that are not a part of ministry offices, we

have a constant sum of $250,000, which is identified for the seniors

counselling service. Those dollars, I understand, provide for a small

honorarium and for some workshops to train those people.

1983 in the budget there was an amount of $1.3 million that funded 23

centres right across the province, centres that used hundreds of

volunteers to provide information services and, as with many of our

community projects, made available resources in a broad range of ways

to help seniors get information and maintain independent living. I'd

like to have it noted that in those dollars are significant Canada

Assistance Plan funds. At the time, for instance, of that

cancellation — in the name, at that time, of restraint —

the provincial government took $800,000 out of funding for community

groups and sacrificed about $500,000 in federal cost-sharing that would

have, in fact, made those services possible on an ongoing basis.

Now

we have a

section of projects which are funded under community grants.

To the best of my knowledge, they are identified under the direct

community services portion of the budget, and they deal with services

for low income groups and for youth, for family services and for crisis

centres, and some of them are umbrella organizations. In the estimates

that the minister has provided for us, we don't get any really concrete

knowledge of how much is available for these groups or what policies

the minister has in supporting them. I want to pursue this particular

issue, because very often it is from these groups that the slack in the

services that are available through statutory programs has been taken

up. In many instances, groups of people who are concerned to be helping

their fellow citizens in their communities have come forward with

projects that help to maintain social services across the province. I

have a number of questions that I would like to ask the minister around

these particular programs.

First of all, I would like to

know how many dollars there are in the budget for community projects in

this fiscal year. The last figure I have is from the 1985-86 report, at

which time there was just in excess of $5 million.

I would

like to know what percentage of last year's funding is available to

community groups and community projects. Most of these projects are

cost-shared with the federal government, and in fact this is one of the

ways in which a well-managed ministry can through the use of the Canada

Assistance Plan expand the kinds of services that it has available in

the community. Of the total budget that is available for community

grants, I would like information about what amount does come from the

Canada Assistance Plan. How much are we getting from this very

excellent costsharing program — which I would note is open-ended,

which is available as long as the programs are targeted to handicapped

and disadvantaged and low income people?

Most of the people I speak to who are involved with these community groups — very essential programs in every community of the province —

tell me that they have little or no knowledge of what funding increases

will be coming to them. In fact they often don't know until July or

August or September, and sometimes not until later, about what their

budgets will be for the coming year. So I would like to ask the

minister when he plans to advise these groups — since his particular estimates are up so early in our discussion — of the dollars that are available to them.

would like to know what community groups have been added this year to

expand the services, because I know that within every community there

are groups of people with good ideas and good programs who have come

forward to the ministry with suggestions about ways in which they could

assist people within their community. I would like also to know if any

groups have been dropped and, if so, what the criteria for such funding

continuance may be.

In the context of those questions, more

broadly, I would like the minister to comment on his philosophy around

community development, and from that answer I hope to be able to

develop some discussion about services for mentally handicapped people,

where with deinstitutionalization community development becomes one of

the most critical aspects of the effective management of the ministry

and its programs,

[ Page 365 ]

cooperation with community groups, and also in the context of other

ministries with whom this minister and his staff must work.

all of this I'm sure too that the minister has a concern about

accountability, as we all have. Are these programs working, and how are

they working? I would be interested to know the ways in which the

minister and his officials monitor, advise and consult with community

groups, both for the accountability of tax dollars and also toward

better planning and long-term planning in the maximization of those

services.

I'll take, as many of us will, just one example

of a program in my community, called the detached youth program, which

was originally in our YM-YWCA and, when that building closed, moved

into other facilities. Its particular client load of young people, aged

7 to 15 or 16, has simply gone off the wall, in the numbers of young

people that they are serving. It's an acknowledged, cost-effective

prevention program in my community. It is held to a very small number

of dollars each year, and I understand from its director that he has no

knowledge of whether funding is going to be continued past the interim

funding to the end of June. This is a dedicated worker, a long-time

servant of the community as coordinator of the project, a person who is

very skilful at accessing soft dollars and short-term project funding.

