Mr. Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This morning this section of the Committee of Supply will be meeting in Room 254 considering the Estimates of the Department of Family Services.

When the committee last sat it had been considering Resolution 9.4. Child and Family Services (a) Child, Family and Community Development (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits. Shall the item pass?

Hon. Bonnie Mitchelson (Minister of Family Services): Mr. Chairperson, I know my honourable friend had asked for some information yesterday, and I have several pieces of information I would like to provide. One was the placement and related costs for children in care for I think 1998 and 1999 or at least for 1999. I have that information and I will table it.

One of the other questions that was asked that I needed to get some information on was the number of children in care that died. I have information back to 1996 where the total number of child deaths in Manitoba was 209 and the child deaths of children in care was 17. That was in '96. In 1997, the total number of child deaths in Manitoba was 200, and the number of those who were in care was 14. In 1998, the total number of child deaths in Manitoba was 173, and the total number of children in care who died was 12. I do not have figures yet for 1999.

Another question that was asked was the number of foster homes or whether there has been an increase in the number of foster homes. In 1997, there were 971 foster homes with a 2,464-bed capacity in those foster homes. These are March 31 numbers, March 31, 1997. March 31, 1998, there were 1,002 foster homes with a 2,594-bed capacity, and at March 31, 1999, there were 1,024 foster homes with a 2,673-bed capacity.

Another question that was asked was with the reorganization and restructure within the Winnipeg agency. We had indicated that there were going to be 31 positions redeployed to the front line through reorganization, and we asked the question of the Winnipeg agency on where they were going to be redeployed from. The information we received back was that in volume management there would be 13 positions redeployed; in management, there would be two; in accounting, one; in case aides, four; in treatment services, five; medical services, one; intake, two; abuse, one; and family support, two. That makes a total of 31 positions. These functions will all still continue, but in the reorganized structure I guess the work assignments will be changed.

Now another question that was asked was information that my honourable friend had written to the CEO of Winnipeg Child and Family Services for, and that was information around, I guess, provincial funding and historical financial facts. My understanding is, after calling the agency, that this information was provided by letter to my honourable friend on June 15, 1999. I have a copy of the letter and the information that was sent to my honourable friend. So I would encourage him to in a more timely fashion read his mail and his correspondence so that he has the updated information. So I just wanted to make that point, and hopefully he has that information. If not, I can provide him with a copy of the letter that was sent to him and the information that was provided at that time.

Mr. Doug Martindale (Burrows): Mr. Chairperson, I thank the minister for providing all that information, including information that I apparently already had.

I note that the number of children who have died in care has gone down for each of the last three years, and I am wondering if the minister knows if there is a reason for that trend. It is certainly a positive trend. I am wondering if anyone has looked at why or thought about why.

Mrs. Mitchelson: There has not been any analysis done of why that might be. We can make assumptions, of course, that the front-end work and the case management would be better and children would be placed in more appropriate placements. But I would hate to say that without the formal analysis being done, because we do not know what the statistics for years to come will be. There has been a trend downward that we have seen.

I think overall if you look at the trend of child deaths in the province, both the number of child deaths are down and the number of children in care that have died are down. I would hope that that is significant and that trend will continue, but without any sort of a formal analysis, it is pretty hard to determine.

Mr. Martindale: I believe the most recent March-end figure the minister gave me was 1998. Since this is almost the end of June, I am wondering if the March '99 figure is available yet of children in care and total deaths.

Mrs. Mitchelson: I believe those figures were on a calendar year. The Chief Medical Examiner would report those statistics, and it would be on a calendar year. We would not have his annual report till the end of 1999.

Mr. Martindale: Can the minister tell me when the inquest report into the baby Schmidt death will be made public? I understand it is supposed to be finished this spring sometime.

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Mrs. Mitchelson: My understanding is that all the final arguments have been presented, all of the work has been done, and we just have to await the judge's report. We have not been given any indication of when that might be. I would presume, given that the whole process is finished, it should not be in the too distant future, but that will be up to the judge based on his ability to get the final report completed.

Mr. Martindale: I think I am going to be jumping around from topic to topic in order to go through my three-ring binder here in a logical fashion and get through child and family support sometime today if I can. So my next question has to do with Child and Family Services of western Manitoba. As the minister knows, I put some very positive comments on the record yesterday. My questions were not raised by anyone at Child and Family Services of western Manitoba. They are strictly my own questions.

I noticed in their annual report that was handed out at the annual meeting, on page 3 it says: the biggest challenges are with the procedures for the regional child abuse committee and the increased expectations for the agency to do the steps that the province previously did.

This sounds like a concern on the part of the agency, and I am wondering if the concern is that they have to devote more staff resources to do this. Maybe the minister could just update me on how the new process as a result of amendments to the act is proceeding.

