Manitoba Hansard — 3 May 1993 (Sitting 54B, 35th Legislature, 4th Session)

35-4-54b

Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)

MG-8048 Fourth Session ·T hirty-Fifth Legisl ature of the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba DEBATES and PROCEEDINGS (HANSARD) 42 Elizabeth II Published under the authority of The Honourable Denis C. Rocsn Speaker VOL. XLII No. 548 • 8 p.m., MONDAY, MAY 3, 1993 ISSN 0542-5492

MANITOBA LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBL Y Thirty-Fifth Legislature Members, Constituencies and Political Affiliation NAME ALCOCK, Reg ASHTON, Steve BARRETT, Becky CARSTAIRS, Sharon CERILLI, Marianne CHEEMA, Guizar CHOMIAK, Dave CUMMINGS, Glen, Hon. DACQUA Y, Louise DERKACH, Leonard, Hon. DEWAR, Gregory DOER, Gary DOWNEY, James, Hon. DRIEDGER, Albert, Hon. DUCHARME, Gerry, Hon. EDWARDS, Paul ENNS, Harry, Hon. ERNST, Jim , Hon. EVANS,C iif EVANS, Leonard S. FILMON, Gary, Hon. FINDLAY, Glen, Hon. FRIESEN, Jean GAUDRY, Neil GIL LESHAM MER, Harold, Hon. GRAY, Avis HE LWER, Edward R.

HICKES, George LAMOUREUX, Kevin LATHLIN, Oscar LAURENDEAU, Marcel MALOWAY, Jim MANNESS, Clayton, Hon. MARTINDALE, Doug McALPINE, Gerry McCRAE, James, Hon. MciNTOSH, Linda, Hon. MITCH ELSON, Bonnie, Hon. NEUFELD, Harold ORCHARD, Donald, Hon. PALLISTER, Brian PENNER, Jack PLOHMAN, John PRAZNIK, Darren, Hon. REID, Daryl REIMER, Jack RENDER, Shirley ROGAN, Denis, Hon. ROSE, Bob SANTOS, Conrad STEFANSON, Eric, Hon. STORIE, Jerry SVEINSON, Ben VODREY, Rosemary, Hon. WASYL YCIA-LEIS, Judy WOWCHUK, Rosann Vacant CONSTITUENCY Osborne Thompson Wellington River Heigh ts Radisson The Maples Kildonan Ste.

Rose Seine River Roblin-Russell Selkirk Concordia Arthur-Virden Steinbach Riel St. James Lakeside Charfeswood Interlake Brandon East Tuxedo Springfield Wolseley St. Boniface Minnedosa Crescentwood Gimli Point Douglas Inkster The Pas St. Norbert Elmwood Morris Burrows Sturgeon Creek Brandon West Assiniboia River East Rossmere Pembina Portage Ia Prairie Emerson Dauphin Lac du Bonnet Transcona Niakwa St. Vital Gladstone Turtle Mountain Broadway Kirkfield Park RinRon La Verendrye Fort Garry St. Johns Swan River Rupertsland PARTY.

Liberal NDP NDP Liberal NDP Liberal NDP PC PC PC NDP NDP PC PC PC Liberal PC PC NDP NDP PC PC NDP Liberal PC Liberal PC NDP Liberal NDP PC NDP PC NDP PC PC PC PC PC PC PC PC NDP PC NDP PC PC PC PC NDP PC NDP PC PC NDP NDP

2422 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA Monday, May 3, 1993 The House met at 8 p.m. ORDERS OF THE DAY (continued) COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY (Concurrent Sections) FAMILY SERVICES Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): The hour being eight o'clock, comm ittee will resu me. We are going to deal with item 4.(

b) Community Living and Vocational Rehabilitation Progr ams (1 ) Adult Services (

a) Salaries $1 '11 0,600. Mrs. Sharon Carstalrs (Leader of the Second Opposition): Mr. Deput y Chairperson, I would like to get into the payments to external agencies. In the House and outside of the House, the minister indicated that they had to make tough choices, so they, in essence, decided that they had to give money to support organizations that were providing service. So they cut funding to those that, in their judgment, provided primarily advocacy. Is that correct? I do not want to put words in the minister's mouth. Hon. Harold Gllleshammer (Minister of Family Services): Mr.

Deputy Chairperson, that was one of the criteria that we looked at. I certainly have had discussions with a number of these groups that do provide advocacy. They, in some cases, may also provide services to their memb ers and some services to the community. Certainly the ones that were provi ding what is gen erally known as advocacy were part of a group that had some reduced funding. I think that when the Finance minister made his announcement across government, one of the things that were said was that advocacy groups were one of the targets.

As well, there were agencies that were providing programs that were not of the highest priority within our department and what our department mandate is. Some of them, of course, had gotten into other service delivery to do with their work with1.1 the commu nity. Mrs.Carstalrs: First off, paymentsthatwere made today, the recipient organization, I found it rather interesting that the first two list in their name that they are advocacy groups, the Brandon Citizen Advocacy Inc. and the Winnipeg Citizen Advocacy Inc.

While their funding was reduced fr om, I think, a high of $38,000 to $34,200, they did manage to maintain a large chunk of their funding as opposed to, for example, the Association for Commu nity Living. Can the minister explain why these two, by their own defi nition, advocacy groups managed to survive but the Association for Commu nity Living did not? Mr. Gllleshammer: I can well understand why the member has asked the question.

I guess part of the explanation is that these are two groups who work with mentally disabled clients and perform an advocacy function for their clients and, as such, a service for those clients. The Brandon Citizen Advocacy Inc. assists that organization that is working, again, primarily with mentally disabled individuals in day-to-day living and in a sort of big-brother, big-sister fashion and of course as indicated, within the city of Brandon. The Winnipeg organization is essentially the same. They advocate for individual clients who would be described as mentally disabled. Mrs.

Carstalrs: Surely that is a definition of what the Association for Community Living does. Mr. Gllleshammer: Again, I do not think there is a clear-cut definition of advocacy. Many of the groups were probably in a broader advocacy role representing their particular client group advocating government on certain programming and certain directions. These, it was thought and felt, because they provided a service to the mentally disabled, were providing a service that we wanted to maintain. Mrs.

Car stalrs: The only new re cipi ent organization that I could find, unless of course it is a pullout from one of the others, is the CareerStart transition. Is that a brand new group that is being funded this year? It was not found last year.

2423 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MAN ITOBA May 3, 1993 Mr.GI IIeshammer: Yes, it is part of our community Jiving initiative that we announced in the subject that we spoke about earlier. Mrs. Carstalrs: Can you tell me what was the function of Abilities Network, because they seem to also be one that does not have its funding this year, but received some 76.61ast time? Mr.

Gllleshammer: Th is was a nonp rofit association that was fostering and promoting the effectiveness and relevance of those organizations whose primary purpose is to provide continuing education, training and development for adults with intellectual, physical and psychiatric disabilities. Mrs. Carstalrs: It would soun d, from the description, that they were providing a direct service. Mr. Gllleshammer: Again, I think there is a gray area here where the previous two groups that the member was asking about cert ainly provided a direct service to individuals.

In this case, the Abilities Network was an umb rella organization that encompassed a number of groups that in fact do provide service. Mrs. Carstalrs: Was there a percentage figure which was used for all the recipient organizations other than, for example, the ones who had their grants eliminated altogether? Mr.GI IIeshammer: Yes, there were some that lost 1 00 percent of their funding. Others, there was a 1 0 percent reduction. Wrth some others, there was a 4 percent reduction. Mrs. Carstalrs: What was the determination for one percentage vis-a-vis the other percentage? Mr.

Gllleshammer: The 4 percent was agencies that we felt could achieve the workweek reduction model that government is imposing on civil service staff. The 10 percent was on larger agencies with a capacity to achieve some savings in effi ciencies within their organization. Mrs. Carstalrs: The housing type models like Ten Ten Sinclair received no reduction in their funding at all between '92-93, '93-94,

whereas some of the other agencies seem to require more of a cut even though they are also providing accommodation, for example, Main Street Project Inc. which received a rather ma ssive reduction of som e hun dred thousand dollars. Mr. Gllleshammer: With the Main Street Project there was a 1 0 percent reduction in the grant funding that we gave them. With Ten Ten Sinclair there was a 4 percent reduction that it was felt they could achieve on the salaries portion. Mrs. Carstalrs: So they got 758 last year and 731 this year. All right, I see that. Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr.

Deputy Chairperson, I would like to go back to some of the comments the minister was making at five o'clock. I could not let his re marks go unnoticed or uncommented on. He ended on quite a rhetorical flourish at five o'clock. Unfor tunately, I have forgotte n most of what he said. It went in one ear and out the other, I guess. However, I would like to say that the main point of difference between us is his alleged reference to fairness. I know that the minister has heard us say this before in Throne Speech Debate, in Question Period and in Estimates.

We believe that the pain is not being shared fairly and we will continue to repeat that. I just wanted to make sure that I got that on the record in reply to the minister's remarks and then I have some questions. Mr. Gllleshammer: I mi ght respond with a challenge again. The member has consistently said that in Family Services we have not made the appropriate decisions, that we are not showing a sense of fairness within our budget.

I have challenged him to give us some options that he would see as a direction as a member potentially of a government that may someday have more realistic thoughts of form ing government, and we are still waiting for those options. • (201 0) Again I say to the me mb er, the reality of government is the reality faced by the Premier of Ontario and the Premier of Saskatchewan, and the reality of opposition is the rhetoric that is coming from federal mem bers of his party who, of course, are so used to being in opposition that they continue to say the same lines and do not account for the fact that once in government you have to make some hard decisions.

We believe in this department that we have shown a sense of fairness in finding the savings within our department which allows us to make the increases in a number of areas where we are dealing with very vulnerable Manitobans. I know that before the Estimates are over the honourable member is going to tell me what some options are within Family Services that he would lobby for

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2424 should he ever have that opportunity. I say to the member, these were difficult decisions that your Leader has recognized on numerous occasions and I am sure before we . are finished maybe the honourable member will also recognize them. Mr.Martlndale: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, there are some very specific examples of how we feel that this budget is unfair, for example, the total elimination of the grant to the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization.

In conve rsati ons with ma ny organiza tions, particularly external agencies that are funded by you r depa rt ment, we know that dif fe rent organizations are dealing with their reduction or even elimination of grants in different ways. For example, some executive directors or board memb ers have told me that they are going to sit down and redo their budget for this year. Others are going to save money primarily from the workweek reduction that the minister just referred to.

Others are going to charge fees to their memb ers, in some cases, for the first time; hopefully, in that way they will keep their organization afloat. However, Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization really does not have any of those options. They feel that their staff are underpaid for the kind of work that they are doing now. They have no ability to reduce staff wages to continue, because such a large part of their funding comes from your department. They cannot charge fees to their mem bers because they are dealing with poor people who probably would not be able to pay, let alone willing to pay, for service.

So I think that is one organization whose ability to rebudget or to take workweek reductions or charge fees is either severely constricted or impossible. They may well end up with having one staff or no staff, and if there is no staff, there is no organization. Now the minister knows that out of the 56 organizations that received no funding, there are only a very few that we have gone to bat for, and Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization is one of them .

If the minister were to reconsider any decision of the externally funded agencies, that is the one that I would probably pick out of all of them for the minister to reconsider. Since this is the first time we have really gotten into payments to external agencies in any detail, I would like to ask the minister if he would reconsider the funding decision regarding Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organ.zation. Mr. Gllleshammer: I would be pleased to answer that and note that the alternatives that were requested by myself have yet to come forward.

The Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization is one of the groups that I have met with frequently and will be meeting with again in the not too distant future to discuss the work that they do. Again, this was one of those difficult decisions that we had to make within this budget, to achieve any degree of savings. I recognize what the member is saying, to a large extent, is correct. Again, these are services that are provided by the department and where we have staff who work with individuals on social allowances.

So, in some ways, there is a bit of a duplication of service there, although I do recognize that the organization did advocate for the system and, in some cases, for individuals, but then there are other organizations that do that as well. I know that the WORD organization, which is not funded by government, the Winnip eg organi zation representing the disabled, again, has brought forward excellent rec omme ndations, some of which we have followed. One of the most significant was the fact that we put into place a benefit called Income Assistance for the Disabled.

I know that the member has been supportive of that. The other organization that has provided good advice and good background to the department and to the minister is the Social Assistance Coalition of Man itoba. I know tho se are individuals not unknown to members of the opposition. We have frequently met with two of their executive memb ers who not only provide advice and information for the department, but also do a lot of advocacy on be!'Jalf of individual members who may be accessing the system.

As well, I would point out that the member has indicated that because of the need for funding, the organization cannot maintain its profile and its work. There are thousands and thousands of volunteers in society that provide service and provide advocacy for individual groups. I do not think the member and I would ever agree whether there is sufficient service and sufficient advocacy for the disadvantaged who are on social assistance. I would say that there are other groups; there are other individuals and we do have departmental staff that provide service to the many thousands of cases that we deal with.

2425 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 Mr. Martindale: Will the minister not agree that there is a fundamen tal difference between the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization and the other two organizations he talked about, namely WORD and the Social Assistance Coalition of Manitoba? The fundamental differ ence, in my view, is that the Manitoba Anti-Poverty Organization had a paid staff and an office at 365 McGee Street, and they were providing a service to people who walked in the door or who phoned them. They were acting as advisers and advocates for individuals, mostly for individuals with problems with city and provincial social assistance.

Whereas, my understanding and knowledge of WORD and SACOM is that they are fairly limited in that they do not have paid staff. They do not advocate or give advice to a whole lot of individuals. Primarily, their purpose has been to advocate on behalf of groups of people on social assistance and advocate to change the rules and to improve the benefits. They were primarily lobbying organizations and had no or almost no service component. Would the minister not agree that those are fundame ntally different functi ons of those organizations? Mr.

Gllleshammer: As much as I would like to find some area where the member and I can agree, I am surprised that he is so critical of those organizations which have really provided valuable input to the department and valuable input to government on a numb er of issues. I can assure him that they certainly provide individual service. •

(2020) We met with the co-chairs of SA COM many times and listened to the number of cases that they do individual advocacy and work for. They have many times assured me that they work with clients on a day-to-day basis to help them achieve some of their goals in terms of education, some of their goals as far as working within the social allowances system. I sense from the vast knowledge they have of the legislation and of the system-and, certainly, I have not asked for any documentation, but I take them at face value that they do a tremendous amount of work for individual clients who come to them.

Similarly, with the WORD organization, although they are small in terms of memb ership and they do not have a permanent full-time staff, they have achieved a numb er of gains for the disabled commu nity as a group and for individuals. I think it is an example how groups like that, which in many ways feel unencu mb ered by government, do provide both a service to individuals and good advice about the system. Mr. Martindale: Well, the minister is trying to put words in my mouth. I am certainly not critical of either of those organizations.

In fact, I support nongovernmental organizations that advocate with government on behalf of individuals or groups of people. I would repeat that they are fundame ntally different from MAPO, another difference being that, as far as I know, neither of the other two groups are incorporated or have a board of directors. I can appreciate that the minister gets advice from them and ap preciates that advice , but the fundamental diff erence is still there. One was an organization with paid staff serving large numbers of people, and the others were serving less people without any paid staff .

I would like to go back to Commu nity Living and Vocational Rehabilitation and ask the minister what positions have been eliminated by staff cuts to the civil service in three areas: behavioural specialists, family services workers and vocational rehab workers. Mr. Gllleshammer: My understanding is that we have two fewer staff in that area. Mr. Martindale: For clarification of those three areas, there are two fewer staff? Mr. Gllleshammer: Yes, that is correct. Mr. Martindale: Can the minister tell us what he sees as the role of his department in meeting the needs of aboriginal people with a mental handicap?

Mr.GI IIeshammer: There is an understanding that in Mani toba the Go ve rnment of Canada is responsible for services to aboriginal people whose residency is on reserve. Of course, in the not too distant past, the Government of Canada, in terms of a transition from the reserve to a nonreserve location, also were responsible for cer tain programm ing for First Nations people as they moved from the reserve to the city of Winnipeg or elsewhere in the province.

The example that I am most familiarwith of course is the whole area of social allowances, where there was once an understanding that as aboriginal memb ers mo ved off reser ve, the federal government were responsible for them for the first year.

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2426 Similarly in child welfare, the federal government played a larger role there. In the area of citizens who access programming through this area of the departme nt, the prov ince is responsible for off-reserve services to Status and non-Status and because this does not come under the CAP cost sharing, this is a service provided by Manitoba. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 4.(

b) Community Living and Vocational Rehabilitation Programs (1 ) Adult Services (

a) Salaries $1 ,1 1 0,600-pass; (

b) Other Expenditu res $41 3,400 -pass; (

c) Financial Assistance and External Agencies $38,586,800- pass. 4.(b)

(2) Children's Special Services (

a) Salaries $223,900. Mrs. Carstalrs: In the last line of this particular appropriation it talks about Financial Assistance and external. I am presu ming that means External Agencies, but what External Agencies would be covered under this since none of them are listed? Mr. Gllleshammer: I am told this is primarily through per diems and primarily to St. Amant. Mrs. Carstalrs: What kinds of Children's Special Services would come under that? Mr. Gllleshammer: This is the way in which we flow money to St. Amant, that there is a budget line around $1 3 million or $1 4 million that is accessed by St.

Amant for individuals who are clients there. Mrs. Carstalrs: I did not really want to get into this one, but I was shocked when I saw the St. Amant Developmental Day Care program line under Child Day Care because it was 41 3.4 in '92-93 and in '93-94, it is 15 8.2. I would have thought that would have come in here. Mr. Gllleshammer: The daycare program at St. Amant is funded under the Day Care line. Mrs. Carstalrs: But the Day Care line for St. Amant, and we can discuss it in detail later on, is some $300,000 less than it was last year. Mr. Gllleshammer: That is correct. As part of the review of the St.

Amant Centre that we did in conjunction with them, there has been a change in the way the St. Amant Day Care Centre is operated. In this budget year the advice of that review committee was to treat the St. Amant Day Care in a similar fashion that we treat other daycares in the province so that the funding levels for the St. Amant Day Care now reflect the formula we have for funding all daycare&. Mrs.

Carstalrs: I do not disagree with that except that l-and this is where I got confused, because I would have thought that those special needs for those children within that daycare centre might have shown up under Children's Special Services, but in fact there is a decline. Where is the money coming from for those children in the daycare that need Children's Special Services? Mr. Gllleshammer: Within the global daycare budget there is a certain amount of funding for special needs children. The funding that flows to the St. Amant daycare for special needs comes out of that formula in the daycare budget. Mrs.

Carstalrs: Would that be in addition to the 15 8 which is listed under External Agencies Grants? "

(2030) Mr. Gllleshammer: Yes, that is correct. Mrs. Carstalrs: There has been a decline in the financial assistance. Is this because there are fewer children being serviced, or is this just a reflection that everybody had to take less to do that servicing? Mr. Gllleshammer: Part of the restructuring that St. Amant has done with their daycare shows some changes in the way whic h, for instan ce , trans portation is being handle d . There is a reduction in the transportation allowance, again to reflect the type of funding that we do with other daycares. This was worked out with the board of St. Amant.

The changes in that policy to do with daycare was done in agreement with the St. Amant board. Mrs. Carstalrs: I am now dealing actually with Commu nity living and Vocational Rehab Programs under Children's Special Services. There has been a decline in the Financial Assistance line from 20.6 to 20.5. Is that as a result of fewer children, or is that as a result of just the downsizing that everybody has been asked to do? Mr. Gllleshammer: That is part of a budget reduction of 2 percent on the per diems. Mrs. Carstalrs: The 2 percent in per diems for special services? Mr. Gllleshammer: For clients of St. Amant. Mrs.

Carstalrs: So St. Amant is now receiving less grant to look after the same child? Mr. Gllleshammer: The 2 percent is a reduction in the global figure that we flowed to St. Amant. Again,

2427 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 I go back to this major review we did in co-operation with St. Amant. Part of it was to determine how they should be funded. There was some line of thinking that thought St. Amant should be funded as a hospital. There was another line of thinking that thought they should be just funded on per diems. We also had to deal with an accumu lated deficit. The outcome and the changes that are taking place in St. Amant are minimal. We have flowed additional money, I think around $350,000, to deal with an accum ulated deficit. Part of our treatment of St.

Amant is similar to other organizations where we have asked them to take 2 percent less and to find that within their salary structure. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 4. (b)

(2) Children's Special Services (

a) Salaries $223,9 00-pass; (

b) Other Expenditures $83, 700-pass; (

c) Financial Assistance and External Agencies $20,590,5 00- pass. 4. (

c) Ma nitoba Developme ntal Centre

(1) Salaries $20,371 ,900. Mrs. Carstalrs: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, with regard to MDC, I think that all MLAs received a recent letter with regard to the staffing problems or as this individual indicates. Is it normal for a staff person at MDC to work between six and eight days in a row straight without a day off? Mr. Gllleshammer: Well, I am not aware of what correspondence the member is referring to, but no, it is not a normal practice. We abide by the civil service guidelines as far as staffing goes. Mrs.

Carstalrs: Well, in this particular case, they refer to Monday to a Sunday shift as a regular type of occurrence-Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday-and they admit they then get four days off. My understanding is that is contrary to the labour code. Mr. Gllleshammer: We are not aware of that and my limited experience in terms of what the civil service guidelines are, it appears to me that there are opportunities within there to raise a grievance over an issue like that.

I would be surprised if government did not have an appeal process following that if the person's concerns had not been addressed. Mrs. Carstalrs: Well, I just give it to the minister because I received it as correspondence and would ask that they look into it just to ensure that this kind of thing is not in fact going on at MDC. The Supplementary Estimates indicate that there has been a decrease in staff years which reflects workforce adjustments. It would appear that there has been essentially 1 0 staff, I think, reduced in this staff years reduced.

There does not seem to be a corresponding reduction in the number of clients at MDC. What does this workforce adjustment refe r to? Mr. Gllleshammer: Yes, there is a reduction, I believe, of nine positions at MDC. I can give you a bit of a breakdown of those if you like. I am told that four and a half of the positions are from within the nur sing depa rtm en t, and ther e have been reti remen ts and resigna tions ther e. We are redeploying two positions back into that area from what was called the transitional unit.

One position in the vocational training department was recently vacated as a result of a promotion, and workshop su pervision and program manage ment will be maintained by redeploying one position from the transitional unit. I do not know whether I have to go into the transitional unit. There has been a unit there preparing individuals-and it was called the transitional unit-for transit ioning out of the institution.

