HANSARD

NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

COMMITTEE

ON

COMMUNITY SERVICES

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Committee Room 1

Departments of Community Services and

Labour and Workforce Development -

Poverty Reduction Strategy (continuation)

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

COMMUNITY SERVICES COMMITTEE

Mr. Jim Morton (Chairman)

Mr. Gary Ramey (Vice-Chairman)

Mr. Leonard Preyra

Mr. Trevor Zinck

Ms. Michele Raymond

Mr. Leo Glavine

Ms. Kelly Regan

Hon. Chris d'Entremont

Mr. Alfie MacLeod

In Attendance:

Ms. Kim Langille

Legislative Committee Clerk

WITNESSES

Department of Community Services

Ms. Judith Ferguson,

Deputy Minister

Ms. Brenda Murray,

Director - Policy, Planning & Research

Mr. Ulrich vom Hagen,

Coordinator - Poverty Reduction

Ms. Denise MacDonald-Billard,

Manager - Employment Support Income Assistance

Department of Labour and Workforce Development

Ms. Margaret MacDonald,

Deputy Minister

Ms. Carmelle d'Entremont,

Director

[Page 1]

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010

STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY SERVICES

1:00 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Jim Morton

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think I will call the meeting to order. We are expecting two more members of the committee to arrive, according to the information that I have, but we are past one o'clock by a few seconds.

My name is Jim Morton, I am the MLA for Kings North and this is the Standing Committee on Community Services. I think what I'll do is begin by having the members introduce themselves, perhaps by starting with Kim.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I'd like to welcome the people who are here observing today. It's always a positive thing to have people interested in the work that we are involved in. The agenda for today is actually a continuation of work that we started last Fall, in looking at the Poverty Reduction Strategy. I think I'll move to our witnesses at this point and ask if you will introduce yourselves.

[The witnesses introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: As I said, we began this discussion in November, I think, with a plan to resume it and the day has arrived. I know that you have some presentation to make so I think I'll ask if you'll do that and then, of course, we'll have opportunities for questions following that.

1

[Page 2]

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: That would be the signal I give Kim to circulate - thanks, Kim. We had a secret code worked out. When we were here last, I had offered to just give a brief overview of some of the activities and we're doing at the Department of Labour and Workforce Development in the context of this committee, things that might be of interest to this committee. With that introduction, I'll just move right into it.

I think one of the most significant things that we are seeing in the department that I think provides some optimism, to some extent, for the future for some of the groups that we work with is that I guess it's a curse and a blessing that we are expecting labour shortages to happen. This talks about our labour force and it really reflects the population of Nova Scotia in the sense that we are expecting a considerable number of retirements over time and people leaving the labour force, again because of the demographics, we aren't seeing the same number of people coming into the workforce to replace those. We are working in an environment where we are trying to anticipate what some of these shortages will look like and what the demands on the labour market might be. That's sort of a general picture of a bit of the future.

We also know that some of the jobs - well I guess generally speaking, and it wouldn't be any surprise to anybody in this room, but the more education you have, the better chance you have to get a good job. I think this slide really demonstrates that where people have had a university degree or some sort of post-secondary training or even, more specifically, a high school diploma, then folks with those credentials are going to do better economically than people without.

I think if you look at the number up at the top, 18 per cent of Nova Scotians age 25 to 64 have no degree, certificate or diploma, so that is a really worrying statistic. I'll show you even more detail, I think, in the next slide about why it is worrying. It is clear that the better the education you have, then the better economically you are going to do. It is also clear that in Nova Scotia we have a particular challenge around that sort of level and skill development.

The other thing that we're seeing statistically again is, as I said earlier, we're expecting a high number of retirements and not enough people coming into the workforce to replace them. In particular, the issue gets a little bit sharper than that, in the sense that if you look just over the next - from 2008 to 2013, so that's not a very wide window at all - when you look at the number of job openings that we expect to happen, 56 per cent of those will require post-secondary level skills, 32 per cent at least a high school.

So up to 88 per cent of the jobs of the immediate future, not just the long-term future, are going to be requiring a high school diploma or greater. If I go back to that slide, that is a challenge but it's also an opportunity. The jobs that we expect will be opening up in the future - again, if you go back to the previous slide - require a higher degree of education, but

[Page 3]

the higher degree of education, the more economically valuable those jobs are and the better the chance you have of getting a job.

This is specific to some of these groups. We're looking at a whole lot of things across the population of Nova Scotians, but in particular in an area where we expect that there will be labour shortages or that there will be difficulty finding people, I think it's incumbent on us for a whole lot of reasons to look at all Nova Scotians and see what kind of participation rate we have in the workplace and what we can do about increasing that participation rate. If you look at the comparison on the lower, right-hand corner, the Nova Scotia non-completion rate of high school is about 9.1 per cent and the average income in Nova Scotia is $29,000. That's not a high level of income to begin with, but then if we look at some of the under-represented groups, particularly in the workforce, then the dropout rates become significantly higher or the failure to complete becomes significantly higher, unemployment rates go higher and the average income that is earned is substantially reduced.

We wanted to put that out there as a way of saying that there are some challenges, but I think also that there are opportunities. This would allow us to then give you a sense of what we're doing with the dollars that we have. We have a mixture primarily of federal dollars and some provincial dollars and those are the three large programs that we're working on. Unless there are questions around the parameters of each one of these programs, I think this committee has had presentations in the past on LMA, LMDA and TIOW, so with your permission I'm just going to kind of jump into what we're actually doing with the funds.

Just very generally, LMDA money is more restricted in its use than LMA money because it comes out of the EI pot federally, so it has to be directed to people who have had some sort of attachment in the past number of years in the labour market. LMA money is much less restricted, so we can work with people who have actually never been in the workplace before through the LMA dollars.

In 9.10 - and this is just a general overview and I do have staff here who can be very specific if you have specific questions about what we're doing - we just wanted to emphasize where we are spending some of the money that we have had through this agreement. In particular, immigration for instance, English as a Second Language, business development, bridging programs for immigrants, we're focused on that in terms of our labour market and the settlement activities inside the province. We've spent over $1 million in one-journey programs and that's the program that takes people who essentially have had no attachment and perhaps no real labour market exposure and probably no high school diploma and brings them up to the point where they have a high school diploma and they actually have a job as well. Typically over the last while, we've been working in the continuing care assistant program so people who enter - probably without any formal education - will graduate with a high school diploma and will move into actual employment. We work with women, employment supports with women, one of the areas that we work in particular there is around

[Page 4]

some of the traditional trades in terms of there's still some levels of difficulty for women working in those environments.

We've spent $2 million for persons with disabilities, $1.2 million for the CPN network for vocational crisis supports, essential skills programs, work placements, expanding disabilities supports at the community college for adult learners.

This slide just represents the organizations for persons with disabilities with whom we work and some of the programs that have been funded. Again, we'd certainly be happy to answer questions you might have with respect to some of those, but I think it's just there to illustrate that we are very much engaged with the persons with disabilities organizations and trying to work with them as much as we can.

We also, as you would be aware, have the Nova Scotia School for Adult Learning which is a place for people who haven't made it through high school and have reached the age of 19 and been a least a year out of school. They are eligible to come into the School for Adult Learning which is a free high school - it's an actual high school graduation, just not in the same place you would expect to have it happen. We've been trying to put more funding into that, I think we have a wait list there actually which is not a great thing, so we've been trying to increase the funding there.

We also are trying to expand our workplace programs - Age Advantage, which is really targeting older workers, to bring them back into the workplace or to enhance their ability to stay there, but also workplace programs about people who are actually already in the workplace and who might have sort of a bit of difficulty taking on the next job, even inside the workplace if it becomes a little bit more technologically challenging or they need some upgrading around some math or some literacy skills, we work with people in the workplace for that person.

We also have funded coordinators - labour market coordinators - for many of the groups that I mentioned earlier, so for persons with disabilities, the African-Canadian and Aboriginal populations, we've funded coordinators to start working in those communities. We're at the early stages there but we really need people who can go into the communities, talk to them and help assist us in determining what we should do.

We are, I think, fairly well advanced in our table on the francophone side of the world and it presents a bit of a model in terms of what we're doing. We meet a couple of times a year with a group of people who represent the learning institutions, the school boards, a number of other social supports in the francophone community. They've been doing some really good work in concert with us about trying to identify the populations, the educational attainments, where the labour shortages might be happening and working with Université Sainte-Anne, for instance, in trying to develop programs that would meet the labour shortage and bring people into those programs.

[Page 5]

We've also worked - a fair part of the money is to help people who have if, for instance, a plant is closing or a business is actually closing - and we did that in the Valley a couple of times - then we will take a transition support right into that community, develop a place where people can actually come to get information about are there EI supports, are there IA supports, is there anybody looking for someone with my qualifications? We try to spread that out through the RDAs to get that business intelligence back. We found that has been a very responsive program to people who are in significant need at the time and we found that it works well.

Again, 4,000 individuals annually through the Nova Scotia School for Adult Learning and 1,500 individuals at this point, annually, through workplace education and for those in transition.

The last slide I would just leave, in terms of the work inside of the Department of Labour and Workforce Development around some of the issues that your committee would deal with would be just the minimum wage increases, which you're familiar with. That is a matter that is managed inside of the department and government just recently confirmed the minimum wage increases which will be going forward in 2010.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. MacDonald.

[1:15 p.m.]

MS. JUDITH FERGUSON: Okay, so I'll start and I think it's nice to kind of segue in terms of the presentation that Margaret gave because I think you can probably see some of the opportunities to do the horizontal work between the two departments. Obviously our two teams have been working really closely together, from the employment perspective, to really make sure that we're maximizing all of the dollars that we're receiving and that we're really targeting the supports to where we know we need them in Nova Scotia.