What

is the means by which the minister looks at the effectiveness of such

programs, looks at ways in which they could in fact be maintained, with

some commitment longer than one year, and at levels that would be more

consistent with the kind of work that they are providing in service in

the community and to the people of the community?

Madam

Chairman, I will pause now. I have framed a number of questions for the

minister, some of them very specific and some of them more broadly

couched in terms of his philosophy and approach to his work with

community groups, which provide such a lot of essential service to the

community, and to the minister's mandate as the Social Services and

Housing minister. I look forward to his reply.

[4:00]

HON. MR. RICHMOND : I don't know if I got all the questions; I think I did. I'll try to go to them in the order that they came.

First

of all, the budget for community projects in the coming year is in the

area of $5 million; how much of that is from CAP, I don't have an

immediate answer, but I imagine it's 50 percent — somewhat less than 50 percent, I'm told. So that answers the first question.

You

mention that there are a number of good community programs that come

forward from people out there. That's absolutely correct, Madam Member.

But I'm sure you can appreciate that whoever is government cannot do

all programs that are presented. Programs are presented to us almost

daily from somewhere in the province. Many of them may be good and

well-intentioned — and we appreciate that — but we only have

so many dollars to go around, so naturally we cannot approve them all.

So when you mention groups coming forward with good programs, I

appreciate that, and we see them all the time and would probably like

to be able to fund them all, but that's just impossible.

How

many have been dropped this year? I can't answer that off the top of my

head, but we'll try to have an answer for you on how many community

projects have been dropped, from last year to this year. I don't know,

just offhand. We'll see if we can have an answer for you in the next

little while.

You ask about the monitoring of programs

under my ministry. I can tell you that all programs are monitored very

closely. In fact, I think probably our ministry is the epitome of

decentralization. The regional managers, in every area, have the

authority, and the responsibility, to negotiate contracts locally. In

fact, we contract out a great number of services in this ministry, with

private contractors, probably more successfully than most ministries.

This coming year we will purchase some $180 million worth of services

from professionals — some non-profit societies, some commercial —

in the various communities. They're monitored by the workers in the

community, by the regional managers and supervisors; plus, we have an

internal audit team in the ministry to make sure that we are always

getting the value that we and the taxpayers deserve for the dollars

expended. So we monitor very closely, and from time to time you will

see headlines in the press about the fact that we, because of the

monitoring we do, may not renew contracts from time to time and may

wish to re-tender contracts. And we do that quite frequently.

Naturally, those who are not renewed always put up a bit of a fuss if

they've had the contract for a long time, but they're always invited to

re-tender. But this way we can ensure that we get the best value for

the taxpayer's dollar in whatever that service is, whether it's for

children or for the mentally handicapped or for seniors or whatever.

should add, too, when you talk about these contracts only being

available on a year-to-year basis, that that is correct. But our budget

is only available on a year-to-year basis. We budget once a year, as we

are doing now, and we extend contracts — which we are doing right now —

until my estimates are passed by this House. So at the moment we have

extended a number of contracts until this Legislature passes the

estimates for this ministry. Then, on a local and regional basis, we

will renegotiate those contracts, having monitored them and made sure

that we are getting the best value for the dollar.

You mentioned —

I didn't catch your exact words about not getting some federal

cost-sharing under the CAP program. Well, it's the type of program

where we must expend a dollar before we get a dollar back from Ottawa,

and, for most of the programs, if we don't spend the dollar, we don't

get the dollar back from Ottawa.

The closing comment I would make is that most services that the government provides to seniors — just to come back and finish on seniors — come under the Ministry of Health; a very few come under my ministry, but a few do.

I think I got most of your questions; if I missed any you can let me know.

