HANSARD

NOVA SCOTIA HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY

COMMITTEE
ON
COMMUNITY SERVICES

Tuesday, October 4, 2011


Committee Room 1
Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

COMMUNITY SERVICES COMMITTEE

Mr. Jim Morton (Chairman)
Mr. Gary Ramey (Vice-Chairman)
Mr. Sid Prest
Mr. Gary Burrill
Mr. Brian Skabar
Hon. Karen Casey
Ms. Kelly Regan
Mr. Keith Bain
Mr. Eddie Orrell

[Mr. Gary Ramey was replaced by Ms. Becky Kent.]
[Hon. Karen Casey was replaced by Ms. Diana Whalen.]

In Attendance:

Ms. Kim Langille
Legislative Committee Clerk





WITNESSES

Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia

Ms. Nancy MacDonald,
Executive Director

Mr. Frank Capstick,
Chair, Board of Directors

Dr. Charmaine McPherson,
Board Member

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2011

STANDING COMMITTEE ON COMMUNITY SERVICES

1:00 P.M.

CHAIRMAN
Mr. Jim Morton


MR. CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon everyone. We have - and this is all my responsibility - we've gone over our time just a little bit but I think we should get started. I know that as always, we'll have a lot to do.

My name is Jim Morton, I'm the chairman of the Standing Committee on Community Services. In a moment we'll have our witnesses from the Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia introduce themselves. I think that before we do that, we should introduce ourselves on the committee. I would like to offer an official welcome - I think we did this the last time, Eddie - but Eddie Orrell is the newest formal member of our committee, so welcome to your chair.

I think I'll turn it over to Kim to introduce herself and we'll go around the room.

[The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I'm very pleased that we have witnesses today from the Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia. I've had some experience in the family services world myself in years past and I had frequent association with folks on the board and management at the Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia so I know something of the good work they have done and are doing.

I'm delighted that they are here to tell us about both what is working well and what they wish could work better. I guess at this point if you would introduce yourselves and then there's an opportunity for you to make your presentation, which will be followed by questions from us.

I might say, just to put the time in some context, we have a bit of committee business that we'll need to attend to, so probably at about 2:40 p.m. by that time I'll try to have you moving out the door. (Laughter) That will be my role. You need not worry about that, I'll look after the time.
[The witnesses introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, you may go ahead.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Good afternoon. We've very honoured to speak today about our agency and the important and necessary work we do for and on behalf of families in this province. I'm going to give you an agency overview, have a look at our unique service delivery model, the nature of our work and a quick glimpse at some of our funding sources. We'll just educate ourselves about the longstanding mission of Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia, we've been servicing families for over 41 years.

Who are we, as an agency? Structurally we are a strong, diverse board of directors of 13. We are a small, efficient management team of three, and a professional, passionate, front-line staff of 14.

We are located across eastern Nova Scotia. We use geographical office dispersement and government partnership for space. We have three sub-offices located in partnership space, including a probation office, a medical clinic and a mental health unit in Inverness, North Sydney and Wagmatcook. Our five main offices span from Glace Bay, including New Glasgow.

What do we do? Our agency is a critical component of the clinical services for the families of this province. We step into the gap between the government services and the private practitioners, both of which may be inaccessible to our most vulnerable families. I always like to say we are the only not-for-profit in the province that services a family member from the time they are six years old until they are 106 years old, either male or female, but hopefully not for that entire continuum.

We have two main service divisions within our agency: therapy and programming. Our clients are able to access our service for help dealing with various issues affecting their daily lives, either through the individual therapy or the programming. Examples of issues would include situational anxiety, reactions to grief and loss, and relationship difficulties.

Our clinical therapy fills the gap within the government mental health system for mental wellness for families. We step in to provide service when an individual does not have a diagnosis and it is still necessary for clinical intervention. We are a critical component of the child welfare system and the justice system to this province. Those are some of the presenting issues that families face when they are coming to us.