Really we've been having a lot of discussion about having, really, single-entry access for our clients, regardless if they're clients of DCS or clients of LWD. So that's really the opportunity that we have and really the philosophy that we've been using in both departments as we approach the work. So it's really exciting and I think there will be some tremendous opportunities to really make sure we're leveraging those dollars, to put them where they're needed.

I'd like to thank you for having us back to talk about poverty reduction. When we were here the last time you asked us to provide some updates in certain areas and those are the areas that I focus the presentation on today. Then, if there's time, I thought we'd use the opportunity to talk a little bit about the Nova Scotia Child Benefit, simply as an example of a program that has worked well and really has moved and had some significant benefits in terms of reducing poverty, so we'll look at the timing and see where we are on that.

[Page 6]

Before I start, we just want to talk a bit about the context within which we now find ourselves and the challenges that we have, given the current economic climate that we're in. It's the first time in several years in the department that our income assistance caseloads actually increased. So obviously there are some implications in that for us in terms of next steps forward.

People often think that's the only implication when we have difficult economic times but, in fact, that's not the case. We actually see our program caseload increasing in a number of areas, so at the same time that our wait list for public housing would be increasing, we would be taking more children into care, and often when times are difficult families break down, unfortunately, so we see our child welfare caseload increase. As well, we would have more requests for placement in our Services for Persons with Disabilities Program, so we really see impact on all the programs that we have in the department.

So that's just a bit of context setting as we go forward and talk about where we are. Obviously, the people who are the most vulnerable to poverty would have an even more difficult time given where we find ourselves and some of the implications of that.

So I think I'll start with the update in terms of ESIA redesign. Obviously, before we can redesign the program, we need to know more about who we're really serving. We've been having a lot of discussion in government lately, regardless of department, around really how we deliver services and really looking at services from a client-centred perspective - how do we develop and deliver those services in a way that really addresses the clients? Obviously, paramount to that is making sure that we have a really good understanding of the people we're serving, so we've been looking at that.

We've been really trying to do some heavy-duty analysis of our caseload to say all right, who are the people who need our help and as we realign services, how do we do that in a way that makes sense for them? Obviously, it's who they are, what the challenges are, we know that service delivery is different in an urban part of the province as compared to a rural part of the province, so we're really taking some time to look at the composition of our caseload and make sure as we go forward and make policy and program decisions that we're making them very much with the client in mind.

So this just gives you a breakdown of our clients according to age of the head of the household. As you can see, the smallest part of the caseload is people under the age of 19. In general, like Margaret was showing in some of her demographic information, our income assistance caseload is aging. Right now, 48 per cent of the caseload is over the age of 45 and obviously the program supports that this group needs are different from people who are younger.

Again, this is us really just trying to get a better indication and it's interesting because often when you go out and talk to the public or we talk to groups of people about who they

[Page 7]

think the people who make up the ESIA caseload are, it's very different from the reality of what it actually is. It has been helpful for us to go out and talk about that so that it's important for us to understand the circumstances of why people are in poverty, so who they are, what their circumstances are, how they got there and then what they need to transition out.

Again, this is just a further breakdown of the profile and this goes hand in hand with what Margaret was saying, which is why I think it's helpful to have the two presentations fit together. In comparison to the overall population in Nova Scotia, our clients have lower levels of education and as many as two-thirds of people on our caseload have not finished high school - 20 per cent have less than Grade 9 and 38 per cent have not completed high school. So obviously when we're looking at what kinds of supports people need and employment supports people need - and Margaret talked about some of the programming that's available - it's really, really important that we understand what this demographic looks like so we can tailor services around the needs that people have.

Again, if you look at it from a disabilities perspective, adults with disabilities have a much lower rate of participation in the labour market. About 45 per cent of our caseload is identified as persons with disabilities and about 10 per cent of the caseload has wage earnings. So again, just two more facts that really tell us where we need to focus and look at. Again, if we're looking at people who can transition to the workforce, that's a very different picture from people who have disabilities and what kinds of services we need to provide to those two groups. In a lot of cases, the needs are very different and, in turn, services need to be very different to reflect that.

Again, just to further kind of drill down into the client profile; single, unattached individuals account for about 15 per cent of the population of Nova Scotia but account for 67 per cent of our income assistance caseload. I think that's an important statistic and something we really need to pay attention to and understand. Many of these people are persons with disabilities or have serious barriers to getting a job, many have issues which interact with our health system, our mental illness challenges, addiction and life-skill challenges. Again, we've seen some of the earlier demographics that would speak to that and just under one-quarter of the caseload is lone-parent households, the majority of those being single mothers.

As I said, I think the first thing is really to understand who the clients are, what their needs are and then begin, as we move forward, to look at the system really with them in mind, so having a very client-focused system and understanding the needs as best we can.

Now a piece is around, what kind of things are we looking at, in terms of the policies and income assistance. As all of you are aware, this redesign project is a big undertaking and we're really open to looking at all parts of the program, so this is not simply a tweaking around the edges but really looking at all of the major aspects of the program. There are

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things there, so obviously rates, special needs, the wage incentive piece, asset levels in terms of what is required, what assets people can retain, the cohabitation policy, the disability supports. As we've seen, there's a significant percentage of our income assistance population who are persons with disabilities. I think it's really important that we have a good understanding of the supports people need and it's very important to have a performance measurement framework.

Obviously we need to know, as we move forward, we need to make sure that we have measurement so we'll know are things working or not and that we're able to measure it as we go along so that we can make good decisions. We'd like to look at simplifying our Pharmacare Programs and access.

I guess that takes me to another point that overarching all of this is that we want to look at simplifying the process. I think that goes with having a client-centered approach, that from a service delivery perspective we really want the system to be as user-friendly as possible and that public engagement will be an important part of that and as the process proceeds, we will be engaging with the public.

We've received a lot of fabulous information from members of the Poverty Reduction Working Group but obviously we need to go out and we need to talk. As I said before, needs are different, not only depending on caseload but community to community. So I think it's really important that we get out and hear from people, in terms of the challenges.

I know that not that long ago we met with our minister and a group of people, some currently on income assistance and people formerly on income assistance. It was an extremely valuable meeting and a lot of what we heard we've taken back and we're using as part of the process, so that's hugely important feedback for us.

I've spoken to this a bit, I won't spend too much time on this but just again, in terms of wage incentives or what are the kind of things we're looking at and how are we identifying the issues and options. We're doing things, for example, with wage incentives, like looking at the jurisdictional research, seeing where we are vis-a-vis our colleagues in other provinces. What we're finding, not surprisingly, is that there's a lot of variation across the provinces in terms of what policies fit. Again, it is different populations and there is a variety of options. We need to look at those, we need to look at what that means for Nova Scotia.

There are policy considerations, obviously we need to be mindful of the fact that there are issues about creating disparity between our current clients on income assistance and people who earn a minimal income in Nova Scotia and look at what the implications are and be aware of that.

The information we have at this stage really shows us that the best practice around the wage incentive piece, as an example, is that the incentives are outside the income

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assistance program, like the working income tax benefit, so they're not actually part of the IA system but they're actually, in this case, part of the tax system. We're looking, I guess, this is an example to say but we really are looking at all options and trying to tailor the best fit for what fits the needs of our clients.

Again, in terms of asset levels, looking at the same kinds of things and have to make some policy decisions around that, you know it is important, I think, that people can provide for themselves, it's important that people are able to transition to the workforce in a way that's meaningful. One thing we see is that there are a number of people who come off the IA caseload, but then come back on and that's certainly not a good opportunity for people. We need to look at our policies in a way that permit people to really attach in a meaningful way to the workforce and what do we need to do to help them to do that. So those are just some of the things, again, that we're looking at.

Disability supports and allowances - Margaret spoke a bit to that. We've met with the Disabled Persons Commission and we know from them that the disabled community does not want to be excluded from employment opportunities - in fact, just the opposite. We also know that we have a lot of work to do through our ESS program to really be able to facilitate that in a meaningful way. Currently staff from the commission are working with our colleagues at Labour and Workforce Development to develop a labour market strategy for persons with disabilities, so that's something that we've been involved in and we're working with. Those are just to give some tangible examples of actual pieces of policy work that we're looking at as the process proceeds.

Now I'm going to change topics a little bit and provide some additional details on Pharmacare, as there were some questions that came up on Pharmacare the last time we were here. This slide shows some of the Pharmacare Programs that government provides. There are 13 different Pharmacare Programs across government and one of the things that the Poverty Reduction Strategy talked about was simplifying access to Pharmacare. Right now, we are in early discussions with the Department of Health to make the programs more integrated and again, going back to what I said earlier, really having a client-centred focus and saying, what are the kinds of Pharmacare that we need to look at and as a client, how do we make it easiest for you to access the program and know what program is right for you.

The Low Income Pharmacare for Children program was launched in the Department of Community Services in 2006 to provide prescription drug coverage for children under the age of 18 in families who are eligible for the Nova Scotia Child Benefit. The income thresholds - we call it for LIPC, Low Income Pharmacare - were increased in July 2009 to reflect the threshold for the Nova Scotia Child Benefit. That allowed an additional 3,700 children to qualify for the program.

Family Pharmacare is another program that's available outside of our Employment Support and Income Assistance program and that's administered through the Department of

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Health. Low-income families don't have to maintain eligibility for our ESIA program to stay eligible for these programs. Based on the best statistics we have about 35,000 low-income families outside of our ESIA programs are using these two programs, just to give you an idea. Those are just some basic stats on Pharmacare.