MS. A. HAGEN :

I would like to come back to a couple of points and acknowledge that I

did provide you with quite a long shopping list of questions. Our House

Leader suggests we might want to take a more up-and-down kind of

approach.

There are two things I would like to pursue on

this particular matter before I go on. I understand then, Mr. Minister,

through the Chair, that the level of funding to community projects this

year remains static, at around $5 million a year, and I think that that

will be very disappointing news to community groups throughout this

province.

Community groups had their project funding quite

significantly diminished during the period 1983 and onward. The

majority of them, at the same time, saw the demands on

[ Page 366 ]

their

programs very significantly increase, partially because of the kinds of

cutbacks that occurred not only in this particular ministry but in

other ministries across the province, and partially, too, because we

all know that there are economic circumstances in this province that

are putting families and children in much, much greater danger and at

much, much greater risk. And I think that to look at this time at not

seeing some increase in the dollars available to programs that are, in

many instances, holding together families and desperately working in

both crisis and preventive ways to assist people who are in need of

social support services doesn't bode well for this ministry and for its

commitment.

I would note that most of us would be happy, in

fact, if in order to do the kinds of things we need to do, we could do

them with 50-cent dollars — that's got to be one of the best

bargains around, and if I could find 50-cent dollars to do some of the

kinds of things that were important to do. I think I would be using a

lot of energy and a lot of my senior ministry's time and a lot of

planning time to find ways in which those dollars might be put to good

use. It might in fact save the minister and his ministry estimates

considerable dollars in prevention in years to come, because when we

look at the needs of families and children, or when we look at the

needs of older people at risk, there is little question that it costs a

lot less to provide some services to a kid who is ten years old and

perhaps on the street in a detached youth program that's providing

support and peer counselling and activities and some constructive role

modelling, than it costs to deal with that youngster when he gets to be

an acting-out 16-year-old because no one has paid any attention to him.

I think all too often we look, in fact, at the crisis that we have to

deal with and not at those much less high-profile and much less urgent

in appearance kinds of programs that are the glue that holds our

society together and makes sure we do care for and plan for people.

With that too, Mr. Minister, I would like you to comment about my last question in this series — that is, your philosophy and your planning around community development — because

the next issue I want to address to you has to do with a major group in

our society whom we are bringing out of institutions and into a more

normal and productive kind of living arrangement. I think it's critical

for us to have some understanding of your particular approach to

working with families, with the community, with advocates in the way of

funding, planning, co-managing and co-developing the kinds of programs

that are under your ministry's mandate. I would welcome some comments

from you around how you see your ministry's role in that very essential

work which is a long-term investment that you need to be making and we

need to be supporting you in, in budget dollars, to achieve objectives

that we all support.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Madam Chairman, that was more of a political speech than questions, so I'm going to respond in kind.

First of all, the amount you're talking about in community programs is a very small part of my ministry's budget —

for this coming year, about $5.6 million; up from $5.2 million to $5.6

million, but a very small part of my ministry's budget. Let me put that

in perspective: in family and child services alone this year we will

spend $115 million, which is up 10.9 percent. In rehabilitation

services we will spend $155 million this year. I'm just trying to put

it into perspective when you dwell on the community programs, which are

only about $5 million.

I get a little perturbed when I hear

all the time about spending 50-cent dollars or 33-cent dollars or

75-cent dollars. I use a phrase that you may hear from time to time,

because I intend to drive it home so that other people understand. You

can spend 50-cent dollars, you can get dollars from three, four, five

or six levels of government. But people out there appreciate that there

is only one level of taxpayer; it all comes out of one pocket.

MR. BLENCOE : Rubbish!

[4:15]

HON. MR. RICHMOND : It's not rubbish, Mr. Member, and you know it.

The

people I talk to out there realize that there's one taxpayers' pocket.