You can see on our Presenting Issues slide that over 50 per cent of our clients actually attend for family relationship difficulties, and that speaks to the type of issues that families are facing in this province. It could be anything from parent/adolescent conflict to couple difficulties to reactions to grief and loss that are impacting their ability to function. When the individual experiences a job loss the entire family is affected and may require support and coping strategies, either together as a family or individually.

Our programming is collaboratively facilitated with our government partners, so in any one of our programs there would be a Family Service therapist facilitating and there would also be a government partner facilitating. An example would be our Respectful Relationships Program. That is a domestic violence group that is run out of Antigonish, so there is a Family Service therapist as well as a retired probation officer helping to run that group. That group in particular was created in Antigonish, due to the closest proximity of another domestic violence program being a minimum of 40 minutes away in either direction. Our programs were created to meet the common needs of a particular population, such as the domestic violence group.

Another example is the programming that was created in our Cape Breton office to help build resiliency in youth. There was a certain need addressed, so we came together with our collaborating partners in government and created a program. That's something that makes us unique - we have the ability to create tailor-made programs to meet the diverse needs of our presenting families.

Our service delivery model - we're going to spend a little bit of time talking about this. The Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia is highly respected for our service delivery model - both provincially and nationally - by both government and community. We have the ability to offer a full-service clinical continuum, we are cross-sectoral in our community-based delivery model, and we have very high-quality standards for our workers and the service that we provide for families.

Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia is a community, non-governmental entry point to the full-service continuum of clinical services. Our therapy is used to intervene with families from a strength-based perspective. It's a type of model that we would like to see families across the province being able to access.

Continuing on the full-service continuum, Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia is able to advocate for families through family connectedness campaigns and, ironically enough, this week happens to be National Family Week. Five of our offices are partnering with various other not-for-profit and government agencies to offer our free family skates. It's also Mental Illness Awareness Week, which is ironic that we're here speaking to you.

Our combination of therapy and programming enables families to access the necessary services, either individually or groups, so it's a very respectful service delivery model. Once the families come to us at the intake, it's a collaborative assessment on which is needed, either individual or group - and that's done very respectfully, as a family group isn't necessarily the best-case scenario for every individual, depending on a multitude of issues.

With our high-quality standards, our agency is very good at keeping stats. You can have a look at the family interventions for 2010. Our agency opened over 1,400 cases last year and provided service to over 6,000 individuals. In some of our offices we have upwards to about an eight-week waiting list, due to the demand for service on us from families.

Of special note on this slide, Sydney and New Glasgow are our two busiest offices; they receive the most intakes per year. That's probably because of the geographical area that they cover.

Another very unique thing about our service delivery model is that we are a cross-sectoral and community-based delivery model. What this means is that it's a model that includes a holistic view of the individual or family. They can access our service using both provincial entry points such as the Department of Community Services, mental health, the Department of Justice, a family doctor or themselves. As well there is a federal access point which is, for example, through some of our First Nations work, when we're invited into those communities to do that work.

This whole idea is very critical so that as services change for a particular family, they have the ability to keep accessing our service. Unlike some other service delivery models where the individual has to be attached to that particular referral source - which is unlike us - we'll accept referrals from all of those government departments. So the family changes from being associated with Justice to being associated with mental health, to being associated with the Department of Community Services, or if they're associated with all of those, they can access us in the same manner. They can also continue to access us after those services are mandated to those families, which is a very positive method of service delivery for these individuals.

We've had the pleasure of our minister visiting our Sydney location and presenting our realignment strategy and hearing our concerns and really expressing the issues that we feel are facing families in this province, so we certainly appreciated the visit.

Because our therapists aren't tied to a particular system, they are very connected to community and they are able to advocate for these families in a way that is very unique to our agency.

Due to the large number of Department of Community Services families that we actually provide service to, we do require that our therapists gain expert knowledge of the child welfare system so that they can work collaboratively for the benefit of the family. We meet regularly with staff from Justice, the Department of Community Services and mental health, to make sure that we are further collaborating and coming together, as staff, to figure how we can help fill the gaps existing within the current systems, and how we can do things differently.

We are very aware of not creating overlaps so, for example, if a particular not-for-profit or a particular government department decides to start doing a particular program, anxiety-based or a grief and loss, we will then step back out of that programming or we will find a way to partner with that department but we are all about not creating overlap because there are so many gaps that exist.