[1:30 p.m.]

There was some discussion about targets last time we were here and we thought we would take a look at some of the targets we've actually provided in our own business plan in DCS, in terms of where we're looking to go.

Before we do, I just wanted to take a minute to reflect back and say what were the actual goals and objectives that we were looking at in the Poverty Reduction Strategy. The target was to break the cycle of poverty by 2020 and there were four major areas that we were focusing on: a focus on children and families; improving support for those most in need; enabling and rewarding work; and collaboration and coordination. As I said earlier, Margaret provided a great overview of what LWD is doing to enable and reward work and there are simply some examples of some of the things we talked about when we launched the strategy around steps we were going to take to move forward.

Some examples of some targets that we have in our own business plan and just so you know, we actually have an interdepartmental working group in government with staff from a number of departments who are developing indicators, researching benchmarks that we will use to help us develop more solid numbers. We're actually also liaising with our colleagues in some other provinces, Newfoundland has done a tremendous amount of work around actually tracking poverty indicators, and some of our colleagues in other provinces. So we've been working with them to really be able to set some serious targets and benchmarks that we know we will be able to evaluate, get good data for and be able to move forward. Obviously the direction, quite simply, is to reduce the number of people who are living in poverty, so this is how we measure that and know if we're on track or not.

Based on the latest data, we know there are about 74,000 people, including about 15,000 children, who are currently living in poverty. The target obviously is not to maintain this performance but to reduce those numbers. We know that we have some significant challenges in our department and also in the departments that we work with and that this will not be easy but we also know that we have some wonderful opportunities to move forward and we've already started moving in some of this work.

Again, I just want to highlight, those are some targets that are currently in our business plan in the department, so reducing the percentage of adults, children living in poverty and the target and decrease the percentage of households that are unable to access acceptable housing. I'd also like to add that if you look at the Child and Youth Strategy you'll see there are targets and outcomes there and if you look at the Crime Prevention

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Strategy there are targets and outcomes there, because so much of that work goes back to the population health piece, which is really around the determinants of health, which are the true poverty indicators. So there are a lot of measures we have already put in place. They are quite similar and they are similar on purpose because obviously if we do a better job on those population health pieces, when whether it's the Crime Prevention Strategy or the Child and Youth Strategy, then those indicators will move forward. So there are targets and indicators in those pieces of work as well.

I'm going to stop there for a minute because those are the pieces that we were asked to come back and report back on. We have done a piece on the child benefit, Mr. Chairman, if people are interested in that as an indicator of where we've gone.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll look for some direction from the committee as to whether you'd like to hear that before questions. Is it acceptable to sort of keep going?

I'm going to take that as a yes, I think we have the time. It would probably be helpful background.

MS. FERGUSON: I can talk fast, you all know that. We wanted to highlight this because this is, we think, an example of where we have had some significant success in terms of breaking the cycle of poverty. Traditional income assistance programs haven't been particularly effective in addressing poverty or promoting attachment to the workforce. We know, and this is something we're looking at as we redesign the program, that the income assistance programs tend to keep people outside of the mainstream of society and, unfortunately, even today carry a fair bit of stigma.

The Nova Scotia Child Benefit, by providing benefits outside of the income assistance system, has afforded a much better opportunity to address poverty. It has helped people remain in the workforce and it significantly helped families move from social assistance to work. It has helped to make work at entry-level wages more attractive for people because they have that bit of financial security that they can take with them because families retain these benefits for their children while increasing their overall income, so it is not tied to your level of income assistance benefits. The net effect has really been to break the cycle of poverty and we've seen a significant decrease in the number of children living in poverty.

Now, having said that, 15,000 children is too many children so I don't want to diminish that in any way, except to say that we have seen the number decline. Obviously we know we still have more to do but it has provided us with a significant decline.

Just a little bit of background, the NSCB was introduced in 2001. There are currently approximately 42,000 who are eligible for it and I think I have spoken before at the committee about the levels and the amount of the benefit.

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This is just simply a chart that shows us exactly what the combined rates are, and what is often not recognized when we look at the calculation is the total amount provided to low income families. At the same time, it is often not recognized that with the introduction of the NCB, so the National Child Benefit and the NSCB, the Nova Scotia Child Benefit, families in receipt of social assistance are also better off. We've done the impact for one child here and the table is based on the scheduled increase of the NCB in July 2009. That's just to give you an indication of what the income levels would be for families with one child.

Then again, it just shows that the number of children under 18 living in low-income families has significantly declined. Again, I think an important statistic but not at all to say that we still don't have a lot of work to do to continue and make sure that we do even better than that.

Again, just some data showing our average monthly ESIA caseload by fiscal year. So in terms of the declining caseload in 2000-01, there were 16,151 families with children who were in receipt of income assistance and we now have 7,300 cases, which is a decrease of about 8,800 cases, or 45 per cent. So we think that the introduction of the Child Benefit programs together with what had been up until recently a growing economy, obviously were the two indicators that really made this trend possible.

I guess I would say in conclusion, this is an example of something we think has really helped families make a successful exit from income assistance to the labour market attachment, by removing the barrier, the barrier being the loss of the benefits to your children when you exit the income assistance. I think there are a lot of lessons that we can learn from this as we move forward and look at our income assistance system, not only in terms of what families need and clients need to move forward, but how we structure the system, so I think there are lots of lessons learned from this. I raise it simply, obviously not as the final answer, but as an example of one piece that we're really looking at in some detail to learn some significant lessons from. With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you Ms. Ferguson and Ms. MacDonald as well. It has been helpful to get this overview and I'm assuming that there will be some questions around the table. As usual, I'll take a show of hands or try to keep some order in that process. Mind you, I haven't seen any hands yet. Ms. Regan.

MS. KELLY REGAN: Ms. Ferguson, last time you appeared before the committee I brought up some issues surrounding transportation issues. The Community Coalition to End Poverty says a long-term plan for province-wide, affordable, accessible transportation system is missing from the government's Poverty Reduction Strategy. You said back on November 3^rd that your department would be looking at this issue with other departments, in conjunction with them. Have you met with any departments to develop a strategy to address affordable transportation?

[Page 13]

MS. FERGUSON: We're actually working with our colleagues at Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations and the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal and we have staff members from the department who sit on a committee looking at transportation from a provincial perspective. So that committee is actually meeting, I don't have a definitive report, but I know they are working and looking at the transportation issue across the province.

The other thing I can tell you as well, as we go forward in redesigning income assistance, a lot of times what we find is clients just need one thing or piece to really be able to move on. That may be child care benefits, that may be transportation, that may be Pharmacare, so we're really looking to trying to develop a menu of services that really reflects the individual needs of the clients. Having said that, obviously that transportation piece is a bigger piece, but we are part of that committee and there are discussions going on.

MS. REGAN: I have to say that immediately upon becoming an MLA, the phone calls started about transportation issues, particularly for people with disabilities or seniors, getting them to their hospital appointments, things like that. I met last week with various groups representing disabled citizens and they're still telling us the same thing, that they're prisoners in their homes if they can't get out, if they can't get affordable, easily-accessed transportation. In fact, one of the people we talked to talked about going to Ottawa and being able to access transportation very easily there; you didn't have to call a week in advance to make your appointment or anything like that, that you could literally call, I think it was the day before, to book your appointment. We're hearing sort of the complete opposite.

When I do hear from parents of disabled children who have finally secured some employment, they can't get them there. So I guess I would just like to underline the importance of that particular piece for so many people because there is a dearth of easily accessible transportation for people who have challenges or who are on income assistance in this province.

MS. FERGUSON: No question and thank you very much for your comments. I think part of it for us is an opportunity for the Department of Community Services to sit on a committee with a number of our other colleague departments that are involved in that transportation piece so that has been very helpful for us to be able to relay a lot of the concerns that you just did, to make sure that we have that voice at the table.

I know that the staff in the department have been doing that and we have liaised with our colleagues in our own department and also with the Disabled Persons Commission, to make sure that we really have a well-informed voice, in terms of what the challenges are, so thank you for your comments.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If you want to keep going, okay.

[Page 14]

MS. REGAN: About half the people on employment support and income assistance are people with disabilities, according to John Cox, who is co-chairman of the Community Advocates Network, as of June 3^rd of last year. I'm just wondering what particular steps are you taking to assist disabled people affected by poverty?

MS. FERGUSON: Part of looking at the system is actually looking at whether or not we should have different streams within income assistance, which is what some other provinces do, so the system looks at people who can attach to the workforce and also persons with disabilities who can't attach with the same ease and actually having different types of benefits or packages of benefits, as opposed to treating everybody the same. Those are some of the pieces of policy work that we are looking at, actually making sure we have different kinds of benefits and services that would meet the needs of people with disabilities who are on our caseload, so not treating everybody the same.

MS. REGAN: As you referenced, a kind of menu. I've been seeing a lot of commercials put on by the federal government right now and this is about more Labour and Workforce Development, about a variety of programs. Some of them don't ring a bell with me, I have to say, when they're talking about if you want to start your own business or various things. I'm thinking, are these commercials accurate to Nova Scotia or are they talking about some global programs that aren't actually here yet? I don't quite understand some of the things I'm seeing.

[1:45 p.m.]

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: I don't know if I can address it in its entirety. We are experiencing, to some extent, a bit of the same thing. Some of the staff have told me that the ads are - I'm not sure what label to put on them but they are a bit concerning, I guess, in the sense of some people coming to our offices with the expectations that they have. I think the other reason why you haven't heard and I haven't heard, to some extent, about these programs is that they were federally managed. I don't know if that makes a difference but I think that to some extent it did make a difference. So they were all under federal management, federal delivery, until July 1, 2009.