There may be, as I said, many levels of government. Sometimes 50-cent

dollars are the most expensive you can ever spend, because they look so

nice. They look great when you grab that 50-cent buck, but they're

dollars that sometimes you just cannot afford. We do very well in

cost-sharing from Ottawa when we feel it's necessary; this year alone

we'll extract 50-cent dollars to the tune of $629 million federal

government dollars. But they're spent judiciously, and we think long

and hard before we go after those 50-cent dollars because they're very

expensive.

As far as a philosophy goes, it's very difficult

for me to stand here and in a few minutes give you the entire

philosophy of myself and this government and the Ministry of Social

Services and Housing, and what we intend to do over the next little

while, but I think we're making some great strides in the philosophy.

In fact, we're being imitated by the members opposite.

committee and I decided three or four months ago that we would take the

social services and housing committee around the province to hear what

people had to tell us so that we could plan a social program for

government over the next few years. It has been very successful. We

went to Prince George first and had great turnouts. We heard something

like 19 or 20 delegations. I can't remember the exact number. We went

secondly to Courtenay on the north end of this Island and heard 29

delegations in one day — very good presentations, I might add, both written and oral —

so that we might get a regional view of social problems and potential

solutions that we as a committee of cabinet can act upon over the next

few years and chart a social course if indeed social directions and

social policy should be changing, and I think it is.

You've

pointed out some of the places where we do live in a fluctuating,

malleable world when it comes to social services. Things are changing,

and we're very much aware of that. I appreciate your comments on the

ounce of prevention being better than the pound of cure. We're very

much aware of that. Sometimes we can spend a few dollars on prevention

and save many, many dollars down the road trying to find a cure. So I

don't think we disagree on that, and where dollars should sometimes be

spent.

I will not try to philosophize any further as far as

services to the mentally handicapped and deinstitutionalizing are

concerned — which you've touched on and which I touched on

earlier. I think you know our philosophy on that, and I think we're

being proven to be correct. We are world leaders, and we are being

emulated by other societies in western civilization. People are coming

from around the world to see what

[ Page 367 ]

we're doing in mental health, so I think our philosophy is right.

think our philosophy on moving the cabinet committee on social policy

around the province is right, because we were copied by the social

policy committee of your party, and you ran into Kamloops quickly to

get there ahead of us. I hope you found out a few things about the city

of Kamloops. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I think

we're on the same wavelength philosophically, and I'll let it go at

that.

MR. RABBITT : We presently have three mentally

handicapped facilities in my riding, in Hope, Princeton and Merritt.

These facilities have some very adequate — as a matter of fact, some very fantastic —

programs, and we've been getting some tremendous results. My question

to you, Mr. Minister, is: can you give me the assurance that the budget

estimates include funding for these institutions in Hope, Princeton and

Merritt, and will these facilities operate for the forthcoming year?

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

I can't specifically tell you any expiry dates of contracts with these

people. We purchase services in most of these communities. I can give

you, given time, the specifics of the contracts, when they expire and

when they will be renegotiated, but I have no reason to believe that

any such program in your riding or anyone else's will be terminated.

That's the best I can do for you, but I can get you a more specific

answer to that question, given some time.

MR. RABBITT :

While you are getting those results, could you also check and see if

there is going to be increased funding for any or all of these three

facilities?

HON. MR. RICHMOND : In answer to the

second part of your question, we don't just give increased funding to

these facilities. They are contracted services that we purchase. The

regional manager in each area — and it doesn't matter whose riding it's in —

will negotiate with the people who run these facilities, and they will

negotiate a contract for the coming year. So to ask across the board:

"Is there increased funding for specific facilities...?" The answer is

no.

MR. RABBITT : I guess my question would be: is the ministry going to consider enlarging the programs in any of the three?

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

The answer is yes. We are enlarging the programs specifically in areas

where there are substantial waiting-lists. We do have areas where there

are substantial lists of people waiting to get in, and that's where

we're targeting increases in funding.