Mrs. Mitchelson: As a result of the new legislation and the strengthened role of the child abuse committees throughout the province, we have done extensive consultations in every area of the province undertaking to ensure that they had details around what the legislative changes would be and what the roles and responsibilities would be with the strengthened committee function. We also attempted to identify issues at a local level on what might come as a result of the changes in the legislation.

One of the issues that was identified through that consultative process in not only the western area but in other areas was the workload issue, and would there be an increase in the workload as a result. I guess our first focus was to try to ensure that we had members of the child abuse committees throughout the province trained in what their new roles and responsibilities would be. We do know that we have done work with the Child Protection Centre who have been involved in the recruitment and training of general practitioners in the regions to help them identify child abuse and diagnose child abuse. We have done workshops throughout the province on the changes to the legislation. I believe there have been 22 workshops that have been held to date, and there are still two to go to be completed, but all that work has been ongoing.

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To deal with one of the issues that was raised around the increased workload, we have a committee, and Ken Knight, who is the executive director of the Westman agency is on that committee. We will be reviewing what implications the strength and role of the child abuse committees will have on workload and see how we can deal with that. I do want to indicate that there was an increase in funding to the Westman Child and Family Services agency this year of $152,000 in their budget, so there has been a slight increase. But we will, through that committee process involving people from different agencies throughout the province, be determining what the workload impact could be or might be, and then we will have to deal with that as we identify those issues.

Mr. Martindale: Maybe the minister could tell me if the increased funding was because of this particular workload issue, or was it requested for addressing other financial burdens, I guess, on the agency. Maybe "burdens" is not the right word; "demands" might be better. For example, when I was at the annual meeting in 1998, I made some notes. The president pointed out that although they had no deficit, they needed $50,000 more and that it was unfair that Winnipeg always gets their deficit paid, which we heard earlier in the Estimates this week was $4 million. The president said that salary parity was needed and was met, but this would pose an ongoing challenge in the coming years.

So I guess there are a couple of issues here. One is the workload issue because of the new child abuse committee process; the other would be salary parity. Possibly, from the point of view of the agency, they see Winnipeg's deficit being covered every year to the tune of millions of dollars, and then they ask for an increase of $50,000 and a year ago I guess they thought that was how much they were short. Now this year they did get an additional $152,000, as the minister mentions, but that is a very small increase in their total budget, and it is actually a fairly small increase given that in 1998-99 the Province of Manitoba's support was $2.6 million. So I am wondering if the minister can tell me what the $152,000 additional funding was intended to address.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, the increase that they received this year was a 3.5 percent increase. I understand the issues certainly that Westman and other agencies raise when in fact there is ongoing pressure within the city of Winnipeg, and we always seem to cover the deficits within the Winnipeg agency. There is always that issue around those that believe they managed their resources very well and feel that sometimes they are penalized for good management when they see others getting deficits covered. I know the issues are somewhat different in the city of Winnipeg from some of the issues they deal with in the Westman region, but nonetheless we were able to find the money to provide a 3.5 percent increase.

Total funding that goes to the Westman agency, I think my honourable friend mentioned the $2.6 million. They also do get additional support for support services project funding, basic maintenance and special rates. So the total funding in 1998-99 was $4.4 million, and it is up to–$4.554 million would be their total budget. So over and above the basic central support, there is additional funding for other programming and support services.

I have to say that I am really pleased having been out to the annual meeting; I know both of us were out there at the annual meeting. I look at the volunteer commitment. I look at the special recognition for foster families and the number of people that do come out to support the agency in the Westman region and work with the agency. I am very impressed with the work they do, and I am very impressed that they live within their means and within their budget too. They have to be commended for that, and we have tried to address part of their issue this year.

So the direct answer to the first question would be that this money was not necessarily in recognition of the workload that they felt they might have increased as a result of the strengthened child abuse committees. I have indicated that Ken Knight is on that committee that is looking at workload issues, and I know they will be coming back once they have done their review and sort of indicating to us whether that in fact is the case and what the significance of that workload increase might be. We have not received that information yet, but once the committee reports, we will have to look at whether there is an issue and whether we have to deal with it in a different way.

Mr. Martindale: Mr. Chairperson, I would like to move on to the Child and Family Support branch, and I am wondering if the minister can tell me if there was a reconfiguration or a reorganization of the branch and, if so, how it was reorganized and why.

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Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, yes, we have gone through an extensive reorganization within the branch. That was as a result of the sense that we needed to become more relevant within the branch to agency relations and support to agencies. I am told and I know for a fact, because I have received copies of letters that have been sent from the field that have congratulated the department on the new approach. What has happened in the reorg and restructure has been a team approach where rather than having individual people within the branch dealing with specific issues with agencies, we have three teams that have been developed: one team for the north, one for the south, and one for Winnipeg and the rural eastern part of the province that comprises Winnipeg Child and Family Services. I guess the teams are responsible to provide all of the answers to all of the areas in child protection and family support.