I don't know if there was a whole lot of advertisement or information provided to Nova Scotians about the accessibility of these programs. So I think it is fair to say that I think it will be new information to many Nova Scotians to see the kind of programs that are available under the new federal funding that we have.

MS. REGAN: I have had constituents come to me and say, I've seen this commercial, it's telling me that I can change my job. When they go to get help they are told, I'm sorry, you can't do a full two-year course under this program, it's six months that's all you are going to get.

[Page 15]

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: Those are federal ads and we don't influence them but I think it is fair to say we may be feeling some of the same impacts of the ads. The programs are, as I said to you earlier, you start from the source of the funds, right, so the people who can access some of the programs are limited by virtue of the source of the funds. Then we are delegated - the programs weren't handed over to us to deliver as we see fit, we are delegated responsibility to deliver the programs so we still have to live within some of the constraints.

I recognize I think that there might be a bit of a difference, perhaps, between some of the descriptors of the programs and at least some of the programs that we have. It may be that the feds have retained other programs. So you may, in some certain cases, if you fit the eligibility requirements, be funded to return to school and that happens very often. So these skill development agreements that we deliver through federal funding are very significant agreements and they're of great benefit to individuals. But there are still sort of eligibility rules attached to them and the length of time that you can actually participate in them.

MS. REGAN: What I was told was basically if you had a marketable skill, that option is not open to you and that's not really made clear. What I'm wondering is, are the programs in this province significantly different than they are elsewhere across the country?

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: No, they shouldn't be because those are some of the rules that we are required - it's called Employment Benefits and Support Measures, I think, EBSMs. So there are four or five different criteria around the programs that have to be delivered and that's a national requirement. We have to develop programs that are alike those programs, so we will be put to a test. Again, so we will live within some rules and we haven't tested yet, as I said, we just accepted it on July 1, 2009, we're getting the system settled down.

The next thing we want to do is look at what sorts of things that we can change to make it more Nova Scotia-centric. I think the other thing that we're finding is that these programs were developed for national purposes and because they're national in scope they had to deal with a whole lot of issues across the country. We're hoping that by having them inside the province and having them provincially managed, that again, within some of the parameters that the feds have left in place that we can actually make them a bit more Nova Scotia-centric. So there are some rules we won't be able to move away from and some we will. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what those would look like, but again, we'd be happy to come back as we go through this work.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Regan. I just want to take a moment to welcome Michele Raymond and Trevor Zinck, who came in during the presentation. In terms of the order of questions, I think Mr. Glavine would be next, followed by Mr. Ramey.

[Page 16]

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank the deputies for coming in today and to go on the public record as saying thank you for the assistance that you give me in my job when I bring some of the tough cases, perhaps, to your level. So I appreciate that.

There's no question that groups like church groups, the Face of Poverty Consultation and the Community Coalition to End Poverty had a huge impact on bringing this to this stage. I'm wondering, do you still meet with those people or the working group that was put in place to do some measurements and accountability on how the Poverty Strategy is moving?

MS. FERGUSON: We're not currently meeting with the existing group that was the Poverty Reduction Strategy Working Group, the group that put the report together. In discussions with the group, when looking at what the go-forward plan would be, the decision was at the time that as we moved forward we would go back and consult with the community on specific issues. The group agreed with that as well in terms of moving forward. We said that we would consult on pieces as we went along, but as we learned from our colleagues in some other jurisdictions, depending on what you're consulting about and what pieces you're consulting about depends on who the group is and who the groups are that you need to pull together.

So it was difficult to say we were just going to consult with one group because we couldn't prejudge as we went forward what the issues were we would be consulting on. What there was an agreement to was that there would be ongoing consultation with impacted and interested groups as we moved forward. That was, some models that we looked at, different models from different provinces in their poverty reduction plan and that was the one that people felt would work best for Nova Scotia.

MR. GLAVINE: When you were here the last time, you talked about the overhaul of income assistance. I know it's not too far along since that visit, but to quote from Hansard you said, it wasn't going to be "tweaking around the edges of the piece". It was going to be something very substantial taking place.

To preface as well, just this week I had a lady on income assistance who has two children, and is working part-time at McDonalds and really making an attempt to get back to work. When she faced that big reality of 70 per cent pulled off for the work that she had done, even though there was some equation coming in through income assistance, it was absolutely devastating to her and she's no longer at McDonalds. Where is that incentive piece really going to move toward as we transition people from income assistance to the work world?

We're also seeing some really magnificent things being done with people with disabilities. I know in our area Community Inc. has a marvelous program and one of the

[Page 17]

companies that they've worked really closely with, Kings Processing, and to see those people get work on the line of processing food, actually, it's one of our few manufacturing agri-businesses that's actually growing and this particular segment of the workforce is very critical to it. I'm just wondering how we're going to make that break from the 70 per cent pull-back and what are the kinds of significant pieces that will happen to income assistance?

MS. FERGUSON: Thank you for the question. Part of why I put the wage incentive piece up as part of the policy pieces that we're looking at was to indicate to the committee that it's definitely an area that we're looking at for exactly the reason that you've talked about. So it is an area that's under active consideration.

I share your concerns and we've heard numerous accounts like the one you brought to the table and obviously, feedback from our front-line staff in terms of the significant issues with that piece. While I can't tell you exactly where we'll end up, at the end of the day I can tell you that we share the concerns, that we know that that's an issue, and that's a piece that we're looking at making changes in. So that's a piece under active consideration.

MR. GLAVINE: Just to follow up maybe and then we can move it along. One of the areas - it's just my own view, I'm not representing the Party or the caucus view on this - that I do find troubling because I get to know a huge segment of people who are on income assistance and we certainly know that there are able-bodied people in that group. I'm wondering if you had given any thought to or looked at perhaps if you don't have a disability, you are able to get some training or educational improvement even, why wouldn't we look at perhaps providing income assistance for two years out of five where people are actually put to the wall and say, gosh, I really do have to do something to have some income?

In a place like - I'm not sure if this can happen everywhere regionally - the Annapolis Valley, you can always pick up work from May to November, no question about it. I'm just wondering if there's some way of even looking at something like that? The vast majority of people on income assistance have a whole range of reasons to be there, whether it's mental, physical disabilities, et cetera, but there is a group that could really be adding to the labour force. I think a few jurisdictions have gone to this whereby you're only going to get income assistance, like two out of six years or three out of six years and it has had very good dividends.

MS. FERGUSON: We haven't looked at your suggestions specifically. What we have been looking at though is making sure that our employment support pieces and the kinds of training that we have for people really are the kinds of programs that we need so that we can do everything we can to help people transition through the workforce. I think what we're finding as we drill down into the demographics of our caseload, I think the first obligation is on the department to make sure that we have the right programs and services in place so that we can help people move forward and transition. I'd say that's kind of where we are, that's the first step for us.

[Page 18]

I think what we're seeing is the services that were originally mandated and developed under that program really aren't addressing a lot of the needs of the clients that we have today. We really need to make sure that we're doing that and obviously the work that we can do with our colleagues at LWD is a big piece of making sure that we're moving that forward. So people who do have employment support plans, it's making sure you're complying with your employment support plan as part of your ongoing eligibility for income assistance.

I think the first step for us is to make sure that we have the right services and supports in place so that we know we're doing the right thing to help people move forward and I don't think we're quite there yet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you both. On my list at this point is Mr. Ramey and then Mr. Preyra.

MR. GARY RAMEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you both for coming. You've presented a lot of information in a short time there, so I'm still absorbing some of it.

One of my questions related to what my colleague, the member for Kings West - his first question about clawing back of monies when someone is struggling to move ahead and then almost a disincentive. I think you already addressed that by saying that's being looked at and under review now.

MS. FERGUSON: And we share the concerns.

MR. RAMEY: Okay, so I'll say no more on that except to register my interest in that particular area as well.

MS. FERGUSON: Thank you.

MR. RAMEY: The other question is around the changing economy and the impact it has had on the ESIA caseload. I think you already addressed that in your presentation, I think you said it went up for the first time in a number of years. One of the things that came out of the discussion around that, as I understand it, was an opportunity - out of adversity comes opportunity sometimes - related to certain groups, like I think you mentioned African Nova Scotians and people with disabilities and Aboriginal people who are experiencing, in some cases, very high rates of unemployment. Can you speak a little more about how we're going to assist those groups in getting back into the workforce? Could you say just a bit more about that, please?

MS. FERGUSON: In terms of those groups, I think there are a number of pieces that we need to look at, particularly groups that are under-represented in the labour force. We need to take a much more targeted approach to assist those groups. Part of what we're

[Page 19]

looking at in our income support system is actually creating opportunities for these groups in particular, so having a specific focus on under-represented groups. We need to do that through income assistance but I would also say that's a similar discussion - and, Margaret, you may want to add to that a little bit because I think it's something that we need to do, not just through the income assistance program but have a bit of a broader view, so in terms of looking at our child care that we provide through the Department of Community Services, in terms of looking at the Healthy Beginnings program that we run through HPP.

[2:00 p.m.]

I think it's really important that we have a broad, horizontal approach because as you're well aware, obviously the challenges that result in these groups being on our income assistance caseload, we need to start looking at some of the root causes of those. So it's one thing to just look at it from an income assistance perspective, but I think more importantly we need to take a holistic and broader view. So we've been working through our interdepartmental groups to really have some significant discussions for our under-represented groups in Nova Scotia to look at, as a government, how we can do better and what kinds of things we all need to do and make sure that the things we're doing work in lockstep, so that we're all aware of what each other is doing and that we're able to measure the results of that. Maybe I'll just turn that over to Margaret to talk about it a bit.