MS. A. HAGEN :

First of all, if I may comment on the minister and his colleagues'

travel throughout the province, I think it's part of all of our jobs to

be out and about, and thank you, Mr. Minister, for informing us of the

success of your endeavours. We too have been successful. Our method is

a little different; I don't know whether we'll describe it for you.

We're going to do some experimenting on some different ways of

contacting people, and I am sure that all of us will be gathering some

very useful information.

I want to move, if I may, to a

subject that has been raised by other members on the other side of the

House, to the issue of mentally handicapped people and rehabilitation

and support services for them. I would certainly acknowledge that some

of the areas in which I have been raising questions are a very modest

part of the budget, but I have been really looking to make the point

here that in many instances the ministry is in partnership with

communities in the delivery of services; and in many instances the

kinds of issues that he needs to be dealing with are in the area of

prevention and maintenance and development, not in the area of crisis

management. I'm pleased to hear him note that he too shares that

particular philosophy and recognizes the financial as well as the human

value of working in prevention and development. I want to acknowledge

that the work that the ministry has been engaged in in respect to the

total closing of Tranquille and the phased closing of Woodlands is

indeed a most commendable initiative, one that we should all

acknowledge and give credit for. That particular acknowledgement having

been made, I think we also have to acknowledge that it is a complex

issue. As in many of the occasions when we are dealing with special

needs people, we can in fact be informed by how we plan for those with

special needs about how we should plan for people who are perhaps more

normal. As a school trustee, I often found that the work we did for the

mentally handicapped in our community and the work we did for the

gifted in our community helped us plan better education programs for

all children in the community. So I think what we are talking about

here is the way by which we are known in the delivery of services to

those who are indeed most needy.

In the process of

deinstitutionalization we have had one model. The Tranquille model,

which I'm sure the minister can speak of more accurately and personally

than I, was a really traumatic kind of experience, because it was

carried out in a way that was outside the planned way — very

quickly and without the kind of long-term planning that might have been

best applied. Again, I acknowledge that some of the decisions taken at

that time are being rectified now. Those are good initiatives on the

part of this ministry. With Woodlands, which is in my constituency, the

phase-out began in about 1981 or 1982. It's my understanding, from

talking to the staff there, that the ministry's plan is that there be a

further five years in that transition.

I think there are a

number of really critical issues that it's.... We and people who have

children or young adults in that institution — most of them are in fact young or older adults at this time —

and people who are working with mentally handicapped people think it's

crucial that we have a very good handle on the philosophy we'll be

following and the practice we'll be observing. There is no question

that this is a complex issue, because it involves not only your

ministry, sit, but also the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Labour,

the Attorney-General ministry, and federal funds and ministries as

well. So I acknowledge and recognize that coordination and

interministerial work are a very major part of this. I want to state

that at the beginning, because I want the questions that I am about to

pose to be looked at as ones that are in fact related to your ministry,

but perhaps in the context of other ministries as well; and we will be

raising these issues again.

[Mr. R. Fraser in the chair.]

I'd

like to ask the minister if this government is prepared to commit the

same number of dollars to the handicapped people of the province living

in the community as it was

[ Page 368 ]

prepared

to commit to those people when they were living in institutions. Are we

in fact going to have the necessary dollars to ensure support,

education, life skills training and access to employment for these

special needs people? Mr. Minister, I think what I will perhaps do is

ask the questions individually and pause to give you an opportunity to

respond, and with the support of the Chair, ask a number of those

seriatim. I would like to ask, first of all, about the dollars

committed, as compared to those available to people living in

institutions.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Mr. Chairman, that

particular question is a difficult one to answer; there is no simple

answer to it. Deinstitutionalizing people generally does not save

dollars. It generally costs more to integrate them into the community

than to leave them in institutions. I think that dollars are secondary

in this case. It's what is best for these people that we're interested

in. Clearly the best thing is to get them back into the community. We

have a global budget for it, and hopefully — and I say "hopefully" — we'll be able to live within that global budget and accomplish what we said we would do, and we're on track now to do it.