We are reassigning that staff because of the fact that a number of these individuals are part of the pilot project that we talked about before, and we felt that the transitional unit at this time was not necessary. So the positions that we are downsizing in MDC, nine of them, a number of them, are being covered off by mem bers from the transitional unit. Mrs. Carstalrs: There have been a number of significant structural changes at MDC over the last six or seven years, all of them desperately overdue.

I have to say that, having been at MDC in the mid-'60s and having gone back to it again this summe r, there was positive upgrading and the government should be congratulated. My first impression, having gone to MDC, was that I wanted to remove all of the clients and I wanted to blow the place up. I was back this summer, and I must admit I had a more positive feeling about the type of physical plant. I always felt the staff was very competent and doing a very good job, but I must say that I thought the physical plant left a great deal to be desired.

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2428 And pat people on the back when they deserve it. The government deserves a pat on the back. Mr. Gllleshammer: I thank you for that, and I will be certain that staff pass that along to the staff at MDC. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 4.(

c) Manitoba Developmental Centre

(1) Salaries $20,3 71 ,900- pass;

(2) Other Expenditures $2,91 0,30�ass. 4.(

d) Child Day Care

(1) Salaries $1 ,81 8,900. Mr. Martindale: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I think we will be here for quite a while. Probably till midnight. I have a number of excellent letters- *

(2040) Mr. Gllleshammer: Could I just ask if you wish to stay on this till midnight there is a possibility that some staff do not have to remain here if we are not going into child welfare? And if you want to change your mind- Mr. Martindale: We may get into Child and Family Services. Mr. Gllleshammer: Okay. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Would you just stay in the one level though, at the administration level and that, or- Mr. Martindale: I would like to ask all my questions on Child Day Care all at once, of course giving some time to the other critic.

I am in receipt of some excellent correspondence from people who are very involved either as parents or board memb ers or staff in child care centres. I would like to quo te from some of this correspondence because I think it makes a case that I have been trying to make in Question Period without success, mainly having to do with the impact of the changes annou nced by the min ister, particularly the increase in fees and the capping of subsidized spaces. The first letter I would like to quote from is from the law firm, Wilder, Wilder and Langtry .. Langtry kind of rings a bell.

As the letterhead points out, he is on leave of absence. However, one of his colleagues there, Leslie Toug h, has sent an excellent letter on behalf of the-actually, she is writing in her capacity of treasurer of the board of directors of Little Bo-Peep Children's Day Nu rsery Inc. I would like to quote some of the facts that she presents. She says that Bo-Peep daycare is presently licensed for 32 spaces. However, she says: We have 40 children in attendance, because many sh are a space due to the pa rt-time requirements of their parents.

This is largely a reflection of the current economic and employment climate where parents are either unable to secure full-time employment or have been cut back to part-time hours by their employers. Thus, the sharin g of spaces meets a real need in our commu nity and in particular for those families who are already exper iencing financial difficulties. These are people who cannot afford daycare without a subsidy. We were originally told that we had been allocated 25 subsidized spaces pursuant to the recent policy of the provincial government limiting the number of subsidized spaces permitted.

This created a very difficult situation, but our director felt that we could try to cope with it. However, this was recently changed to cases, meaning children. Obviously, this results in a disastrous situation for the daycare and the parents. We will no longer be able to provide part-time care for subsidized parents. We will be unable to fill up all of our 32 licensed spaces. The result will be a loss of revenue to the daycare and probable staff layoffs. The purpose of this letter is to draw your attention to this situation and to respect fully request a reconsideration of the allocation of our subsidized cases.

We do understand the current economic situation, but the course taken by the Province of Manitoba is shortsighted and disastrous. It will remove people from their employment and children from licensed daycare. It will create a subsidized ghettoized daycare system for the poor. Mr. Deputy Chairperson, I would like to begin by asking the minister if the facts as presented in this letter are the same as what the minister has been saying in the House.

This individual is saying that they are going to be forced to reduce the number of children in their child care, and the implication is that they are going to have to lay off staff. I would like to ask the minister if the reason for this is not that-in the past, two and sometimes more children were sharing one space-that this will no longer be true and each case will refer to one child. Mr. Gllleshammer: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, what we are doing, as I have indicated to my honourable

2429 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 friend on a number of occasions, is making a slight reduction in the numb er of children who are receiving subsidies. In this particular case, and in all cases, we have looked at the number of children who are in that daycare who are being subsidized and have been subsidized over the last number of months. The average change is that we will subsidize one less child than was subsidized there before. I think part of the misunderstanding that the member has is if a daycare had 32 spaces, in the past they were eligible to be subsidized for those 32 spaces.

What we have done in terms of downsizing it is to look at the actuals; and, if they actually had 25 children sub sidized there before, we have indicated that we could subsidize 24 children. So there should not be, by following that logic, a great disruption for any one centre. I tell the member, as I have told him in the past, we are capping the system at 9,600. That is-1 do not know what the percentage works out to be-but a slight downsizing by attrition of the number of subsidized children that we will accommodate in the coming year.

We have indicated that individual parents can work with the daycare directorate, and we will promise to give fair treatment to all who want to access the system. I think the confusion in the numbers is the difference between what they were eligible for before and what their actual number of subsidized children in any particuiar centre was over the last number of months. So, in changing the system , and we have got 400 or 500 centres that have subsidized children, we in doing this will not impact any one organization to any great extent. Mr.

Martindale: In the past I have heard the minister explain the changes as reducing the number of spaces or cases by one child on average. This time the minister said one less. I would like the minister to clarify the diffe rence between reducing the number by one less or one less on average, and his explanation just now that there is a diffe rence between what they were eligible for and the actual number of children. Mr.

Gllleshammer: Maybe start with that first, that all of the daycares are licensed for a maximum number of spaces, and because there was no capping of subsidies before , that means that all centres and homes were eligible for as many subsidies as they had spaces. In restructuring and making a small downsizing of the system, we want to be sure that there is not any daycare centre or daycare home that is impacted by more than one or two subsidized children so that there is a sense of fairness to this.

Now, the centres and the homes always have had a component of children within them that were full fee paying children. I recognize that there were some centres where there was a greater number of subsidized children, and we are aware of that and we do not want to impact them anymore than we would impact any other centre. So, on average, the centres will not have more than one or two fewer subsidized children. Mr.

Martindale: I thank the minister for that explanation, and I will certainly be reading it in Hans ard to see if I totally understand it and agree with it and will also be sending it to Little Bo-Peep Children's Day Nursery. I would like to ask the minister to consider a couple of particular sentences in this letter and see whether he agrees or not. Leslie Tough says, quo te : We will no longer be able to provide part-time care for subsidized parents. Is that true or not? Mr. Gllleshammer: There has been no regulation change that would prevent them from providing part-time care. *

(2050) Mr. Martindale: The next sentence reads: We will be unable to fill up all of our 32 licensed spaces. Is that true or untrue in the minister's judgment? Mr. Gllleshammer: Well, there are 400 , 500 centres, and some of them have vacancies. They will not have more subsidies than they had in the past. They will be eligible for one or two fewer. As the world changes out there, people may make decisions to have their children in a different daycare for a variety of reasons. Maybe they have moved.

Maybe there is some particular reason that they want their child in a different daycare, but certainly it is the responsibility of the board and the centre to attract children and parents to use that centre. If they find that there are fewer people wanting care at that particular centre, certainly they will have to make staff adjustments, just as they have had to make staff adjustments if their enrollment rises. I

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2430 mean, that is what the public school system is doing allth9 time. I understand in the St. James-Assiniboia School Division that they have closed 12 schools. I think it is fair to say that there has been a drop in enrollment and a corresponding decrease in the staff . So there is no guarantee anywhere that all centres will always be full. So there is competition out there, and I am sure the member will agree that parents will make the decision that is best for their children and best for their family.

If they decide to go to a different centre, that is their decision. So there are always changes at the end of a school year as children graduate from a daycare and move on to the public school system. There is always, I guess, that pressure on the centre to try and backfill those spaces. We are saying that they will have the ability to have nearly as many subsidies as they had before. Mr. Martindale: I am also in receipt of a copy of a letter to the Premier (Mr.

Filmon) written on behalf of Inkster Comm unity Child Care Inc., Maples Day Care, Splash Child Care, Keep Childcare Inc., Sugar-N-Spice, Champlain School Age Centre, Champlain preschool and SPLLASH. They have done a survey of those child care centres and have discovered that, out of the eight centres polled in Winnipeg North, we have lost access to 11 9 potential subsidized cases. I would like to ask the minister if he feels that that is an accurate assessment of those eight centres? Mr.

Gllleshammer: I cannot do the arithmetic for you right here, but my previous answer should give the member an understanding of this. If they are licensed for 32 spaces, 40 spaces, their stance on this is that they were eligible for that many subsidies before. That is true because we had no cap on subsidies. Now what we have done is taken the number of subsidized children that they have had over the last six months and have indicated that we will be sure that they are still able, as long as they attract those children, to have the same number of subsidized children less one or two. Mr.

Martindale: I think these child care centres would beg to differ. They feel that they have lost 119 potential subsidized cases in their area. One of the implications for them is a rise in the numbers of latchkey children. They say: "Parents will leave children to their own means, and we will see ever rising numbers of latch key children at an earlier and earlier age". Does the minister agree that due to the lack of subsidized spaces, even if, as the minister says, it averages one per centre, that there are going to be children who are not going to be able to access child care who will be left at home unattended?

Mr. Gllleshammer: I think the member is getting some understanding of the difference between the eligible spaces, which were eligible for subsidy in the past. Centres that were licensed consider all of those spaces to have been eligible for subsidy; in fact, that is true in that there was no limit on the number of subsidies that a centre could access before. So we are saying that we have taken a snapshot in time and that those centres can access the same number of subsidized children less one or two so that they should be able to maintain the subsidies that they were accessing before with that small caveat.

That is where the difference is coming. I mean, you can add the number of centres, and if you have more centres, there were more potential subsidized spaces. We, for the first time, have put some limits on the number of children that we will provide subsidy for, and we have indicated that they can work with our daycare staff to make arrangements for their child care. What the memb er is saying has always been true: the pare nts will make the decision. The parents will make the decision about where their children will receive care, and surely the critic is saying that decision should not be lodged elsewhere. Mr.

Martindale: Does the minister agree with·the eight centres in north Winnipeg when they conclude that, as a result of changes, specifically capping, whether it is cases or spaces or children, the result will be an increase in the number of so-called latchkey children, that is, children at home who are not being attended to by a parent? Mr. Gllleshammer: The parents have the primary responsibility for making arrangements for their children, and I am confident thatthe majority of them will make the correct decision. Mr.

Martindale: I hope that the minister sees the connection between his policies and what is actually going to happen to some individuals out in the commu nity.

2431 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 The eight centres in north Winnipeg go on to say: "Due to the potential loss of subsidized cases and not being able to fill these spaces, some Child Care Professionals have been laid off and many more will be experiencing the same fate . How can you justify that all these laid off people who will be collecting UIC and then going on Welfare is helping the system?" That is their question, and it is a good question. Mr. Gllleshammer: If they have written a letter to me, we will be sure to answer that for them.

What the memb er is indicating is that he disagrees with the capping of the subsidies. What would happen if we had not done that is we would continue to be overexpanding our daycare budget. Last year, we overexpanded that budget by $5 million, and we spent in excess of $50 million on child daycare. Particularly, the major expenditure is in the area of subsidies. * (21 00) One of the advantages of opposition, of course, is that the member can advoca te that we overexpand our budget, but we simply cannot do that.