We have, on the residential treatment side, licensing, the placement desk, and the co-ordination of relationships with all of the treatment facilities. On the service to the public side, we have tried to become more efficient and user friendly. Certainly on the adoption side, on the intake side, the Child Abuse Registry side, we have a development component within the branch that is responsible for training for our community development strategy, for our resource development, and the adoption piece.

So it is, I guess, sort of a sense that, just like we have tried within government to co-ordinate between departments or among departments services and supports for children rather than having each different department deal with different pieces of children and families, whether it be Education, Family Services, Justice, or Health, along with Housing, Culture, Heritage and recreation, the recreation piece, and Northern and Native Affairs, we have tried to co-ordinate and look more holistically at our approach to developing services that cross all sectors.

I think it is important that the branch that supports children and families within Child and Family Services has more of a team approach to dealing with all of the issues around protection and family support that it provides. So it has been reorganized in a way that we have people from different areas within the department working together. It is more a team approach. It appears that the community and the agencies that are served, both mandated, nonmandated, and native mandated agencies, are all being asked to work co-operatively together based on dealing with issues in the North that would cross both protection and family support issues in the South, and again in Winnipeg.

So it is a more co-ordinated approach, a more user-friendly approach to the services that we provide, sometimes an area where the general community or population might think that Child and Family is not user friendly or the most supported part of community intervention among families and members of our society.

Mr. Martindale: Can the minister tell me if there were any new hirings or if there were new people put into existing positions? If so, was that by way of competition or appointment or both?

Mrs. Mitchelson: Some of the changes were reassignments, some were internal competitions, and some were external competitions.

Mr. Martindale: According to the Estimates book, page 62, it looks to me like this branch has a lot of responsibilities. I am wondering if you can tell me what kind of reports or evaluations the branch has done in the past year and what the results were of some of these evaluations. What have you learned? Particularly I see the Family Support Innovations Fund listed there. I am wondering if, from time to time, the branch evaluates this fund. If so, what is the result?

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Mrs. Mitchelson: Mr. Chairperson, on the Family Support Innovations Fund, there are annual full evaluations of whether the programs are working, whether they might need some modifications or whether, in fact, there might need to be redirection of those resources to some other family support project because there does not seem to be a positive impact.

We work with the mandated and nonmandated agencies that would receive support from the Family Support Innovations Fund, and if, in fact, there are modifications that need to be made, we work in co-operation with them to make those modifications or to look at areas where they might redirect resources if there are programs that are not working. We report annually to Treasury Board as an accountability mechanism on those projects.

Mr. Martindale: Since we are talking about, what, I think about $2.2 million, I would assume that evaluations are done, and I am wondering if any of those are available to me. I know there is one organization that I think in the past has gotten money from this fund, Andrews Street Family Centre. I am wondering if there has been an evaluation of that and if a copy is available for me.

Mrs. Mitchelson: I have nothing that I could share with my honourable friend right at this point in time. I do know, for instance, that Andrews Street Family Centre, as we have worked with them through the process, we have determined that the moms helping moms program through the Family Support Innovations Fund is working, and we are continuing to fund it.

But I might take my honourable friend's question maybe as a suggestion or a recommendation that we do some public reporting annually on the projects that are supported through the Family Support Innovations Fund. Right now, most of the information is internal to our analysis and accountability of what is happening, and we believe from any information that we have that the program is doing well. But I certainly will take under consideration looking at doing something on an annual basis that could be a public document on how well programs are working under the Family Support Innovations Fund.

Mr. Martindale: I thank the minister for that answer, Mr. Chairperson. I would like to ask her about the Children's Foundation. Now I do not have very much information on this, but I understand that there was a fund called the Children's Foundation that had several million dollars in it that I think might have been set up by the Children's Aid Society. I am wondering, when CAS disbanded, what happened to that money which I understand was in a trust account and the interest was to be expended and distributed to agencies.

Mrs. Mitchelson: Prior to October 1, 1998, the advances of the Children's Foundation of Winnipeg were treated as restricted funds, but this is under–I guess they moved from the Children's Aid to Winnipeg Child and Family–the foundation. The funds were used solely for investment purposes. The income derived from investment activities was only distributed to the corporation when an application was made to fund specialized projects that were beneficial to children. Otherwise, the income was retained by the foundation, and the foundation could not encroach upon these funds for any purpose before October 1, 1998.

On November 17, 1998, all of the assets of the Children's Foundation were donated to the Winnipeg Foundation to create the Children's Foundation of Winnipeg Fund. That was just in November 1998, and I would have to ask the Winnipeg agency what has happened since that time, and I will try to get that information as soon as possible and provide it.

The Acting Chairperson (Mr. Dyck): Order, please. The hour being 12 noon, committee rise.