For example, I have a related figure that I will give to the member. The budget for the Chance program — in other words, handicapped children assisted to attend regular schools —

is up 38 percent this year. The budget to put these handicapped

children into the mainstream of schools under the Chance program has

gone from $6.3 million to $8.7 million, which is a 38 percent increase.

So what we're interested in in this budget, Madam Member, is what is

best for the people involved. I'm not interested in whether it's going

to cost a dollar or two more or less to move them from an institution

into the community.

[4:30]

MS. A. HAGEN :

Mr. Chairman, I'm pleased with the answer to that question. I think

that that in fact does reflect a philosophy that we would all support.

One

of the things that is occurring as a result of deinstitutionalization

of people, who in many instances have lived all their lives in a

facility such as Woodlands, is that families are being reunited with

their young adults. We have, in fact, both directly and through the

advocacy of associations like British Columbians for Mentally

Handicapped People, very strong interests in working with the ministry

around the process of deinstitutionalization. I'd like to ask the

minister if he is prepared to ensure, and in fact to institutionalize

through appropriate organizational structures, the involvement of

parents in the planning for care and normal living for mentally

handicapped people coming out of institutions, and also to ensure a

role for those people in monitoring the care and assisting in dealing

with accountability for the quality of care, which the minister just

noted was to be the hallmark of deinstitutionalizing.

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

Mr. Chairman, the member is almost quoting verbatim from our "Community

Living: Alternatives for Handicapped People." I didn't wish to read all

of the "Principles Guiding the Development of Services for Mentally

Retarded People" into the record, but I will if you wish. It does give

you the philosophy that you were probably looking for —

specifically with families. We do involve the families very much in the

process of deinstitutionalizing their children. "Services to families

should help them to remain involved with the mentally retarded person.

Family relationships should be supported where appropriate throughout

the life of the mentally handicapped person." So that's just one small

paragraph that I think outlines the philosophy behind it. We do involve

the parents very heavily.

MS. A. HAGEN : Thank you,

hon. minister. Therefore perhaps your answer to the following question

will be in the affirmative as well. Let me just

preamble the question

with some comment about what I understand is happening at Woodlands,

where wards are being successively closed as "contracts are let." It's

my understanding that the process that is being followed here is in

fact one that may not allow for the kind of accountability and

monitoring that the minister has just spoken of.

Could the

minister please comment on whether he is prepared to ensure that when

there are contracts for group living let for residents of Woodlands to

move out into the community, those contracts will be let to

organizations which are non-profit, which have a board, which will be

publicly accountable for the services that they offer to the mentally

handicapped living in the community? I'll wait for the minister's

answer.

HON. MR. RICHMOND : Sorry, I thought you were

going to amble on a little longer. I missed the specific question, I'm

afraid, so give me the actual question without the

preamble, if you

would.

MS. A. HAGEN : I'll repeat the question, Mr.

Minister. Is the minister prepared to commit himself to contracts which

are non-profit, managed by a board that is accountable to the community

and to representation from mentally handicapped people in the

community, contracts which will in fact then be open not only to

scrutiny by the ministry but scrutiny by the public in the same way

that institutions that have served mentally handicapped people have

been open to scrutiny and accountability to the public?

HON. MR. RICHMOND :

I've got the gist of your question now. The answer probably, in one

word, would be no, not exclusively, because some of the best contracts

we have for purchasing these kinds of services are with commercial

operators. In fact these people, some of the very best ones, are

ex-employees from Tranquille. They have gone into business and they

contract with us for these services. They are accountable. They are

accountable to my ministry through the regional manager and through the

audit team, etc., so they are very accountable. Of course, it's public

funds, so eventually they're accountable to the community through the

electoral process, I would suppose. So if your question is whether we

will contract with these types of people exclusively, the answer is no.