The memb er can look at what is happening in other provinces and see what the longer-term results are if in fact you do not live within your budget and you constantly have these overexpenditures. So I think that it is important that the member factor that into his thinking. The member has not offered alternatives of how we could live within those budgets. If the member would want us to reduce the grants, then we would have additional room to pay subsidies.

If the memb er is saying there are savings elsewhere in daycare, then we could have additional subsidies, but what we are trying to do is live within a budget of some $47.5 million in daycare. That is $1 million more than last year's budget. What we are trying to do is prevent the overexpenditure of that budget. When subsidies are available on demand, that is what happens. That is why we were over budget by $5 million last year. So that is our objective. We are trying to do this in the fairest way possible so that no centre will be adversely impacted.

The member did have a glimmer in his eye; I think he has an understanding of what numbers the centres are giving him as the number of spaces that they were eligible for. What we are looking at was the actuals from the last six months, and tried to make a small reduction from that actual.

This is where a big part of the misunderstanding comes in, and I think that, if the memb er can grasp that, he can do a lot to allay the fears of those centres that the amount of dollars they are going to access through subsidy should not be a whole lot different from what it was the previous year, provided there is a need in that centre for subsidized spaces. Mr.

Martindale: I have a letter from the Funshine Day Care Center Inc. in Virden, Manitoba, and they say that capping is going to cause empty spaces in their centre and increasing unemployment due to child care professionals being laid off and also parents not being able to stay in the paid workforce due to not being able to access child care. Then they make a special case for smaller centres and parents who live in rural areas, and point out that, unlike urban areas, rural areas have fewer licensed facilities, and. therefore, parents have fewer centres to find subsidized spaces in.

Theoy also point out that wages are generally lower in the rural commu nity; therefore, a large number of people eligible for subsidy will be vying for a few subsidized spots. Thirdly, rural daycare centres tend to have many part-time users. The author, Lisa Hicks, the director of the centre, says: I feel part-time users should be able to share a subsidized case. As a result of this change in policy, will part-time users be able to continue to share a subsidized space?

Mr.GIIIesh ammer: I have referred to the subsidies in terms of the numb er of children that were accessing subsidies before , and I do not know how many licensed spaces they have in that particular daycare, but if they were accessing subsidies for 20 children on average over the last six months, they would now be eligible for nearly that many. As I have indicated to the memb er, we are going to do this by attrition. We are going to try and manage it so that the average is respec ted and we will not impact any one centre to any great degree.

I am seemingly having trouble getting the memb er to accept that, and I think it goes back to the distortion of the system that occurs when you accept that all of those spaces that they are licensed for were eligible for subsidy before, that no centre will

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2432 be impacted by more than one or two subsidized spaces. Mr. Martindale: Jus t to ma ke the Clerk of Committee's job easier, I would like to make the point out that I tabled the letter on the letterhead of Inkster Community Child Care Inc. on behalf of eight child care centres. (Mr. Gerry McAlpine, Acting Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair) In the case of the Funshine Day Care Center in Virden, they say that they have 25 cases allotted to their centre, and currently have 27 subsidized children. Does that mean that they are going to lose two children to their centre?

Mr. Gllleshammer: The information I am given is they are licensed for 35. The six-month average was 25 su bsidized children; they have been allocated 25. Mr. Martindale: I would like to ask a general question based on the minister's answers and this correspondence. I am wondering if, since these decisions were made a few weeks ago, and child care centres, hopefully, have had a chance to study them, does the minister believe that child care centres now understand the changes and why the policy is being made?

The correspondence that I have suggests that there is still a lot of confusion out there, although these letters were written-April21 in one case, April 21 in another case, I have an undated letter, and April 30. One of them at least is fairly recent. Do you think that the child care community understands these changes now and how they were arrived at? Mr. Gllleshammer: I am given information by my staff that there is a greater understanding of the system now than there was probably when those letters were written.

I guess that is understandable in that we have had an opportunity to have some face-to-face meetings with centre directors and boards, and that we have been able to return some of the correspondence that has come forward on this issue. I guess ma ybe it is fair to say that the communication that has taken place through the press based on comments that are made by honourable mem bers in some cases served to make the understanding of the issues a little more dif ficult. The Day Car e of fice has had an opportunity now to meet with those directors and,as I have indicated, return some of the correspondence.

Of course, there are those who put their own

interpretation on the changes to suit their own purposes. Sometimes that plus the commun ications, because it is delivered through the media, does not give that accurate picture of the changes that we are making. So we have tried to have as many meetings as possible with daycare centres, their staff, and to provide them with some understanding of the changes. Mr. Martindale: Since the minister and his staff seem to have a lot of detailed information at their fingertips, I would like to ask him about the Winkler Day Care Centre.

They have written a letter to the editor of local newspapers and pointed out: There is a cap on the number of subsidized cases each centre can accommodate. For Winkler Day Care Centre, the cap is at 34. We currently have a case load of 41 . This is because rural centres have always had more part-time children in care. I wonder if the minister could tell us what the changes are at the Winkler Day Care Centre. Mr. Gllleshammer: The centre that the member refer ences, I am told, is licensed for 36; the average subsidized caseload or number of children is 34; and their allocation is 34. Mr.

Martindale: I would like to go on and quote from this letter to the editor some more because they talk about the impact of changes. We may disagree on how the changes were arrived at, but I am convinced that the impact is, as these child care centres say. This one is, I think, particularly worth reading into the record. They say, and I quote: These funding cuts will cost the government more money. Parents who are unable to access a space because of the cap on spaces will not be able to take jobs. Parents who are unable to pay the extra $1 .40 per day per child are quitting their jobs.

For these families social assistance is the only alternative. For a family of two parents and two preschool children, $1 ,18 0 lies within the range of monthly social assistance benefits. The cost of child care for the same family, even if they are fully subsidized, is $696. In addition, working parents pay taxes. Without question these funding changes contradict the very reason they were implemented. They will cost the taxpayer more money. * (21 10 )

2433 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 I would like to ask the minister if he believes that is true. They are giving two different scenarios. One is a parent who is employed and the children are in a fully subsidized space. They also point out that parent who is working is paying taxes. The other scenario is that the parent is on social assistance, and they quote an amount of $1 ,18 0 for social assistance. Does the minister agree with this letter which says that it will cost the government, cost taxpayers, more money to pay this fam ily social assistance than to subsidize their child care. Mr.

Gllleshammer: It is difficult to talk about specific parts of that letter without looking at the total letter and putting it in context. But let me refer to these numb ers aga in. They have 36 licensed spaces. They had 34 subsidized children. They will continue to have 34 subsidized children. So I am not sure that the catastrophic results that the member is referring to are going to happen here; they are going to have the same numb er of subsidized children today and later that they had over the last six months.

So the member can get into talking about whether people are better off working or whether there is a cost to the system if they are on social allowances. That is a completely different argument, and one that we got into under the social allowances. What we are saying is, the confusio n in the mind of the member still revolves around the number of spaces that they were eligible for before, because they were eligible to have subsidized children in all their spaces. There is no great impact on this centre.

So to talk about people having to be referred to social allowances and staff lay offs and salary reductions does not really make a lot of sense, so that you have to look at each individual case. What we are saying is that we are going to review the average number of subsidized children that they had before and give them no more than one or two less than they had before. So the impact, in going from 1 0,000 subsidized children to 9,600, should not affect any centre to any great degree.

The distortion that the member is making was most evident when he talked about the eight centres before, where you took the cumulative number of spaces that they are licensed for and then said, they now have lost all of these subsidies. I forget the number, but there were hundreds of them. Well, that is not reality, and I think the member is not doing a service to the commu nity if he continues to distort those numb ers. I think the member understands that we are trying to manage the downsizing of the system so that no centre will have too great an impact on it. Mr.

Martindale: I certainly was not attempting in any way to distort reality, and I appreciate the minister's explanation, particularly of the individual situations such as Winkler Day Care Centre. If we look at the more global picture, what is going to happen to the 400 parents who are not able to access child care because of the cap on the number of spaces? Does the minister believe that some of those parents will end up on social assistance, that some of them will drop out of the paid workforce because they cannot find suitable child care?

If so, does the minister agree, as this letter to the editor sugges ts, that in some cases it will be more expensive if those families are on social assistance than if they are working? Mr. Gllleshammer: I will explain again that the downsizing of the system is going to take place by attrition. We are not pushing anybody out of the system. We are not eliminating anybody from the system. As the normal course of changes takes place, we are going to have people leave the system during the course of this year as we do every year.

In many cases, as these children access the public school system, that family no longer requires that daycare space, and, in the course of the coming months, we are going to downsize the system from 1 0,000 subsidized children to 9,600. We have more than 400 centres and homes within the province that are licensed to care for children, so we are going to try and manage the system so that no one feels too great an impact.

If we were to accept the numbers that the member was putting on the record earlier, that they are losing 1 0 subsidies, 12 subsidies, 16 subsidies per centre, we would be losing far more than 400 subsidized spaces and children within the system. So that is where the distortion comes. Again, I think the memb er would do a service to that comm unity if he would get his mind around that and be able to represent the manner in which we are doing this. Mr. Martindale: I will certainly do my best to get my head around this. You can be sure that I will be photocopy ing the ques tions and answers in

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2434 Hansard and sending them to all the child care centres that I have named. Hopefully, that will help to clarify the situation for them as well as for myself. I would like to ask the minister: How will the 9,600 spaces be prioritized for subsidy? Will parents who qualify for a partial subsidy count first? Mr. Gllleshammer: We, I guess it is fair to say, are assigning those subsidies to the centre, and the management and the board of the centre will make those decisions.

We rely on them to treat the people who come forward to access services in a fair and reasonable manner. Mr. Martindale: There seem to be some problems in accessing the special social needs subsidy. I would like to ask the minister what the criteria are for acceptance. Is a referral from a professional in social work, public health, sufficient? Or whose advice is relied on to access the special social needs subsidy? Mr. Gllleshammer: That is a program that we have not altered, and that decision may be made by the agency or by professionals within the department. Mr.

Martindale: The minister and I have had questions in the past about the child benefit, and we know that in Manitoba all recipients will be keeping the child benefit because of a decision that this government made. However, one could argue that the $1 .40 a day increase in the fees for a subsidized parent is, in effect, a clawback of the child benefit. We have monies put in the hands of fam ilies by the federal government, and we have an increase in fees by the provincial government. Will the minister comment on that scenario? •

(2120) Mr. Gllleshammer: The member is correct that all provi nces had a decision to ma ke on the flow-through of a lump sum or monthly payment from the federal government. This decision is not unlike other decisions we had to make as new programs came into the system. Probably the one previous to that was the GST rebate, where the decision was made to flow that through as exem pted income. So every province and every jurisdiction in the country had the duty to make a decision on the new child benefit.

Do you allow it to flow through as exem pted income, or do you tax it back or claw it back from social allowances? We were probably the third or fourth province to make a decision to simply flow it through. It was a substantial amount of money and a big decision that we took a little bit of time to understand. Not every province has done that. The Pro vince of Saskatchewan had the same opportunity, of course, to flow that through to social allowance recipients and, for whatever reason, chose not to do it. So, yes, I agree these were individual provincial decisions that had to be made.

Now this is not related to the decisions that we are making around daycare. I have been very open and up front about those decisions. We were overexpanding an already large budget. While we wanted to increase the budget, print over print, we wanted to be sure that we lived within that budget, and to do so we have made some changes. There were different ways to do it. We could have achieved that $1 .40 savings by cutting back even further on the subsidies, or we could have maintained the subsidies and made that $4 or $5 a day.