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: I mentioned in one of the earlier slides that we've hired, through the LMA dollars, coordinators for the various populations, I guess. So we have actually, I think, hired - and if not hired, we have the funding for - labour market coordinators for persons with disabilities, African Nova Scotian and Aboriginal populations, as well as the work that we're doing in the francophone community.

If I could use the francophone community as an example of what some of the work is that we do that I think we can mirror in some of the other populations - it's really, as I said earlier, quite an interesting table. What they do is really try to analyze their population. Some of their focus is around the French language but really what they're doing is they are focusing on understanding the people they are engaged with, really doing an analysis of, well, where do they live, what kind of education levels do they have right now, where do we see some labour shortages happening, particularly in communities that are associated in the regions where a lot of these communities are located geographically. Then they're working, as I said, with their institutions, like their educational institutions, to try to line up some of the labour gaps with training.

So actually, they're doing a lot of the work, they're doing a lot of the studies, so we hope to start to replicate some of that work with some of the other populations and just get in, have discussions, and take some of this information and work with people and try to get them to make it relevant to their communities and bring it back and see if we can start matching jobs and people.

[Page 20]

MR. RAMEY: Mr. Chairman, may I?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. RAMEY: And then I'll stop. As a person who was an educator most of my life, education is obviously an important piece to this. I mean I think we're speaking to the converted here when we say that.

I'm not clear right now on how people are funded if they wish to go back and improve their education levels. I know when I worked at the community college I would sometimes have people who wanted to take a two-year program because that was the program they needed in order to get the income level that they required to not have to be on any kind of assistance again. They get funded for a year and then they wouldn't get funded for the second year, which left them high and dry, and they often couldn't finish the program because they couldn't get the funding.

I'm a person who absolutely believes in everything that you've presented here about the fact that education levels are related to good things happening. I just ran into a fellow the other day who had gone to sea, had quit school - like so many people on the South Shore did years ago and still sometimes do - had gone to sea, worked on a scallop boat, decided he had better stop doing this and get a better education, has gone back to school, has no money of course now and wants to get into Coast Guard College because he has that whole skill set that he can use in his education as he moves forward and would end up with a much better and more solid job, but has no access to funding right now. He's really getting his high school education out of the way so he can go and do the next piece, right, and it's going to take a while. Are there any discussions around that area whatsoever?

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: I think I'd start it off by saying that I think people tend to focus a lot on the refusals that they get, as opposed to some of the programs that we do. I mean in the context of - like if you think about the Nova Scotia School for Adult Learning, that's free. So if you apply and you're in, it's free. The employment, the work that we do inside of - the workplace education type of work that we do, again, employers need to contribute in certain ways to that but it's not necessarily out of pocket and employees don't have to contribute at all, other than the participation.

This wouldn't be the full gamut of programs but there are a lot of programs out there that are no cost to people so I think it's important to keep that in mind. I think what I'm hearing from you is typical of what we've been hearing since last July. We have one particular program called the Skills Development Agreement program, which is individual-based, so people can actually, if they are successful in applying for that program, they can be funded and substantially supported in going back to school and getting retrained, and reasonably generous supports inside there, I think, also for things like transportation and child care and those sorts of things. It's just that not everybody is eligible.

[Page 21]

We have to try to draw the line and again, these are things that we will look at over time because we're still working within the parameters of what we've been given and we have to examine, can we loosen this up a little bit, but we do have to put some limits around. So generally, if people have already had some employment, some significant employment experience and they're considered to be capable of going out and finding another job for themselves or, say, accessing the student loan system or some of the other supports that are out there for people, then there's a reasonable chance that they're not going to be eligible under that particular program. That's the one that we do get a lot of issues associated with it because that's where individuals tend to get turned down by times.

I'd like to try to turn it around a little bit and say there's a whole lot of other programming in the systems out there as well for people and that one is just a very generous one, people like it, but not everybody can get access to it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Preyra.

MR. LEONARD PREYRA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Ferguson, I was really fascinated with your client profile, the data on who belongs and how they get in and out of it. You made a passing comment about the boundary between those on income assistance and the working poor. There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that the number of people who could be classed as working poor is increasing. Do we have any data on the working poor and do you track the entries and exits into income assistance?

MS. FERGUSON: Not as good data as we would like to have and that's part of the work that we're doing is trying to get better data. Having said that though, we do track when people come back onto income assistance and attach to the labour market and come back. But the other piece that we're doing work on is really what the challenges are in terms of not only the income assistance caseload which we're looking at through the ESIA redesign, obviously, but what the implications are for people who are earning significantly lower wages and what the challenges are. Obviously, that can be a significant disincentive to leaving the income assistance, so in a lot of ways they are two pieces of the same policy discussion as we move forward.

As a result of the discussions about really attaching significantly to the workforce, it gets you into the discussions about working poor and really what people need to move on in a meaningful way. We don't have as detailed data, like I said, as we would like to have, but we certainly have enough data that we're concerned about the implications and are looking at that.

MR. PREYRA: I was also interested in seeing a little bit more data on a gender analysis of those two groups. It seems to me in the constituency, in my casework in the office, we see a lot of very young women and a lot of senior women who come in for assistance. Maybe they're more likely to come in for help, but it seems to me that there are

[Page 22]

large numbers of people in those two groups. I'm wondering if the department has some data on that client profile both on the working poor, if there is any, and in terms of those on income assistance.

MS. FERGUSON: I'd have to say again, not in the working-poor population, although we're working on that, but the information that we have for our lone-parent households - 94 per cent of those are single mothers, so for example in that. But the largest part of our population is people who are single and predominantly male. Those are some of the pieces we're looking at.

So I think the important thing for us is, as I said before, as we're going forward and looking at the needs that the system has, it's to be very aware of who these people are because obviously, a young woman or a woman who is older is going to have very different needs and very different issues in terms of workforce attachment, if indeed they are able to attach to the workforce at all. Another piece for us is really significantly drilling down into the 67 per cent of single persons who are on our caseload and what kinds of services do we need to provide for that population, because it is by far the largest piece of our population.

MR. PREYRA: I have another couple of questions - quickly?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, a couple of quick ones.

MR. PREYRA: You didn't mention Target 100, the new program that was just announced. What is the idea behind that? I know that you're partnering with the Co-operative Council and they're going to help create jobs and I think mentor. What is the model there and what's the expectation of the program? How many people will be included?

MS. FERGUSON: We're really excited about that announcement and hopefully people were able to hear about the Target 100 announcement. It's a partnership we have with the Nova Scotia Co-operative Council and they approached us because they were very proactive and realized that with the aging demographic of the province and that they were going to need some labour-force participation, they came to us and said we would like to employ your clients and train them for some significant jobs, so we're thrilled about that.

The philosophy of the Co-operative Council and the philosophy of the department being client-focused really seemed to be a very good match. So we're really thrilled with the partnership and basically, I jotted down some statistics on my way here, but over the next six months they're hoping for 90 employment opportunities to become available in the sector and 240 opportunities over the next two to three years and 900 openings over the next five years. Our clients will be recruited, trained and hired in the co-operative system, so that's a career primarily for people, our clients who reside in rural Nova Scotia, customer service, warehousing, marketing or a skilled trade, or an opportunity to participate even in a volunteer

[Page 23]

placement. So we're very excited about the partnership and for the opportunities that it will provide for our clients.

MR. PREYRA: Thank you. One?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, you said two, so I guess this would be your second one.

MR. PREYRA: I had a question for Ms. MacDonald - welcome to your new posting.

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: Thank you very much.

MR. PREYRA: I had a question for you about just the whole economic dislocation that we're experiencing from the recession and just structural change in the economy. What programs do we have in place to look at industries in crisis, industries that may well not recover at all, both in helping the industry and in helping those who are involved in the industry in transition programs?

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: As I mentioned quickly in my presentation, I think that's one of the areas that we've done some good work for people who are going through some really stressful circumstances. If we take a recent circumstance in the Valley, the ACA Co-operative plant closing out, and we've done this in a couple of other places - Trenton is another place, Moirs is another place - the sort of big production where we go into town, we actually open up an office location and advertise and let people know where we are.

What we do in those big transition centres is try to bring a whole lot of support people from various agencies to one place, so it is sort of a one-door or a one-window kind of opportunity for people to come. They're in a really stressful circumstance in their lives, so we try to bring all of the people into the room that we can to talk about the issues. As I said earlier, it might be someone who can give them information on IA, if that's where their future is, or EI.

We found about a year ago, I guess - and sorry about trying to remember the timing in my head - but there was a circumstance where it was just after the economic downturn, the huge downturn in the economy in the Fall of 2008 - so I think it would be early 2009 - there were some significant layoffs in an area. We were pulling this team together, but we were also asking the RDAs to come together because there might be other businesses that might be looking for other employees. We were actually finding that was the case, that there were some businesses that were actually looking for people at the same time that other businesses were laying them off - so to continue that story around what we do for people. That's part of what we do, which is really trying to get information to people right away.

I've talked to the staff about - we still have small layoffs and it might not be economically feasible to go into a community and do this big thing, but we still need to be

[Page 24]

able to try to get information through the company into the final pay slip, or whatever it is, about the services and the programs that are available to people.

Also what we've done and it kind of connects in with ACA, it's kind of neat story that I just read in the paper - I don't take credit for it, but there's lots of people who can - about a lady who was let go, I think, at ACA. Her story would be similar, as someone said, to many Nova Scotians because they would have started, as somebody said we have these industrial towns that have contributed to the fact that people didn't get a high school diploma. There was a good job, they went off to get the good job, and finishing school wasn't so important. It's starting to become very important now for them in their lives.