We're interested in purchasing a service where we get the highest

quality for the least amount of dollars. Many of these are commercially

operated facilities.

MS. A. HAGEN : I would express

some grave concern about the response that I have had from the

minister. In fact, in many of the services that we have throughout our

province, we do work through mechanisms that allow for public

accountability. While I do not question that there may very well be, in

the kind of example that the minister has offered, excellent care

available to the mentally handicapped living in

[ Page 369 ]

the

community, I think that where public dollars are being expended, the

idea of those dollars being expended in a non-profit sector and with

people who are publicly accountable is a tradition that we should see

go by the wayside with very great reluctance. I'm sure that we will be

speaking to this issue again as we discuss the Woodlands closure.

have one more question that I would like to pose to the minister around

the services that are available to mentally handicapped people. There

are many of them, but there is one additional issue that I would like

to flag at this time. There are, within the community, many mentally

handicapped people who have never been institutionalized. They are

people who have lived with their families all of their lives. Many of

them are a part of programs that have been developed by groups like the

Simon Fraser Society for Mentally Handicapped People and others that

exist throughout the province.

One of the concerns that I

am hearing over and over again among many is that those people who are

living in the community are being very seriously shortchanged in the

services that are available to them. I understand that the waiting

lists are moving into the hundreds now for services for people who are

in need of training, opportunities to work and opportunities to have

some constructive kinds of programs available to them as a part of

their regular living. The organizations of which I speak are

increasingly concerned, as are the parents and families of these young

people, about the lack of commitment to those people who have never

been institutionalized and who are equally in need of service,

Can the minister give us some assurance that while we are progressing with a small number of people — something in the order of 500 or 600 who are institutionally still bound — we

are not going to be forgetting the needs of those many people who are

already a part of a normal life pattern, living in the community and in

need of achievement centres, training, opportunities to work and other

special services?

HON. MR. RICHMOND : First of all,

just back to the former subject before I try to answer your question, I

must repeat that the emphasis that we place on these contracts is on

quality service. They are monitored very closely by us and by others.

Non-profit

does not guarantee quality. We have found out that some of the

non-profit societies operate very well, some do not. Some have closed.

So don't equate a non-profit society with quality service, because the

two do not go hand in hand. There is accountability in our program. In

fact, what we're doing right here now is the public accountability of

which you speak. Non-profit doesn't guarantee any better accountability

than a purchased service.

On the waiting-lists for the

people you speak of, that's why this year in the budget we have put in

$1.4 million to accommodate those on waiting-lists. I am told by my

staff that at present in the province there are 194 on waiting-lists

for such services. So, yes, we're very aware of the problem. That's why

we have put this extra $1.4 million into the budget: to accommodate

these 194 people.

MS. MARZARI : Mr. Chairman, my task

today is to address the issue of women and social services, that being

my critic area, and I am here to back up my colleagues the members for

Maillardville-Coquitlam (Mr. Cashore) and for New Westminster (Ms. A.

Hagen), to ask questions about these estimates that relate to women and

social services. But I would like to take the opportunity to correct

some of the minister's statements.

The SPARC report, the

update on regaining dignity, does in fact refer to an average rent.

However, that average rent is not the Vancouver average; it is the

average for the lower mainland, and as I read through page 9 of the

report, I can see that the city of Vancouver's rents — bachelor, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom —

comprise about one-third of the total list of municipalities chosen to

be the rent sample for this report. I would suggest that the average

rent, therefore, brought up as a part of the subsistence level of

living, is in fact more than legitimate, In the whole of the metro

Vancouver area, the average bachelor flat seems to be renting at $364 a

month, a one-bedroom at $443, a two-bedroom at $587 and a three-bedroom

at $658.1 should suggest that when the researchers were putting

together their estimates for what it takes a person to live at the

poverty level, according to this report, they were very frugal. In

fact, a family of three, a single parent and two children, were given

only two bedrooms.