We thought we would take a balanced approach that would maintain as many subsidies as we could and not upset the manner in which those centres operate and, at the same time, ask for a contribution from those that are receiving the subsidies. Yes, we could have done things differently there. We could have prorated those subsidies or that payment by the subsidized parents and called for lesser amounts from those who are fully subsidized and a greater amount from those that were only partially subsidized, or the other way around. There were a lot of decisions made in the daycare area.

I point out our budget, print over print, is still going up around $1 million, but we felt we had to live within that budget. We did that by freezing the spaces, by capping the subsidies and by asking for this contribution from those who were getting 'the subsidy. Mr. Martindale: Is it correct that there is a freezing of licensing on both group and family daycare spaces? Mr. Gllleshammer: That is correct. However, we are reviewing some requests that have come in to license some additional spaces where there is no cost to the government.

We have people who want to expand some spaces or create some spaces wher e they say, we are prepared to accept government regulations, we do not need a grant and we do not need a subsidy. We are going to be moving ahead with some licensing in that area.

2435 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 Mr. Martindale: So if I understand the minister correctly, you are going to license for profit on subsidized child care. Is that correct? Mr. Gllles hammer: We are going to license some additional spaces for those who meet the criteria and who say that they do not need a grant and they do not need a subsidy. I can think of a particular church group who want to start a daycare, and they say they do not need any government assistance of any sort, but they have to be licensed and we are going to move ahead with some licensing there.

So this would apply to both the nonprofit as well as independent centres. Mr. Martindale: How does the government plan to monitor the proliferation of unlicensed caregivers? Mr. Gllleshammer: Well, we do have staff in this area of the department that are responsible for licensing. They are responsible for monitoring the system. What the member is saying is, should we have a watchdog on those parents who want to perhaps have their grandparents look after the children, their neighbour look after the children.

If people are making individual arrangements with fam ily and friends, I do not believe government has a role to play in monitoring that system other than we know how many spaces are there, we know how many subsidies are there, and we do have the capacity to monitor those who are accessing the system. Mr. Martindale: Could the minister tell us how the three changes that he just reiterated are being implemented? In 199 1, there was a restructuring which I understand had a three-month lead-in time. These changes are being made with a very short notice time.

Does he feel that the staff are able to cope with what is probably a great deal of paperwork in a very short period of time? How are these new policies being implemented? Mr. Gl lleshammer: We ll, they are being implemented by the existing staff. There are certain times when if there is a need for additional assistance surrounding the subsidies or if there is additional pressure on the Day Care office, that we have the ability to give some assistance from other areas of the department. Mrs. Carstalrs: Thank you, just a brief question in one area and then I want to move into the whole area of subsidy.

The minister indicated that he was willing to look at some applications for licensing for groups that required no funding. I recently wrote to the minister myself with respect to a group which is operating presently a child care centre and wants to start up another one. Their principal direction is ORFF music and art. So it is a unique kind of program that they offer. They have more than enough children to fill the space. Is that the type of re-examination that the minister is prepared to look at? Mr. Gll leshammer: Yes, that is correct. We have been in touch wit h them to make those arrangements. Mrs.

Carstalrs: I thought I understood the subsidy issue and then I got very confused in the middle of the explanation. So perhaps we can start again and clarify me. Is it possible to in fact have more subsidized spaces in a child care centre than the actual licence? For example, the child care centre is licensed for 36 spaces but, because of a mix of children, some using it two days a week, another using it three days a week, those 36 1icensed spaces may actually be used by 46 children. • (21 30) Mr. Glll eshammer: That is correct. Mrs. Carstalrs: Is it possible to have 46 subsidies for a 36 1icensed space? Mr.

Gllle shammer: That is correct. Mrs. Carstalrs: Will it still be possible-this sounds like a courtroom-to have 46 spaces with subsidy in a 36 licensed child care centre? Mr. Gllle shammer: Yes, ther e ha ve been examples where there were, to use your numbers, perhaps 40-some subsidized children in a daycare with only 36 spaces. What we are saying is that they made up those 10 ,000 subsidized children that were in the system before, and we are going to bring that down to 9,600 subsidized children.

But, yes, you do have this phenomena of more subsidized children than you have spaces, because they attend on a part-time basis. Mrs. Carstalrs: It is my understanding that some of the confusion around this issue is that the vocabulary that was used to explain this referred to licensed spaces as opposed to subsidy spaces. So some of the child care centres took it into their head that, if they had 46 children using those 36 spaces, they were now only going to be eligible to have 36 subsidized spaces, and therefore they were going to lose 10 .

/ May 3, 1993 LEGISLAT IVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2436 Mr. Gllleshammer: Well, this confusion, I think, is largely being cleared up as we meet with centres on a one-to-one basis, and I guess different people are using different terminology, whether it is spaces, cases or children. I think what is mo st understandable for me is if we talk about the number of subsidized children. Mrs. Carstalrs: All right. So the goal here is that, on average, no child care centre will be asked to lose more than one or two subsidized spaces? Mr. Gllleshammer: Cases, children. Mrs. Carstalrs: All right, subsidized children. Mr.

Gllleshammer: Right. Mrs. Carstalrs: Thank you. I think that clarifies it a bit in my mind anyway and, hopefully, in some of the child care centres' minds, at this point in time. With respect, however, to the decrease in 400 spaces, I would like some clarification with regard to the minister's numb ers. Now, the Estimate of Expenditures for this department last year was $46.7 million. I understand that was overspent by $5 million so that approximately $51 .7 million was spent in this appropriation last year. Is that correct? Mr.

Gllleshammer: The adjusted-the vote for '92-93 was $46.7 million, almost $46.8 million. We expended actually $52.7 million. So there was an overexpenditure of between $5 million and $6 million. Mrs. Carstalrs: So actually as far as child care or daycare, this particular appropriation, the minister is estima ting that for this year he will spend approximately $5 million less than he spent last year, or the government spent last year, not him personally. Mr. Gllleshammer: That is correct. Mrs. Carstalrs: How much of that $5-whatever million will come from a subsidy? Mr.

Gllleshammer: Last year's actual was 33.7, and this year the print will be 29.7. So there is difference of 4 million there. Mrs. Carstalrs: I assume that the balance of that will come from the 4 percent cut in the grant to each individual centre. Mr. Gllleshammer: Yes, that is essentially correct that there will be a difference of about $1 million on the grant line of that in daycare. Mrs. Carstalrs: So in reality the poor are being asked to come up with another $4 million this year to balance the child care budget. Mr.

Gllleshammer: Well, we are indicating that there will be fewer children eligible for subsidy, and I gave the subsidy range the last time we met. I point out to the member that that is on net income. Certainly the majority of the fully subsidized children are at the bottom end of that system, and it goes up to $55,000-56,000 salary for that family on a net basis. Mrs. Carstalrs: What was the reason the department determined that it would be those receiving subsidy that would pay more for child care rather than those who receive no subsidy? Mr.

Gllleshammer: Well, what the memb er is asking is, how do we withdraw a number of million dollars from the child care system. We are doing it partially by reducing the volume of the subsidies. We are taking some of it from the grants. We could have put up the cost per day and had the whole system adjust that, but it would have impacted much more on those who are paying the full amount. We are withdrawing about $5 million from the amount that we pay; about $1 million comes from the grants and about $4 million from the subsidies, but there will be fewer subsidized children. Mrs.

Carstalrs: No, the minister is not just doing that. What the minister is doing is charging people who have an income of $1 6,000, a single parent with two children, and that woman will end up paying an additional $650 for child care because she is going to be charged-! see the Premier (Mr. Filmon) not quite understanding that fi gure, but we wentthrough it the other day. It is a $1 .40 per child times two, times five, times 52 weeks a year; or if you want to make it 50 weeks, I will settle for $650.

So we have a situation in which that woman, or man if it is a single-parent father, will pay an additional $650 a year, but a person earning $50,000 will pay no additional fee for child care above and beyond what they paid last year. I just want to know how the government made that determination, that they would hit the person at the lower income as opposed to people at the upper income. Mr. Gllleshammer: As I indicated befo re, there were options that would achieve the same ends, but we have really done three things in freezing the licensing, capping the amount of subsidy, but also

2437 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 asking the parents who have subsidized children to make a contribution. What the member is saying is that others could have made a greater contribution, but using the exam ple that the memb er put forward, the cost to government for that person with the two children in the system is between $8,000 and $9,000 that the government is contributing to that subsidy. So there are different ways of doing it.

We felt that this was a fair way of adjusting the system, given the fact that we are still spending a million dollars more on the daycare line, print over print, as we did last year. Mrs. Carstalrs: With respect to the changes that have been made in the reduction of subsidized spaces, what happens in the situation where the parent who has the child in the child care space becomes unemployed? I understand they now can only keep that child in a subsidized space for two weeks.

If they do not find a job at the end of that two-week period, then they must withdraw the child since they do not have the money and they will no longer qualify for subsidy. Is that fac tual? • (21 40) Mr. Glll eshammer: Yes, the person who is unemployed can maintain that subsidized space for a two-week period as they look for work. Mrs. Carstalrs: When that person then finds em ployment, as hopefully he or she will, is there any guarantee they will then get back their subsidized space? Mr.

Gllle shammer: If the daycare where they were accessing that care has a sub sidized space available, then they will have access to it. We are assigning those subsidized spaces to that daycare centre, and they will be the ones who attract or enroll children within their centre with the number of subsidized spaces that we are assigning to them. It is possible, if they have taken another subsidized child in that person's place, that person may have to get that service from another daycare or make other arrangements. Mrs.

Carstalrs: If a child care centre actually replaces a subsidized child with a nonsubsidized child, that is, the subsidized child leaves and a nonsubsidized child fills that space, will that mean that child care centre has lost that subsidized space forev er, or will they still maintain the same numbe r that they had at the moment that child left? Mr.

Gllle shammer: If they attract a full-fee-paying parent, then they will not need that subsidized space, and I think while we would not want to start juggling the system immediately, if we have got centres who are backfilling with the paying parents and others could use that subsidy, I think part of the management of the system would be to allow that subsidized space to flow to another centre. Mrs. Carstalrs: What is the operation of the child care office when an individual finds himself in a situation where they cannot find a subsidized space and therefore cannot take advantage of a job opportunity?

We had a question of that nature in the House the other day. What is that particular person to do? Are they to not take the job? Mr. Gllle shammer: We would do everything within our power to identify a space for them, and the Day Care office, part of their responsibility is to keep an eye on the system and be able to identify spaces for individuals, whether they are in centres or homes. Given whatever flexibility we have within the system, we would certainly want that person to take that job, and we would do our very best to see that they found a space . Mrs.

Carstal rs: What is the degree of computerization of the child care office and how up to date on a daily basis is their information about spaces available? Mr. Gll leshammer: I think it is fair to say that there is only a modest degree of computerization within this particular branch of the department. Certainly it pales in comparison to a couple of other examples that I could use. Again, if we had the resources, this would be a need within the department to upgrade the automation in this area. Mrs. Carstalrs: What is the policy with regard to smoking in child care centres? Mr.

Gll leshammer: Smoking is not permitted in centres. Mrs. Carstalrs: Is that also true in licensed family child care spaces? Mr. Gll leshammer: No, that is not the case there. Mrs. Carstalrs: Why not? Mr. Gll leshammer: I suppose it goes back to the fact that the service is provided in a home. There is a gui deline, I believe, that indicates that the caregiver cannot smoke in the presence of children. Mrs. Carstalrs: Is the department aware of the centres in which one of the caregivers does in fact smoke? I mean, is that informa tion that is available to families?