[2:15 p.m.]

This particular woman, I think, had a Grade 8 education, but was very gainfully employed in this plant making $16, $17 an hour, so it was a good life, she was contributing to society. So she lost her job and I guess I sort of reflected on that and thought typically what would happen in the past, I think, was that it would be a huge crisis for her, she would be, as I call it, falling off the cliff and looking for somebody to come and give her some assistance. What she actually said in the paper was, I guess I better go get retrained. I think that is a reflection of some of those One Journey programs that have been very successful. People have lost those types of jobs, but as I said, through that program they're able to get their high school diploma, they're training up to be a CCA, I think generally replacing the income that they lost, so they're not going into lower paying jobs.

It's just an example for people in crisis, I think that's a really positive thing that's happening out there, that we're able to show them that there are pathways to get to the next job as opposed to kind of putting your hands in the air and saying, what do I do now? Hopefully that addresses it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Preyra. On my list, I think next I have Ms. Raymond and then Mr. Zinck, and that will maybe move us to a second round. I have a couple of questions I would like to ask if the committee will indulge me, but maybe we'll get to that after. Ms. Raymond.

MS. MICHELE RAYMOND: Thank you both very much, I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to both of you at the same time because, as I'm sure you're aware, these are the two pieces of the puzzle for many people, it can be hard to put together. One of the interesting things that I saw in your demographic thing, I'm wondering if it is a snapshot in time or whether this is a general structural issue that seems that there's a lot of older people in the social assistance recipient population and also people with lower education.

Now, is this a transient function? Is this fact that a lot of people, as you have mentioned, actually have been participants in the raw resource economy or in sunset

[Page 25]

industries and so on? Is this something that will go away over time or is it more structural? Is it something that older workers become injured and disabled in one way or another and are more likely to need to turn to income assistance for support? I'm not sure which one of you would answer that.

MS. FERGUSON: I'll talk a little bit about the caseload, I guess. What we have been finding in the income assistance world is that - and particularly because the economy had been quite good and there were opportunities - that for the most part clients who came on our income assistance caseload who could transition to work, with some help from ESS - some more than others - and with some help from LWD, were able to transition off. So those people, until recent economic times, were able to move up.

The remaining people on the caseload really were people with some significant challenges. So when you look at that, 67 per cent are single people. Those are people with a number of challenges who we would have to work with, some of whom would never attach to the workforce at all. However, having said that, still in terms of quality of life and standard of living, obviously work to do in the department. So I think the IA caseload to a certain extent is a snapshot in time. However, for the last while we've really seen that a significant percentage of the caseload has been single people but as our demographic in the province gets older, I think we need to understand, too, that our caseload is going to go with the demographic as well and we need to plan for that.

I think as that piece moves along, it impacts all of us. The impact for us would be in terms of making sure that we have services and programs that meet the need of an older demographic.

MS. RAYMOND: And that less educated population as well is part of that, too. Do we expect that to follow with the older demographic only or will that sort of always stay, do we know?

MS. FERGUSON: Well it would be my hope that as Labour and Workforce Development does their work and we're able to talk more around the whole skills piece and what is required for that, that we will see, not just in the income assistance world but generally in the province - and Margaret can speak to this better than I can - that that number will decline. So if that number declines, that lower education piece, then that obviously will impact on the income assistance caseload as well.

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: I think it's a question of whether we're dealing with history or whether we're dealing with something else, right? I don't know that I can answer the question but in the historical context again, I think we've already talked to some extent about some of the contributing factors as to why people - you know we have a large population in Nova Scotia who are working but who don't have high school or post-secondary so really it's kind of history meets the future in some respects because we have

[Page 26]

that historical problem or historical fact that we haven't had a high completion of high school rate, let alone post-secondary, but what we're seeing coming out is what jobs of the future look like, which are increasingly going to require that.

I think there will be a group of people who, for as long as they are in the workplace, are going to continue to be challenged by that. That's where we have to do some work, around that, to try and help them.

I guess what the next tranche of people are going to look like, you know I guess I'm not in a position to say but I'm certainly hopeful that there's a lot higher rate of high school completion and some post-secondary happening out in the community. I think if you look at the success of the community college, then that gives you a great deal of hope that people are really sort of buying in to getting the education that they're going to need for the future.

MS. RAYMOND: Can I ask two quick questions?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Two quick.

MS. RAYMOND: Two quick questions, okay. Thank you, that does help me. We have to hope anyway, this is a transient rather than a structural thing.

One of the things that we hear about is the mismatching of jobs and so on. Certainly we're very well aware of the unemployment figures but keep hearing that there are jobs going begging and so on. I'm not quite sure what those jobs are, what those studies are. Where are the jobs that are going begging, geographically and otherwise, what end of the spectrum?

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: I don't think I can really speak to that today, I don't have that information. I mean I understand that we are expecting large numbers of retirements, for one, as well as just declining numbers of people coming into the labour market. Personally I guess I think we're in quite a transition phase and in some respects it is hard to predict the future around some of these things. I think we will have labour shortages but I also think that businesses are usually pretty adept at accommodation so there will be - we already see it, you do your own checkout at the grocery stores now, to some extent. So there's going to be some accommodation around that.

We're also in a period of time where some people out in the community simply don't believe that there are going to be labour shortages because they're having difficulty finding a job. So it's a really difficult time to be talking about this because there's a lot of inconsistencies out there. I think it's more a factor of where we are right now because the experts still say the demographics are still going to impact us and there will be issues.

I think the other thing I would say is that we need to do a lot more work around what we call labour market information. That is really to your question, I guess, it is really to try

[Page 27]

and focus us in on, at least trying statistically to determine where the job openings are going to happen and start to try and get information out to a whole lot of people and institutions so that they can line themselves up to that. A big challenge.

MS. RAYMOND: Not even really sure where those openings are now, I suppose.

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: You may be just asking the wrong person and I apologize for that. If we can find some information on that I'll certainly get it to you.

MS. RAYMOND: Okay, certainly with the skills development. The other thing, I guess, is just a last comment. I'm really pleased to hear you talk about sort of that menu of things that ESIA can look like because as you are probably well aware, there are many people who are members of the working poor at this point who have significant part-time jobs that are actually just right under the line that qualifies them for the various kinds of benefits of employment. So I don't know whether you're saying that they are attached to the workforce or not but the benefits that the government ends up supplying for them can make the difference between being considered to be fully a member or not, so I would applaud that as an approach. Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thanks, Ms. Raymond. Mr. Zinck.

MR. TREVOR ZINCK: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have?

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have five minutes.

MR. ZINCK: Five minutes, okay. I'm going to go on a bit of a rant here, please forgive me. Thank you for continuing the discussion . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: A time limited rant.

MR. ZINCK: Yes, okay. I'm going to make a bunch of comments, talk a little bit about the last four months of goings-on in my community, some of the work that I've been doing. It is all centred around the increase in the caseloads recently. I would like to think it is due to the fact that we've had a number of successes so I guess I'd like to begin by thanking the department that I work with, the Portland Street office in particular, the number of case supervisors, Barry Schmidl, Regional Director, the caseworkers.

I had a number of cases, I think I'm providing a number of them to the department. In and around December and January, I think it was quoted to me by one supervisor that they had over 200 new applicants come in between December and January. That's a shocking number. What shocked me even more was I was having people coming in my office who were losing $80,000 a year jobs, $60,000 a year jobs with National Gypsum, both males and females. That doesn't only happen in my office. Trying to find a place of transition for those

[Page 28]

folks, where they qualify, people about to lose their mortgages and getting them help was a real battle. We worked through things, we were able to help folks out.

In order to make this work, I think programs like Target 100, and I'll go back to Career Seek - we need to communicate these things to folks. It has been said a number of times over the last number of years, I know it was said, I think, at the very first meeting you came in to address us a couple of months back, by both Mr. Glavine and myself, it has to start from day one, when I come in and I sit down with intake, when that caseworker first gets assigned to me because if I don't know what is available, it's not going to work.

The bulk of what takes place in my office is I call it relationship building. When you come into my office I need to know everything and anything about you. So I'm kind of quasi-social worker, quasi-lawyer because if I'm going to fight and advocate for you, I've got to know everything, pull no punches.

It's never one thing, one issue that we try to solve, it's a number of things. It's about getting a person on a road, on a path of moving forward. That doesn't come just by little old me and my assistant, that comes from every system working. So transition and communication is key and it has to be focused and it has to be client-focused - I hate "client" - people-focused. People will buy into it but if they don't know it's available or aren't confident that at the next step they're going to get the same treatment, it's null and void. People will give up at this point.

I'll bring up one particular situation, not in my jurisdiction. I got a call from somebody to go see a gentleman, a single dad, frustrated about how much money he has. The first thing I said was, you don't want to be on this. He came here from Newfoundland and Labrador over a year ago, never met a caseworker, phone intake, got a cheque, got some funding. I came across him back in December and I went over his budget and I said, you can't live like this, do you have any education? Yes, aerospace industry. What's holding you back? Child care, I have to make sure that my six-year-old boy has everything in place for me to go out and have the successes. The other piece of it is that most of the times I am eating off his plate because I can't afford food.

You have to sit down and work with individuals and get to understand exactly what needs - and that's a single, able-bodied person, that's a person battling addiction, that's a person with a disability, physical, mental. You have to see, and it has to start with a caseworker.