We are very connected to community groups, both locally and provincially. We feel this is very important to not only contribute to our level of expertise clinically, but also to stay very informed provincially, on what are the needs, how can we provide service in a different way, who can we collaborate further with?

The Origin of Referrals slide - this gives kind of a snapshot of the agency about how our referrals come to us. You can see on this slide that direct referrals mean referrals that are coming directly, using our direct referral form from those various government departments or sources. Eleven per cent of our referrals are directly referred from the Department of Community Services, using our direct referral form. You'll notice that 60 per cent of our referrals are still coming from self. Ironically, 85 per cent of our clients have had an affiliation with the government system - either the Department of Community Services, Department of Health and Wellness or Department of Justice - within the past two years, but they are accessing our services on their own.

This is an example of our ability to collaborate. The Men's Health Centre functions out of our Antigonish office on Tune-Up Tuesdays. It is a pure example of collaboration. We have five service providers who come into our space, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesdays. We have a Family Service therapist, a family doctor, a public health educator, an addictions worker and a mental health worker. This is the first and only comprehensive, full-service centre for males 12 years and up in the province. It was opened by the Minister of Health three years ago. Men come in and the prominent issue they are presenting are issues around the relationship continuum.

We are also just recently starting to - we always run our domestic violence group on Tuesdays so that the men who are accessing that domestic violence group can also access the menu of services from the Men's Health Centre on the Tuesdays, so it gives a very comprehensive continuum of service for those individuals. The family doctor in particular plays a crucial role because we found that many of the men who are accessing our programming are orphan patients and do not have access to a family doctor, so the ability to have everybody in one space has been very helpful.

The last point on our service delivery model is the quality of standards that we have. Our service delivery includes accredited quality standards. We have a very high level of specialized, professional, clinically-qualified therapists, predominantly social workers. Our workers are supervised and evaluated. They are licensed and insured. They are very aware of their scope of practice and they adhere to codes of ethics from their regulatory bodies. All of these are very necessary to ensure that a high quality of service is actually delivered to the families, especially the most vulnerable families in the province.

We are linked with six other agencies in Atlantic Canada, under Family Service Atlantic, and we are a member of our national organization called Family Service Canada, which has upwards of 300 family service agencies as members. We are a registered not-for-profit, we have bylaws and an active, strategic plan. Most importantly, and this is one of the things we are most proud of, our clients have the opportunity to provide direct feedback on the services they have received through our outcome measures, which is something that is very unique. We pay a lot of attention to their feedback.

In terms of funding partners, we're funded by three main partners. DCS, the Department of Community Services, is our primary funder and we receive annual donations from five sources. Annual presentations are made to these critical funding partners each year to ensure continued commitment.

In terms of our budget service alignment, we have three main revenue streams. The first one, most importantly, is the Department of Community Services. They provide 75 per cent of our overall budget. For this amount of funding, we provide free service directly to families involved in the child welfare/income assistance system, as well as pre- and post-adoptive counselling to birth mothers in industrial Cape Breton, and furthermore to current and former youth in care. It's kind of the service for that 75 per cent of the budget.

The United Way in the most recent year funds us $35,000, and that's a combination between Pictou County and Cape Breton. This money is used to help subsidize therapy for families that cannot afford to pay. Within this catchment area - and this is the terminology - the working poor is who that United Way funding helps us subsidize.

You can see the gross income of our clients; 74 per cent of our clients fall under the poverty line for a family of four living in Nova Scotia. We are servicing families that cannot afford the high cost of private practitioners or lack private insurance coverage and may not have a mental health diagnosis - access one - making the structured mental health system completely inaccessible to them.

Our third stream is third-party billing. This stream provides families a community entry point that may have employment assistance plans, insurance or victim service allotments. This area of our service helps to subsidize the majority of the families that can only pay partial fees. Another section of this is, we also hold service contracts for delivery within various First Nations reserves or within the education system. The revenue from that also helps subsidize the rest of the families that haven't the ability to pay the whole fee.