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2438 Mr. GIIIeshammer: Well, in the centre, smoking is not allowed. Mrs. Carstalrs: I mean the family child care. Mr. Gllleshammer: That is information at the present time that is not lodged within the Day Care office. I guess it is fair to say that when a parent is attempting to identify a space, whether it is in a centre or in this case if it is in a home, it is a question regarding the home that they should ask. Mrs. Carstalrs: I ask the question because in fact I did receive some correspondence from a mother who had a family child care space recommended to her.

She apparently informed the child care office that her child was an asthmatic, but it did not make any difference because the space the child was referred to was one in which the caregiver smoked. I suppose it is hard to know how to get around that, except for trying to impress upon those working in family situations that children are very susceptible to secondhand smoke, and they should not be exposed to it if that is at all possible. Mr. Gllleshammer: It is an issue that I am aware of because I think I received the same letter, and it happens to be from out in western Manitoba.

It is the first time that issue has been brought to my attention. I think what we need to develop within the Day Care office is a strategy to deal with that as an issue. I believe there are some powers of persuasion to make and to help caregivers understand more and more that is an issue in the workplace. The difficu lty in licensing in a home is that, if you are going to have home-based care, there are some limits as to how far you can make demands on the people who also make that their home.

It is an issue that I have become aware of, and I do believe that we are going to put our minds to how we can best handle that situation as we work with home providers. Mrs. Carstalrs: Are there any additional child care spaces being built in conjunction with schools? Mr. Gllleshammer: Not at the present time. Mrs. Carstalrs: Can the minister tell me why that policy was dropped?

I mean, it was, as you know, initiated under a forme r government minister who made it a policy that, if a commu nity wished to build chHd care spaces in co-ordination with the school then the Minister of Education was prepared to work in conjunction. It seemed to me, particularly in terms of both before and after school care and in a sense of a neighbourhood development, that it was a good policy. Mr. Gllleshammer: It is an issue that we have spent considerable time reviewing.

One of the issues in conjunction with this is the cost of construction; there often is space in the community nearby which can be used, in some cases converted to child care, at a fraction of the cost of new construction. We have had discussions between staff in our department and staff in Education looking at this issue. * (21 50) The demand has, I think, been modified to a certain extent in that a lot more licensed spaces have come into the system in the last few years.

I can recall, when I first became a member in 19 88, there were considera ble discussions that there were not enough licensed spaces, that there were waiting lists everywhere . Well, we have licensed in excess of 3,000 more spaces today than existed in 19 88, and we no longer have this great demand for space and waiting lists. That has been addressed. So that is part of t he equation as well. It is a subject of some ongoing discussions with Education and with community groups and with school boards, but at the present time we have not licensed any more, and I do not think there are any on the horizon. Mrs.

Carstalrs: It is true that there are additional spaces out in the community than existed before. However, there also has been a major recession and a very large number of unemployed, and a number of people have removed their children from child care spaces because they quite frankly do not have jobs, and therefore one or the other is staying at home and looking aft er the individual child. So I anticipate that, if we go back to a better employment situation, we may yet, once again, have waiting lists for child care spaces in the province of Manitoba. Mr. Gllleshammer: That is true.

It is difficult to !orecast down the road into the next few years, but 1f that happens, then certainly I think we have to look at again licensing additional spaces. Our budget has increased dramatically, as I have said before, and we will have to view the situation at that time and make the appropriate decisions. Mr. Martindale: Mr. Acting Deputy Chairperson, would the mi nister agree tha t the result of eliminating 400 spaces is that there will be no part-time children in the licensed child care system?

2439 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 Mr. Gllle shammer: With respect, I have to disagree. Mr. Martindale: In a letter to child care providers, dated AprilS, 19 93, it says: Each subsidized case at your facility refers to one child, whether that child is enrolled on a full-time, part-time or extended-hour basis. What incentive would centres have to accept children who are part-time, given the effects that will have on their budget? Mr. Gllleshammer: I guess what the member is saying is it is more convenient if you have children enrolled on a full-time basis and they are fully subsidized.

The member for River Heigh ts (Mrs. Carstairs), I think. helped to clarify it, and maybe the critic for the NDP was not in the room at the time. It is possible that in a centre with 36 licensed spaces, they could have 40 or 42 subsidized children. So what we are saying is that the 10 ,000 children that were subsidized in the system last year were a combination of part-time and full-time, and we are going to work that down to 9,600 children. (Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair) There certainly are many, many families and children that are only accessing child care on a part-time basis.

So centres have been accepting children on a part-time basis for a long time. I know in Lang ruth centre, that we have had man y discussions of, they have many more children enrolled than they have licensed spaces. This is probably true of a number of centres where they accept children on a part-time basis and the subsidies flow with those children depending on their circumstances. I do not see the system moving to completely full-time children within the system. Mr.

Martindale: The minister has announced that operating grants are being reduced for licensed daycare centres by 4 percent, and for licensed nursery schools by 50 percent. The 4 percent reduction is in line with the workweek reduction, so I could understand where the minister might get that figure, that percentage. But what is the rationale for reducing operating grants for nursery schools by 50 percent? Mr. Gllleshammer: The nursery school is, of course, vastly different than the daycare centre.

I think it was only two years ago that the grants to nursery school were only being given to half of the nursery schools in existence. This was the policy of the previous government that some nursery schools received a grant and some did not. We changed that policy a year ago, I think, so that all nursery schools receive that grant. So in looking at the nursery school grants, and they were small, only I think it was less than $1 million was devoted to those grants to nursery schools, and, of course, they provide a different fu nction.

These are, by and large, stay-at-home parents or parent, who want to have their child involved in an activity with other children at a nursery school. It is an option that is different than the daycare where presumably the parents are going to work and need that care. In the case of the nursery school that is not so. We did take a different view of them. We did take a different look at them, and made a decision to reduce those by 50 percent. Mr.

Martindale: It seems to me that if centres continue, particularly nursery centres, the reason is that they are being subsidized by low wages and poor working conditions in that most staff have very few benefits, and the absence of a pension plan. Would the minister agree that the effect of these changes is that staff will continue to be underpaid and therefore undervalued for the kind of work that they do, and that the pressure on wages and benefits will be downward rather than upward, particularly in centres where the staff and board are unable to collect the fees from parents.

I already know that in many centres they are unable to collect the dollar-a-day fee. Now it is $2.40. Many of these parents are on social assistance and unable to pay that. So boards, of course, are faced with making ver y diffi cult decisions-you know, one of this minister's favourite ex pressions -and having to offset the loss of revenue from parents paying this per diem fee. Would the minister agree with this statement that those centres that continue to exist will do so because the staff are su bsidizing the system through low salaries and a lack of benefits and a total lack of pension plans? Mr.

Gllleshammer: I find it difficult to agree with the analysis that the honourable member puts forward. I am not sure how he viewed the system before when the party of which he is an active member funded some centres and did not fund other centres. Would he apply the same criteria to the thinking of the government of the day then when a

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2440 number of these nursery schools got no funding at all? I do not think there was a pension plan then, and I do not know whether the amount of salaries has changed downwardly since that memb er's party was in government. *

(2200) Mr. Martindale: This minister has announced reduction in the job search period from eight weeks to two weeks. I believe this eliminates accessibility to child care for those who are unemployed. For some of those people it is going to perpetuate the cycle of poverty that they are in and a continued dependency on social assistance. We know that we have a high unemployment rate. The jobs are difficult to come by. Today in Question Period I quoted statistics from Statistics Canada on the average number of weeks that people are on unemployment insurance. I believe it is 23 or 24 weeks.

How does the minister believe that his policy is going to improve the situation? I would say that it is going to make it much worse for parents who are looking for em ployment or unive rsity students whose children are in child care, and at the end of the school term, they have two weeks, or upon gr aduation they have two week s to fin d employment. Does the minister really believe that this is reasonable and that it is going to help people to get off social assistance and find employment? Mr.

Glll eshammer: The individuals who want to access this provision still have the ability to get subsidized care while they are searching for a position, albeit not as long as they were able to do so before . For those students, of course, they do not have to wait until the day of their graduation to seek employment and are, I am sure, seek'1ng em ployment in the week s preceding their graduation. For sure, this a reduction in the number of weeks. Again, it was part of what we thought was a fair package to live within an expanded child care budget.

Again, I am not sure what the member is advocating, whether we should be increasing that budget by $5 million, $10 million, $15 million to keep all of those parts of the program that were there before or simply to allow the budget to overexpand itself w'rthout making these corrections or these restrictions on the system . But I have said clearly, we had made an attempt to live within that budget and increased it to $47 million. There are changes to help us to stay within that budget, and I do not hear any alternatives coming forward.

I am sorry my honorable friend is distracted here because I thought I was giving him some good information that he would want to get tonight instead of having to read it a day or two from now. (interjection] Well, I am hesitant to repeat myself, but there are changes that have been made to the system. I do not know what better advice the memb er would have for us to live within that budget, but perhaps he could give us that advice at this time. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: I think I just might at this time ask if it is the will of the committee to take a 1 0-minute break just to stretch your legs.

An Honourable Member: Agreed. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Ten minutes. *** The committee took recess at 10: 04 p.m . After Recess The committee resumed at 1 0:1 2 p.m. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Committee can come to order. We were dealing with 4.( d)(1 ) Salaries $1 ,81 8,900. Mr. Martindale: Well, I would like to go back to reducing the workweek and respond to some of the comments that the minister put on the record. The minister always gives us a false dichotomy. The minister always says, you know, what is the alternative? Spend more money.

The problem with his government is that they only consider the choice of reducing expenditures to reduce the defici t without considering other alternatives, because philosophically they do not really believe in job creation. They only believe in lessening the amount of government and the cost of government and basically believe in the old adage of: less government is the best government. I think that the alternative is to help people to access the job mar ket, to make it easier for people to find employment, because we know that when people are employed they are paying taxes.

People when they are em ployed feel bette r about themselves. People who are em ployed usually have higher incomes than people on social assistance, although not always. In fact, for people with large fam ilies working at minimum wage, probably their income is lower, but probably they are

2441 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 willing to trade that off for the benefits of being employed. But even they need access to child care, so I believe the minister has made the wrong choice in this case, because I believe it is going to be more difficult for people to access employment if they do not have aff ordable child care or even access to child care.

Now I would be quite happy to discuss this again next year in Estimates and see what the effects are of this government's policy, and certainly we will know from talking to child care centres what happens to parents who cannot find a subsidized place. It looks like the minister wants to respond to these comments. Mr. Gllleshammer: I am not sure what the learned member means by a false dichotomy, so I will not get into that because that is brainy stuff, but he was on the verge of talking about other alternatives.

I think we are really making some progress here if we are going to really get these other alternatives out. What I hear him saying is that his view of a Conservative government is that less government is the best. The opposite, I suppose, from the socialist point of view is that more government is better.

If you want to talk about dichotomies, then I do not understand where Bob Rae is going when he lays 4,500 Hydro workers off from Ontario Hydro, or where he takes 20,000 civil servants and says: Most of you are not going to have a job, and we are going to have to develop a social contract with the rest of you to downsize and pay less. I notice the member is not listening as attentively as he was before, but again we are faced with this reality of government- Point of Order Ms. Becky Barrett (Wellington): Yes, I would like to-perhaps it is a point of information. Mr. Deputy Chairperson: No, it is a point of order.