I think that's an indicator that what

we're dealing with is a situation where this $80-a-month cold-water

flat no longer exists. We're dealing with real rents in the 1980s in

the lower mainland, and subsistence is, in effect, subsistence, and

when single males are living at 71 percent below a poverty line as

established for us regionally in the Vancouver area, it's a real 71

percent.

If, in effect, the minister would like to say that

unemployment rates correspond exactly with the welfare rates as they

fluctuate up and down — say that on the one hand but then turn

about and say on the other hand that we can't increase welfare too much

because it will attract more welfare recipients — I'd like him to

think about the inconsistencies of that very thought, of those two

statements juxtaposed. If the rates correspond exactly with each other,

it would suggest that if we raised those welfare rates to the poverty

line, the unemployment rate and the rate of people on welfare would

remain much the same. People want to work, and I think that's the point

that has to be made here.

[4:45]

Similarly, we should point out that the 2.5 percent increase in GAIN

rates to families is not something to be lauded or applauded; it's

something, I think, we could remain ashamed of. In my calculations, a

two-parent family with two children, earning on the support side of

their GAIN cheque $864 a month, are not going to be making that much

more with the 2.5 percent increase granted April 1. In fact, it

calculates to about $10 a month. If you have two children who are, for

example, eating an apple a day, eating 60 apples a month, I'd suggest

that your two children are not going to be able, with this 2.5 percent

increase, to have an apple a day for a whole month. I think it's worth

thinking about that graphically, in pictorial terms. That 2.5 percent

does not give two kids in a family an apple a day for a month.

We've

said this before, and I'm sure it will be said again: society is

measured on how it cares for its dependent people, and people on

welfare are dependent. By my numbers, 40 percent of people in our

province on welfare are children; 58 percent appear to be female. One

of our goals, I would hope, in a civilized society is to reduce

dependency, and we do that by developing services for the dependent, so

that they can best help themselves, and keep their integrity, and

somehow make their way into the economic and social mainstream.

[ Page 370 ]

task today, in addressing women and their relationship to the estimates

in Social Services and Housing, is not an easy task, possibly because

I've been so close to this issue for so many years of my life, as a

social worker and a coordinator of social services in Vancouver, as a

city councillor, as a woman, as a parent, as a friend over the years of

many of the people who work in the system and as a friend of many of

the people who've been consumers of the system. So I approach this with

a certain amount of trepidation, almost a fear that I probably won't

have when I approach my own critic area. I know these people too well.

this province, and in this country, we've got a history of partnership

between public and voluntary service systems, and we work together to

meet community needs. They have grown as a jigsaw puzzle grows, often

meeting needs and often on a piecemeal basis. Sometimes we find that

when we've tried to meet needs, according to the old jigsaw puzzle, the

jigsaw puzzle itself becomes irrelevant as a decade goes by, and we

find that we're building the wrong puzzle altogether. We often watch a

voluntary service meeting a small local need which becomes larger than

a local need, larger than a personal problem. That's the point at which

government should be stepping in to relieve the voluntary sector and

guarantee a service to all citizens, whether that be health care or

pensions.

In the seventies and eighties we've all witnessed

the effects of economic and social stress on the family. We've come of

age, actually, as a province in our ability to handle, manage and

create new systems to deal with social needs. Hopefully we've developed

a sophistication to understand that the so-called cost side of the

ledger and the so-called revenue side of the ledger can be blended;

that in fact very often we have to be priming the pump, we have to be

injecting money back into the community to make it whole again and to

make it run again.

What's happened in this province in the

last ten years, though, has been the opposite. What we've had is crisis

intervention, and that's happened more and more in the last few years.

We attempted briefly to direct our efforts at preventing family

breakdown through bolstering community services, and we supported these

services for a while. Now I see in this budget those community services

being starved again and not being given the kind of attention and

funding they need.

I would suggest — and this is where I want to support heartily the member for Maillar