This gentleman didn't get to see - well, next week he'll get to see an unemployment counsellor. That comes from - the caseworker is a wonderful person, does some great things but it took me making a call because he didn't know that this was eligible. So we went in, we met with her, she got to meet him, find out all about him, built that relationship. He walked out of there with hope. He's going to see an employment counsellor next week. It's

[Page 29]

about putting those steps in place because I've said it over the last four years, people are beaten down and it takes one person to crush their dreams when they're holding the purse strings and they will not have the strength to take that next step. But if they know we're all coordinating and working and having their best focus with our hearts, they're going to buy into it.

I'll go back to what I originally said, we have had, with as many cases - now, I shouldn't say this because Premier Dexter will probably have me - but I told them all yesterday, you're all getting raises, I'm going to put in to try to get you guys free trips because they're doing a tremendous amount of work. But it's troublesome because I don't want them to get frustrated. I'm seeing a lot of successes and it's because of the approach we've had and with particular caseworkers who have bought into that change.

If we don't communicate Target 100 the way it should be - do you know that you're eligible for this, that you have this opportunity? If you come into my office and you say you want to work, get in my car, we're going to see somebody, service now - just located on Windmill Road, construction industry. If I have a single, able-bodied person living on $300 a month, shelter $214 and a bus pass $70 - $584 a month - I'm telling them one thing, you don't want to be here. The encouragement to get off the system is, we will not provide you enough to get you to that next level so we want you to get frustrated and try to find a job. Get in my car, I'll take you to find a place, we'll put those pieces together, and people buy into it and it's wonderful.

[2:30 p.m.]

Caseworkers, if they have the opportunity to do that, and I know they get training and everything, but we just need to do it more. Programs are great and what's being communicated and what we're seeing but it has to be continuous. People need wraparound and when they see it all working, believe me, eventually they start taking the steps on their own because they believe that we're all doing the right thing to get them off the system.

Now in keeping with that, there's a number of folks who just aren't going to go that route. Most recently I had a 37-year-old male, 20 years in jail, homeless. What do I do with somebody like that? I've got another gentleman, 45 years old, capable of working, homeless, I have to take him to the Salvation Army, that's where I put him. Then I was told he couldn't stay there because he doesn't have an addiction. He's completely frustrated, but we worked something out, the department helped us out and he's taken care of but he still has that shelter allowance that he has to deal with. So the cohabitation thing and roommates, but I know right away I have to find him a job. We need to do it in the very, very beginning. If we do, I'm telling you, it won't eradicate it but we'll have a number of successes that we can continue to talk about.

[Page 30]

I'm happy to say that with the amount - and I have seen an increase. This has been the worst four months that I've seen in the last four years and some days are tough, I'll tell you, but when you make a difference, man, you can see it. What I don't like seeing is when I go into a department and I see Canada's Healthy Food Guide and I know what some folks are eating on, that's frustrating. So if I'm going to work and I'm participating in a program, I need to know that there are certain things available and it's nice to see that we're now starting to look at those pieces, because that's important.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think you've gone a bit beyond your five minutes.

MR. ZINCK: Anyway, thank you so much. Please pass my comments on to the department. I do every day - some wonderful folks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You're welcome. There wasn't a question in that, I think, and I'm not sure if either of you wish to say something in response, I want to leave that space. I ask for the indulgence to ask a question or two myself. I know both Ms. Regan and Mr. Glavine would like a second opportunity.

MS. REGAN: As long as we can take the Tory time, that's all right. (Laughter)

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, it looks like there's a space for that. I appreciate having an opportunity to ask a question.

I appreciate both the questions I've been hearing and the kinds of discussions that have been occurring here. I was particularly interested, Ms. Ferguson, in the bottom slide of Page 4 - I'm looking at the paper handout - of your notes which looks at the client profile for ESIA redesign. I've spent a great deal of my life during the last 30 years thinking about the relationships people have between each other and how that affects individual experience of life.

It is astounding that in the general population, 20 per cent of the population may live as single persons and among the ESIA caseloads, 67 per cent are single persons. I'm curious in part about what we do know about that group of people. To what extent do we know why they're single, how they're single, what gender they are, how ages break down? Is there a pretty good understanding of that?

MS. FERGUSON: I'll start and these guys can jump over the top of me if I - it's predominantly male, predominantly low education, predominantly people with a number of challenges: disabilities, and mental health and addiction issues. Again, I wish I had better actual amounts of statistics and that's part of what we're working on so we can do a better job of that, so we can make sure, like I said, the programs we have work. But that's predominantly, when we look at people in that part of the caseload, where they are. Brenda, I don't know if there's anything you want to add to that.

[Page 31]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that's helpful. I guess I'd just make the comment that it's difficult to think about people being single. Most people who may be identified as single have connections somewhere in the province. I don't know, I'm thinking of somebody I heard about recently in my own casework who lives in Dartmouth. I heard about him from his elderly parents who had a lot of anxiety about what might be happening with him.

MS. FERGUSON: Oftentimes we do hear from family members, but I would share your concern that there are significant people within that percentage who don't appear to have that kind of connection. Whether that's a result of life circumstances or having moved here from somewhere else, in terms of population that moves in and out, particularly in the HRM region, but we don't have definitive answers on that relationship piece.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I had the thought over the years that it can be quite distressing to have conflicts among those people we live with, but the only thing worse than that may be to not have people to have conflicts with. It strikes me that although a large number of people on the caseload may be single persons, that it would be very helpful to have caseworkers who understand the nature of human relationships. The opportunities to work more creatively in those circumstances, I think, can be maximized by that. Anyway, just a thought that sort of came out of my experience.

MS. FERGUSON: I can say, Mr. Chairman, as we go forward and look at what the system will look like, I think exactly to your point in terms of who delivers what and how we deliver it. For example, in our Gottingen Street office we actually have a unit that works with the people who are transient. Really, their whole role is to work with people currently residing in the sheltered community for exactly that reason, so they've developed an expertise, they've developed an understanding, they have connections with community groups, they know the kinds of resources.

Most importantly, they spend a lot of time with those clients to get to know them and to get to understand the reasons so that they can be sure that in terms of looking at the next steps, they're doing so in a way that's respectful and understanding how that person ended up in that particular situation. I think it's something that's just a small model of one piece that we're doing, but I think as we go forward we need to learn from that and look at that, so I think that's exactly to your point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, I appreciate that. A second question may be best directed to Ms. MacDonald. I regularly hear from people who regret the loss of vocational schools or the possibility for people who perhaps have less capacity to do academic work to find their way into opportunities that might better connect them to the workplace. I'm just wondering if you might reflect on that a bit as to how you're thinking about that particular issue at this point?

[Page 32]

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: We've seen that, we've heard people talk about that older model. What we've been doing over the last few years is actually, I think, opening up some of those opportunities. We're not going back to the vocational model, I guess, I wouldn't say that, but we're trying to open up the doors of P to Grade 12 to sort of the big world out there. Through Options and Opportunities, a program that we are partnered with in the P to Grade 12 system, we're giving children the opportunity to go out into workplaces and find out what it's like inside the workplace and then come back into the school.

I was talking to the executive director of the P to 12 system the other day and he said that's the most popular program they've ever had in the schools, so it's something that we need to build on. Things go out of my head, I'm sorry - there was another example that I wanted to speak to - but we recognize that not everybody is going to go strictly the academic route and that we have to open up some of those possibilities.

I remember what I was going to say. One of the other areas that I think is sort of underutilized for people is the Apprenticeship Program because that's still a pretty robust program. It actually hit labour mobility standards 50 years ago in terms of the Red Seal Program, people can go across the country using the qualifications they get under Red Seal, so it's a great program. I'm told that there's only about 20 per cent uptake in terms of employer support around it. Regardless of those issues associated with it, we've tried and we have programs that are directed both to children, to people getting into the Apprenticeship Program while still in high school, so that's a possibility because you can start to explore that and you can actually start to get some credit hours for that if you're still in school. The other is trying to emphasize that that's occupations that we really should make more accessible to women, so that work is being done on those two fronts.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. I'm not sure I quite understand what you mean by the 20 per cent uptake on . . .

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: What I meant by that was that apprenticeship programs require employer sponsorship and so really it's just an area that we need to work on. One of the ways to increase the apprenticeship program is to have more uptake on the employer side. Really, that's not a factor of opportunities for children in some respects, but I think it goes to people seeing the apprenticeship system as a place to go and work at the end of the day, which I think feeds into the P to 12 system.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. I won't take any more time, I appreciate what I got, but we have another five minutes. Probably we could use 10 to 15 minutes to complete some practical committee business that we need to do at the end of our time, but I think that would take us to the end. Ms. Regan, if you could reserve a little time for your colleague, that would be helpful.

[Page 33]

MS. REGAN: I'm just wondering, there have been a lot of stories about the linkages between dental health and heart health. I notice that the Community Coalition to End Poverty has called on the government to address dental care coverage for low-income Nova Scotians. Ontario has made some moves around this particular issue, so I'm wondering if things are going to be expanded over the next while because we are seeing linkages between dental care or lack of dental care and poor heart outcomes?

MS. FERGUSON: Obviously, in terms of ESIA redesign, we're looking at all of the benefits for the income assistance population. I can't speak to exactly whether or not we're looking at expansion of dental care beyond that, but I can tell you that we're looking at dental care. We talked earlier about the opportunities that we have within the Pharmacare Programs that we currently look at, so we will be looking at all of that. I'm afraid I can't answer that question exactly as to whether or not we'll do something like Ontario at this stage.

MS. REGAN: I'm just wondering if it's possible to - I'm not sure if this is the right place to do it - if we need to have a place to do motions, does that come later? (Interruption) Later, okay, all right. I will then defer to my colleague.