Ms. Barrett: Point of order. The government of Ontario, in its reduction of its civil service, which is less than 20,000, is, as a proportion of its civil service, laying off or through attrition- Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable member does not have a point of order. It is a dispute over the facts. *** Mr. Gllleshamrner: I respect that she did not have a point of order.

This shows the dichotomy, whether it is false or real, between those who govern and those who are in opposition, and the honourable memb er's fellow traveller at the federal level now is indicating that Bob Rae is doing the wrong thing. So, again, I point out to my friends in the opposition that it is fine to be in opposition and criticize and not have to come up with alternatives, because you are not in the position where you are in government.

So, yes, there is a downsizing of government in all provinces at this particular time, and it is only the opposition that are saying, hire more government workers, hire more people with Ontario Hydro, hire more people to run the civil service. Every other government and even governments that are going into elections in the Maritimes and are being re-elected because it reflects what the public mood is at this particular time.

I dare say that Premier Rae and Premier Romanow are reading that correctly, and I am surprised that my two learned friends from the NDP do not see that is the road that all governments are taking at this time. Now, the honourable me mber says that job creation is the answer. Well, when last the NDP were in government job creation consisted of making work, and where are those jobs today? They do not exist. There are still the remnants of some of those signs to be found about the province, but the jobs do not exist. Do you know what does exist?

The debt, the hundreds of millions of dollars that it cost government of the day to employ those people temporarily, because those jobs no longer ex ist. As your Lea der says and said ver y emphatically, people were counting flowers in the ditches of Manitoba and erecting green signs around the province. Those jobs were not jobs. They were just a manner of government passing government tax dollars over to individuals, and that type of job creation simply does not work. What does work is keeping the taxes low and leaving that income in the hands of the consumer, and the consumer is going to spend those dollars.

That the opposite, raising the sales tax, raising the income tax, raising the corporate tax does not work, and in fact the one thing Bob Rae did in the last budget was to lower the corporate tax because in government he realizes you cannot keep taxing

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2442 corporations, those jobs will disappear. Now what we have also done is to elimin ate the tax on jobs, the tax that was put there on employees. An Honourable Member: Partly elimina ted. Mr. Gllleshammer: The member says, partly elim inated, and he is correct that we have elimi nated systematically more and more of that tax. Again, I see the NDP wringing their hands and saying, oh, there is another tax gone. Bring back that tax. Well, I will tell you, the way to stimu late the economy is to keep those taxes low, and only now is Manitoba finally getting back into a competitive situation with other provinces by keeping those taxes low. *

(2220) You can go to western Manitoba along the Saskatchewan border, and Saskatchewan people are doing a lot of purchasing in Mani toba because there is a difference in the sales tax, there is a difference in the gasoline tax, and there is some integrity to the GRIP program . You talk to people who are accessing our stores and accessing our communi ties who actually live in Saskatchewan, and are saying that two points on the sales tax is devastating to them, that the gasoline is cheaper in Manitoba and that there is integrity to the GRIP program.

That is what is going to sustain Manitoba, make it more competitive and leave that money in the hands of real people. So we will continue to have a fundamental philosophical difference as far as the alternatives go. Even New Democrats are saying in Ontario and in Saskatchewan, yes, less government is what we need. Her e in Man itoba in oppos iti on, the honourable member is saying no, hire more people in government. Maintain that workfo rce. I would be surprised if you do not make the front pages, too, in supporting Bob Rae and supporting Steve Langdon.

I do not think that the member is going to get fired as Steve Langdon did, but the public is asking real hard questions. Where do the New Democrats stand on these issues when they see Premiers in Saskatchewan and Ontario making those difficult decisions, yet opposition in some jur is dictions are saying, no, crea te those flower-counting jobs and those green sign jobs that disappear; continue to spend hundreds of millio ns of dollars and have no lasting benefits; and yes, tax, raise the sales tax. raise the income tax, create new taxes. It simply does not work any more. Mr.

Deputy Chairperson: I would like to remind all honourable memb ers that we are dealing with 4.(

d) Child Day Care (1 ) Salaries for $1 ,81 8,900. It might be wise at this time to deal with that line. Mr. Martindale: I would certainly like to thank the Deputy Ch airperson for that re minder to the minister. I am going to ignore his rambling polemic and ask questions on the child care budget. Could the mi nister tell us what is happening to the daycare volunteer program funding? I believe there was $5,000 a year which was channelled through the Manitoba Child Care Association. Since they are no longer receiving their grant, I wonder if the mi nister can tell us what is happening to that funding. Mr.

Gllleshammer: The member is correct, that was part of a flow of funds to the daycare union. The funding has now been terminated, but the decision on that program will remain with the organization. Mr. Martindale: I wonde r if I could ask for clarification. Did the minister say that the $5,000 will continue to flow through MCCA? Mr. Gllleshammer: No. Mr. Martindale: Who is receiving the $5,000? Mr. Gllleshammer: We have discontinued that funding that was channel led through that organization, but the program is still continuing. Mr. Martindale: Who will receive that funding, or how will it be disbur sed or spent?

Mr. Gllleshammer: Gove rnment is no longer providing that funding, and decisions made within that organization to continue the program will be with their own resources. Mr. Martindale: I would like to ask the minister some questions about comm ercial centr es. I understand that commercial centres may have 25 percent of their spaces subsidized and that the province cannot recoup this money through the Canada Assistance Plan, which normally they could do on a 50-50 basis. Is that correct? Mr. Gllleshammer: What the member has related is basically correct. Mr.

Martindale: Is it true that the province gives commercial centres an additional subsidy, or a grant, to equate payments to the operating grants that nonprofits receive? Mr. Gllleshammer: That is correct.

2443 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 Mr. Martindale: Will this continue in this budget year? Mr. Glll eshammer: Yes. Mr. Martindale: Well, I would like to question the governme nt's priorities. Since there is a lim ited amount of funds available, I think that priority should go to nonpr ofit centres and not to comm ercial centres. Another issue is that nonprofit centres, I believe, are more accountable in that they have a board of directors to whom they are accountable and to my way of thinking, they are a more public institution than comm ercial centres. I wonder if the minis ter agrees with that.

Mr. Glll eshammer: I agree that there are differences between the independent centres and the nonprofit centres. I think those differences are part and parcel of the choices that parents can make in terms of determining what care it is they want for their children. Mr. Martindale: It seems obvious to me that this government also has choices to make and that you have chosen to conti nue su bsidizing the commercial sector as well as the nonprofit sector. Given that there are lim ited funds available, what is the rationale for conti nuing to su bsid ize profit- making child care centres? Mr.

Gll leshammer: Well, there are alternatives out there that parents have for care for their childr en. We believe that parents should have some choice as to what kind of care they would want to access. It seems to me that the member is moving in the direction of saying there should be only one kind of care acceptable to government. That may be the view of himself and his colleague and his party, but we have said, over the course of the last five years, that there are differ ent types of care available that government will support, and the decision remains with the parents. Mr.

Martindale: Could the minis ter tell us how much the province of Manitoba receives from the federal government for children with treaty status? I assume that treaty children who are in child care would be paid for by the federal government. Mr. Glll eshammer: The cap recoveries for all children is the same. Mr. Martindale: So treaty status ma kes no difference in terms of child care programs? Mr. Gllle shammer: I am told tha t the cap recoveries are the same for all children. Mr. Martindale: Is it true that social assistance will pay for private babysitter fees on behalf of a welfare recipient? *

(2230) Mr. Gllles hammer: I am told that there are certain circums tances where the social allowance program does provide funding for that type of child care. Mr. Martindale: If that same social assistance recipient found a licensed unsubsidized space, would social assistance pay that fee as well? Mr. Glll eshammer: Sorry, could you repeat that? Mr. Martindale: If that s ame clien t or social assistance recipient found a licensed unsubsidized space, would social assistance pay that fee too? Mr. Glll eshammer: I am told the answer is no. Mr.

Martindale: I am glad to hear that, and I do not need to ask my next question. I would like to go back to the impact of the changes of this government, the capping to 9,600 cases or spaces or children, whatever the case may be, and also the increase in tees. I understand that a national daycare study found that the majority of ch ild ren are not in lice nsed care and that low-income parents in particul�r use an informal child care system of friends, neighbours and babysitters.

I believe that by increasing the fees to $2.40 a day, what you are doing is limi ting access to affor dable child care by low-income families and also by students, by aborigi nal people and by new immig rants. I believe that this disadvantages those people who can least afford to be disadvantaged, including in terms of child development. We know that there are many advantages to children being in a child care centre in terms of child development.

Just one of those is that children who have speech problems or behavioural problems or hearing pro blems, any numb er of di ffe rent problems, that those problems become identified by the staff at child care centres and the result is that remedial action is taken much sooner for those children. That probably saves not just a lot of anguish and grief on behalf of the individu al and their families but probably saves the system or saves the government money in the long run, in that, if problems like hearing impediments are corrected early it probably helps the children to progress normally or more

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2444 normally in their ed ucat ion. So I think it is advantageous to have children in the child care system, partly for the advantages that accrue to child developmen t and to identifying problems. Would the minis ter not agree that is the case? Mr. Gllleshammer: I woul d agree that early diagnosis, early detection and early remedy is beneficial in a whole variety of cases with a whole variety of people. Mr.

Martindale: But the mini ster, at the same time, has no problem with limi ting access to parents who cannot afford child care and who need affor dable child care and for whom the fee of $2.40 a day is a barrier. Does the mini ster not see any contradiction between agreeing with the statements I made and at the same time limi ting access? Mr.GIIIes hammer: I do not know whether I agreed with the statements the member made or not, because there was quite a variety of them.

I said I thought early detection, early intervention and early treatment were beneficial to a whole variety of individuals in a variety of cases. Mr. Martindale: I have a number of questions about chil dren with mental handicaps and child care. The first is, how many children with mental han di caps cur rent ly receive daycar e on an integrated basis in regular child care centres? Mr. Gllleshammer: Mr. Deputy Chairperson, we have a group of child ren with disabilities for whom we provide progra m fun ding. The number of children that were served last year was 529. Mr.

Martindale: What kinds of support, such as staff grants, equipment or training, are child care centres eligible to receive if they have one or more children with mental handicaps? Mr. GIIIeshammer: I can tell my honourable friend that staffi ng grants are the main grant support offered directly to daycare centres and to nursery schools. Start-up grants provide funding for renovations and equipmen t needed to accom modate a disabled child and to provide extra toys and educational materials not usually available in a commu nity daycare centre. (Mr.

Jack Reimer, Acting Deputy Chairperson, in the Chair) Training grants allow staff to receive additional training specific to the child in their care, and due to current restraints, it is not possible at this time to approve those start-up grants. Supplemen tary daily grants are available to programs and family daycare homes that do not access staffing grants. So the type of assistance that those 529 children are accessing come through staffi ng grants, start-up grants, training grants and other supports offered by the Day Care office. *

(2240) Mr. Martindale: Are all ce ntres requesting supports receiving the supports to achieve quality integrated services? Mr. Gllleshammer: I think it is fair to say that there are a number of centres that have taken on the responsibility to handle the children with disabilities. Rather than disburse the resources across a wide variety of centres, there are certain centres who have made this their specialty, and the requir ed support is channelled to them. Mr. Martindale: Which of the centres currently receive staffing grants for integration support, or are there too many to list?

Mr.GII Ieshammer: We do not have a list available today, but there are a number of them. In addition to that, certainly the St. A mant Centre and the Soc"1ety for Manitobans with Disabilities have a signi ficant progr am . As well, there are other centres. Perhaps I can get that information for our next meeting or I can get it to the member at another time to give you a cross

section of those centres that provide that service. Mr. Martindale: I would like to thank the mi nister for agreeing to provide me with a list or a partial list at some time in the future. What additional supports are centres receiving besides staffing grants? Mr. Gllleshammer: I in di cated that there are staffing grants, start-up grants, training grants and supple men tary daily grants to those particular centres. Mr. Martindale: Are there more or less spaces available this year for individuals with disabilities who requir e additional support? Mr. Gllleshammer: It will be very similar to last year. Mr.

Martindale: What kind of training is available to child care staff and boards regarding integraf 1on practices for children with disabilities? Mr. Gllleshammer: I am told that training is offered through St. Am ant Centre.

2445 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 Mr. Martindale: I understand that a number of child care centres have children with fetal alcohol syndrome. Do those centres receive any extra funding or supports to help with those children? I assume that it requir es more staffing for those children. Mr. Gllleshammer: For those children that would fall within the children with disabilities program funding, they would get that support. Mr. Martindale: Do children who are diagnosed as having fetal alcohol syndrome fall within those criteria that the minister just mentioned? Mr. Gllleshammer: In some cases, yes.

Mr. Martindale: Then in some cases, they do not. So are there child care centres with children with fetal alcohol syndrome where there are no extra grants or support or training? Mr. Gllleshammer: This is done on a case by-case basis, and they are dealt with individually. Mr. Martindale: How does the Child Day Care office decide which centres get extra support and which ones do not? Mr. Gllle shammer: I am tol d ther e is an assessment comm ittee that would assess these situations on a case-by-case basis. Mr.

Martindale: I have been told that there is one centre where there are seven children with fetal alcohol syndrome and no extra staff or dollars. Since I do not know the name of the centre and the min ister has said that it is on a case-by-case basis, what is the best way to deal with this problem? Should the centre be applying for extra support for these children?

Mr.GIIIeshammer: If any particular centre has an issue around children with disabilities or any other issue as far as that goes, they certainly are aware that they can contact the Day Care office to state their issue and have whatever support they need discussed with the Day Care office. Mr. Martindale: I would like to move now into fam ily daycare. I would like to- first of all, the issue of smoking. I was in receipt of a letter, as well as the Liberal critic, and as far as I know, I only know of one parent who raised it as an issue.

However, when I contacted the Family Day Care Association and also the Manitoba Child Care Association, both of them said their organizations would favour a regulation prohibiting smoking by residents of a fam ily daycare home. In fact, the board of the Manitoba Family Day Care Association wrote me a letter dated April 13 , and I quote: We as member s of the Family Day Care Association of Manitoba support the introduction of a bill that will require all family daycare homes be smoke free as a requirement for licensing. Now, it is not qu ite as complic ated as they assume.

It would not require a bill; it would merely require a regulation or a change in the rules-a regulation, I guess, similar to child care centres. I believe Regulation 12 (5) says, smoking shall be prohibited in the presence of any child in the daycare centre. I would like to see something like that for family daycares. I believe that smoking is a very big public policy issue. In fact, I contacted the Manitoba Lung Association before I asked questions of the minister in the House, so we have lots of statistics about the number of deaths due to lung cancer, for example.

We know that this is a huge cost to society, which basically means it is a huge cost to government and therefore to taxpayers. I think that is why governmen ts have been very supportive of groups in the communi ty like the Manitoba Lung Association in banning smoking from hospitals and from in stitutions. In fact, I believe it was an opposition bill that was supported by all three parties during the minority gove rnmen t that banned smoking in public places. I think there are many, many good reasons to justify that.

It seems to me that it is appropriate to extend that, as far as we can, into more and more areas of life. I think this is an opportunity to extend it into family daycare homes, and part of the rationale would be that this is public or government subsidies that are providing the income for at least one parent in a family daycare home. I think that is another reason why it could be changed, why regula tion could be brought in. I would like to ask the mi nister what his view is on approving a regula tion to prohibit smoking in family daycare homes? Mr.

Gllleshammer: I guess maybe this goes back to the previous page, where the member said he was in favour of more government and more intrusive legislation than what we as government would support. The policy at the current time is that the care provider cannot smoke in the presence of children. Let me just see if I am framing this correctly. What the member is saying is he would

May 3, 1993 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA 2446 like to see legislation which banned smoking completely within that home, I presu me, on a 24-hour basis. •

(2250) This is where we run into some difficulty about what people can or cannot do in their own home. I think the member would see that it becomes difficult to pass a law in this area. I think we can probably achieve our goals by educ ati on rather than legislation. It would be the method that I would prefer proceeding in, but the one letter that he has received probably is the same one letter that the Liberal critic has received and may even be perhaps the same letter I received.

I think we are prepared to work with the relevant association and to work on the area of education rather than creating more laws that would intrude into someone's home. Mr. Martindale: Well, once again, the minis ter is putting words in my mouth when he says that I am advocating more government and more intrusive legislation. In reading the regulation for child care centres, it says, smoking shall be prohibited in the presence of any child.

I am wondering if the mi nister would consider the same regulation for daycares which- you know, in reading this regulation again, it does not go quite as far as I was advocating; it just says, not in the presence of a child. It seems to me that in a daycare home or a family daycare home, you could prohibit the smoking in the presence of a child rather than banning smoking totally from that home. Is that the policy now? Mr. Gllleshammer: That is correct. So I think we have substantial agreement here. Mr. Martindale: We ll, I am glad we have substantial agree men t on something.

So the regulation for daycare centres is the same as family daycare homes. Well, I am grateful to hear that we can agree on something. Mr. Gllleshammer: I sus pect th at we have agreement on a substantial number of issues and that the memb er is-as he reads over the dialogue that has taken place over the course of the day, we get closer and closer together in our view of things. I know that the me mber for Wolseley (Ms.

Friesen) would agree, because we did agree earlier on an issue she t-oad, that we would move in a direction that would have us analyze and monitor the number of homes that are currently in her constituency and work with the community. So I would say on mor e than one issue there has been some agreement today, and I am pleased about that. Mr. Martindale: Well, we will have to make sure that this agreement does not go too far on too many subjects. I would like to ask the minister: What are the regulations for family daycare providers regarding hot beverages?

I have the regulation for child care centres which says the drinking of hot beverages by adults in areas in which children are engaged in play activities is prohibited. Does that regulation apply to family daycare centres as well? Mr. Gllleshammer: We have the booklet of regulations here, and I will be reading it to you in a moment so that we can both understand this better. I am told that this regulation is for centres, where it says a licensee shall not permit the drinking of hot beverages by adults in areas in the licensee's daycare centre in which children are engaged in play activities.

That is Regulation 14 (7). When you revert to daycare homes, again, because this is a home setting with people making that their living quarters and living accommo dations, it is not encompassed in regulations in the same manner. Mr. Martindale: Since this would seem to be a safety issue, would the minis ter consider extending this regulation to family daycare homes? Mr.

Gllleshammer: Well, I would certainly raise with the department the number of documented complaints that we have had in this area, and if it seems to be an in ordinate amount that are coming forward , then I think it would be incumbent upon us to move in the direction of taking some remedial action. Mr. Martindale: So the minister is willing to move on it if there are a number of documented cases. Is that the only reason why the minister would do this? Mr. Gllleshammer: Well, we tend not to want to try and resolve problems where no problem exists.

Again, maybe this goes back to the memb er's view of more government and more intrusiveness into the lives and homes of individual citizens. Mr. Martindale: This mi nis ter really is qu ite amazing. He has taken what I have considered to be a safety issue and translated it into a government

2447 LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF MANITOBA May 3, 1993 intrusiveness issue . Yo ur abili ty to twist and contrive things is really quite amazing. Point of Order Mr. Gllleshammer: The memb er is asking whether there is a problem. I have said, if there is a problem we will address it. If there is not a problem, then I have no problem with the status quo. The Acting Deputy Chairperson (Mr. Reimer): I would say that the point of order is out of order. It is just a dispute over the facts. *** Mr. Martindale: The mi nis ter was quo ting Regulation 14 (7) and I had Regulation 12 (6).

So obviously I am not as up to date as I should be. I wonder if I could get a copy of the regu lations from the mi nister so that I can be well informed, current and up to date. (Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair) Mr. Gllleshammer: Yes, we would be pleased to provide the member with a copy of the regulations. Mr. Martindale: I would like to move onto another issue. This one has to do particularly with the Family Day Care Association. When I talked to them a couple of months ago, I discovered that they were in receip t of mo nies from the federal government, training money in the amount of $361 ,71 9.

When the funding changes were announced and their grant was elimi nated, they were concerned that they would not be able to deliver this training with the federal grant. I wonder if the minister can tell us if that fear was well founded or what has happened in the meantime. Are they continuing to deliver that training? *

(2300) Mr. Gllleshammer: Our understanding is that the gr ant that was forthcom ing from the federal government is in place. Mr. Martindale: Was there a provincial grant promised for the same period as the federal grant of $1 68,217 ? Mr. Gllleshammer: The funding that the family daycare training program was discussing with the Province of Manitoba was with the Department of Education. I understand the Education Estimates are coming up soon. Mr. Martindale: Could the minis ter tell us what the training money was for and if the Family Day Care Assoc ia tion was the organ ization that was delivering the training ?

Mr. Gllleshammer: I am told that this program offe rs three 1 0-month training sessions with 20 participants enrolling in each session. Partici pants who successfully complete the require ments of the training will receive a New Careers certificate of attainment from Manitoba Education and Training. Some credit towards the child care services program is provided by Red River Commun ity College. Participants for the first year were drawn from wit hin 60 kilometres of the Winn ipeg region.

Participants for the second year have been drawn from different geographic regions of the province, including Thompson, The Pas, Eriksdale, Morden, Portage Ia Prairie, Woodside, Mini tonas and a couple of communi ties in western Manitoba. There are no fees charged to providers participating in the trai ning. In the thir d year, the family daycare tr aining program hopes to attract aboriginal candidates. Basically, that is the overview of the program and again, I would indicate the provincial money is housed in Education and Training and probably the member could get more details in those Estimates. Mr.

Martindale: Just one last question then: Will this training continue and if so, who will provide it? Mr. Gllleshammer: I am told that our anticipation is the trai ning will proceed. Mr. Martindale: Will the Fa mily Day Car e Association of Manitoba be the organization that the mo ney will be channelled through or the organization that is providing the training? Mr. Gllleshammer: Our unde rstanding is that organization is receiving the funds, any funding from the federal government on this initiative and their discussions over provincial money are with the Department of Education. Mr.

Martindale: I have a newspaper

article describing a seniors daycare centre. It is my understanding that there is no regulation governing senior daycar e cen tres. I guess that is not surprising, given that this is a fairly new service being provided in the communi ty, but I would be intere sted in knowing the mini ster's thoughts and also his department's policies-first of all, whether the minister thinks they should be licensed or not.

May 3, 1993 LEG

Document details

Collection	Manitoba — Debates (Hansard)
Citation	35-4-54b
Type	hansard
Volume / chapter	35th 4th hansardpdf 54b.pdf
Language	en
Format	pdf
Source	PROVINCIAL
Identifier	c2c69014559cc41dac365f3161b24eaf864badec

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