MR. GLAVINE: Just one final question and I know, Ms. Ferguson, you don't mind a challenge, from my experience of dealing with you professionally, so here we go. I wrote in my second column, after the election of June 9^th, and really based upon my sense of the province, but I know in my area of the Valley, or in the Valley generally, the poverty issue is taken very seriously by a large segment of the population - not just those who are affected by it. When you think of one of the great grassroots organizations that we've actually seen across the country, Feed My Lambs, a report that came regarding Wolfville just this Fall, 20 per cent of children coming to school from poverty-affected families. I said in my column that this will be one of the issues in which the NDP Government will be seen as either successful, mediocre or very unsuccessful in addressing one of the issues facing the province.

I'm wondering what kind of monitoring assessment tools are you going to implement in order to really say the Poverty Reduction Strategy did this, this and this? I think in the end game this will be again a judgment area on this government.

MS. FERGUSON: As I said earlier, I think the measurement tools that we put in place are extremely important. We started looking at and working on the measurement tools at the same time that we started working on the strategy. I think that's a best practice from the beginning.

There are a lot of different ways to measure poverty and there's a lot of controversy and complexities around what are appropriate measurement tools. That's a whole other discussion. What I can tell you - and I don't know what the exact tools will be at the end of the day, what I can tell you is that we've spent a significant amount of time talking about the fact that we need measurement tools.

[Page 34]

[2:45 p.m.]

As I said earlier, working with our colleagues, particularly in Newfoundland and Labrador, around looking at a lot of work that they've been doing, you may know that they've developed their own Newfoundland market basket measure after four or five years of work, culminating in really their own piece of work. So obviously the measures are extremely important and the strategy obviously will be measured against those. So we're very committed to having definitive measures in place that will be public that we will be held accountable for and that we will report on as part of the strategy.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Leo. Mr. Zinck asked for another minute so we will grant him that time.

MR. ZINCK: And further to my rant, let's continue to encourage caseworkers to pull out all stops, to get people doing and going to the places that they need to go. What will happen is there is a number of wonderful people inside this department and I've been fortunate enough to work with them. They need to see that any stripe of government is committed to this and, as successes come, they'll want to do more of it and that's a good thing. I think that's a good measurement tool.

MS. FERGUSON: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. That brings us, I guess, probably to the time that we have available, and I don't see anybody else pushing for a question. So I would like to thank both of you and all of you, in fact, for being here today to support this discussion to provide all the information that you have. I don't know if either of you - I'm saying that negatively - would either of you like to make some closing comments?

MS. MARGARET MACDONALD: Thank you very much for the opportunity to come.

MS. FERGUSON: And it has been nice to be able to come together, I think, to really provide that broader perspective so thank you for the chance.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for being here. You're certainly welcome to stay while we do the next part of our business or you're welcome to leave.

Okay, we do have just a bit more business to consider. I think if you look at the agenda sheet that is in front of you, we have - I think maybe what I want to do first, I'll maybe put this in a slightly different order than is on the agenda. Our next scheduled meeting is on Tuesday, April 6^th. I think what we know at this point is that the House will be sitting

[Page 35]

at that point. This committee has had different practices in the past with regard to sitting while the House is in session. At times it has sat, at other times it has waited for the House to rise. Of course, I guess what we have done when we've met is to meet in the morning, in that 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. spot, as opposed to the afternoon as we did today.

I guess I'm interested - probably my own preference would be that we continue meeting but I would like to, I guess, canvass the position of the members to see whether that's an acceptable way to go forward.

MR. RAMEY: I would certainly prefer to meet.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I see nods and noes.

MR. GLAVINE: Just for the record, in most of the six years that I have been on the committee, we've met through the legislative periods. I know they were short but we've always had a full agenda of groups that want to get in as witnesses to this committee. I believe that we should work right through until at least June.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, I'm hearing lots of agreement about that and I think that's a positive way to think about our work, so let's move forward with that understanding.

Then bringing us back up to I guess the top item under committee business, upcoming meetings and witnesses. You had also - I think you all received a sheet from Kim with some information about upcoming witnesses that we discussed last time. Am I correct about that, is that in front of you?

MS. KIM LANGILLE (Legislative Committee Clerk): No, you just have it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Oh, I'm sorry, I just have it. One of the things that we had agreed to do is to meet regarding enforcement of maintenance orders, the court orders. We had seen the Department of Justice as a possible source of witnesses. Kim has been able to arrange for Marian Tyson, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Justice, and Judy Crump, who is the Director of the Maintenance Enforcement Program, to be here on April 6^th for that purpose. So that is in place.

We had three other themes identified with witnesses suggested. I just want to, I guess, bring you back to what those were. One of them was a government review of the Residential Tenancies Act, which was on the list, and the suggested witness was Dean Johnston, the director of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. Children's Mental Health Services is also on the list. A suggested witness was Linda Smith, the Executive Director of Mental Health, Children's Services and Addiction with DOH.

[Page 36]

Finally, I guess the fourth item on our list was an update on services for people with disabilities. Again, suggested witnesses included Judith Ferguson who is with us today, George Savoury who is the Executive Director of Family and Community Supports with the Department of Community Services, Lorna MacPherson with DCS, Anne Macrae who is the Executive Director of the Disabled Persons Commission and Betty Mattson who, Mr. Glavine may know, is the CEO of the Kings Regional Rehabilitation Centre, as possible witnesses.

So apart from the enforcement of court orders, those are the other three areas of witnesses. We had not moved forward on actually scheduling those, we wanted to bring back the sort of general direction and then perhaps can begin, if those are acceptable, to begin kind of mapping out which dates people will be available to be present.

Are you comfortable, I guess, moving forward in that general direction, I guess is the question I would put to you? I'm seeing nods so I guess (Interruptions)

MR. PREYRA: You only have two Parties here today.

MR. GLAVINE: I don't see any problem there. Each one of those three probably represents all Parties.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think certainly in our last meeting we selected those themes through discussion and from the lists that had been previously submitted, so I think I'm comfortable that we've got good input on the actual suggestions. The names of the witnesses have been fleshed out a little bit through the work that Kim has done in the interim. I suppose it's possible that the actual witnesses may vary slightly from these based on availability and other - it could be expanded, I suppose, more than anything else. All right, we'll move forward with that as a plan.

Is there any other business to pursue?

MS. REGAN: Mr. Chairman, is this where I would make a motion?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm not totally sure, because this is a new experience for me. I would say, then, it must be because we're at the end of the meeting.

MS. REGAN: I'm wondering in view of the information we heard here today whether it would be possible to ask the Minister of Community Services to host a meeting with the Poverty Reduction Working Group and the Community Coalition to End Poverty, to make sure that they're getting good input into this whole process and then have her report back to them on how their suggestions have been incorporated into the strategy.

MR. CHAIRMAN: So do you have a motion, then, that that's summarized?

[Page 37]

MS. REGAN: Yes, that the committee write a letter to the Minister of Community Services, asking her to host a meeting with the Poverty Reduction Working Group and the Community Coalition to End Poverty, for their input.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm not quite sure of the process, but I'm assuming we need a seconder for a motion. Is there a seconder?

MR. GLAVINE: I'll second that, to get it on the table for discussion.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I saw Ms. Raymond's hand.

MS. RAYMOND: I would just wonder whether the Community Coalition has, in fact, requested a meeting with the minister themselves, rather than us doing that for them. Do you know? That would be my question before we tell the minister what to do.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Are there other comments?

MR. PREYRA: Yes, I have a similar comment and I also think that those two groups are already part of a consultative process within the department. We have to make sure that's not already happening.

MS. REGAN: My concern is that if it's not happening, it should be happening. Perhaps we could table it for our next meeting that if they have not had a chance to meet with the minister, then we'll proceed with the letter?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, maybe that's what we can do. We can move away from this meeting with the understanding that we will gather some information about what consultation process is actually happening and with whom, to see and bring that information back to the next meeting. Would that be an acceptable arrangement?

MS. REGAN: Yes, thank you.

MS. RAYMOND: To see if the coalition has, in fact, requested a meeting.

MR. GLAVINE: Yes, exactly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Fair enough. Is there any - yes.

MS. REGAN: Just to be clear, I'm not so concerned about whether they have requested a meeting, I'm concerned about whether they have had a chance to meet with the minister about this. They may have requested one and not had one - just different language there, so I would like . . .

[Page 38]

MS. RAYMOND: But if they haven't requested it, would we be requesting it for them?

MS. REGAN: Well, you know what, I would contact them and just see if they . . .

MS. RAYMOND: Yes, that's what I would think. We might want to do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Preyra.

MR. PREYRA: I think this is the least of our concerns right now, whether or not they've requested it. I'm not sure if it's the place of this committee to direct the minister to meet with particular groups, I would have to look into that as well, especially if there are processes that are already underway.

MS. REGAN: I would like to point out that we are not directing, we are requesting. Those are two very different things.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think what we've agreed to do is to sort of move away from here and review the situation and report back. All right, is there any other business?

I declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you everyone. (Interruptions)

Sorry, my apologies. I said "adjourned" too quickly . . .

[Portion of meeting not recorded]

MR. CHAIRMAN: . . . positive public policy, which is being circulated right now. I think you received that by e-mail, maybe yesterday - at least that's when I saw it. What was previously circulated was a piece of correspondence from Graeme Fraser, a coordinator with the Nova Scotia Association of Social Workers, and correspondence from Stella Lord, who was with us earlier today as an observer, from the Community Coalition to End Poverty in Nova Scotia.

I just wanted to make sure that those pieces of information were brought to your attention, I guess so you can read them, but they also may be sources of information and questions that would be helpful in the future.

Now I will again declare the meeting adjourned. Thank you.

[The committee adjourned at 2:57 p.m.]