The most important part is that the majority of families accessing our services present an inability to pay a fee at all. Our fees go from a quote of $15 if you're making $20,000, to $85 if you're making over $80,000; 85 per cent of our clients do not have the ability to pay a fee at all. No family is ever refused service based on an inability to pay. Just out of curiosity for you, our client fees are not even 2 per cent of our budget.

Grants is the last section. We receive both provincial and federal grants. They're used to providing specific, short-term projects to communities. Some examples, our annual - we're very fortunate to receive funding, through the mental health grant, to provide anger management programming. We've just recently been awarded one of five sites, federally, out of the Crime Prevention Centre in Ontario to begin a youth mentoring project in industrial Cape Breton.

So in conclusion, we feel we are a critical component of the child welfare/income assistance fabric of the province, providing clinical services to families and their members.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. I have kept a speakers list, so we've moved to that point in our meeting where there's an opportunity for committee members to ask questions and make comments.

The first person on my list is Ms. Regan.

MS. KELLY REGAN: Thank you very much, and sorry I wasn't here at the beginning. Right now all government departments are undergoing a cost-cutting exercise. I'm just wondering, how do you think the Department of Community Services can watch government spending while ensuring that the needs of clients are met?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I think my one word for that is continued partnership - partnership between the private and public partnerships such as our agency. We are able to provide a high quality of clinical services at a reduced rate than the private practitioners, for a whole number of reasons. So if government would continue to collaborate with agencies such as ours in the provision of clinical services, it would actually in the long-run be a cost-cutting measure.

MS. REGAN: Over a year ago the government committed to developing a mental health and addiction strategy, and recommendations were going to be brought to the government. Yesterday our Liberal Health Critic, Leo Glavine, called for it yet again. I'm wondering, since a large part of your work centres on mental health and addiction issues, was your organization consulted as part of this strategy?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, we participated in numerous community-level talks with that mental health strategy and we're actually a member of the provincial Mental Health Coalition.

MS. REGAN: Super. I'm wondering what the impact of the shutdown of NewPage is having on your organization. I was up there shortly after the announcement and people were in shock. One thing we've heard over and over again from various organizations, from the chamber of commerce to the union, was the impact this is having on families. Could you speak to that a bit?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, of course. We're actually quoted in the newspaper not too long ago about this very issue. There is a great anxiety in the community and we've actually seen between our Port Hawkesbury office and our Antigonish office - I just checked yesterday - we're now facing four intakes a day from families. I think it's the uncertainty, it's the idea of possible out-migration, and it's financial stress. Those are all exactly the issues that I'm talking about that you cannot attend the structured mental health system within the government for job loss. It's not an access-one diagnosis.

Those are all the things that are happening that are affecting families on a personal functioning issue. Those are the exact issues for why they need Family Service. So we are unable to cope right now with the amount of intakes coming in to both of those offices.

MS. REGAN: You said that there's an eight-week wait for services, or was that just a specific service?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No, I said in some of our offices there's an eight-week - in our Port Hawkesbury office it would probably be because that office is staffed two days a week, so it won't take very long for that wait list to increase.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Regan. Mr. Bain.

MR. KEITH BAIN: Thanks very much and thank you very much for that, Nancy. I have a number of questions for you and I know, Mr. Chairman, you want to make the rounds so if you want to cut me off, that's fine; I'm sure there will be a second round.

We were talking about the percentages, I guess, what percentage of your funding comes from Community Services and private donations. What was your budget for last year?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It's $1.1 million, around that.

MR. BAIN: You mentioned that the funding comes from a lot of different sources, including private donations. Have you noticed an increase or a decrease in the funding from the private sector?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: From the private sector?

MR. BAIN: From the private donations that you get, because of difficult times and everything else.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes. Ironically we've seen a decrease in some of our funding from the private sector that was annual funding, in particular the Diocese of Antigonish which needs no further explanation.

As we begin to highlight the necessity of the work that we're doing and how incredibly vulnerable the families are, we've actually seen an increase in the donations that are coming from just the public, which is very new for us.

MR. BAIN: Because of the financial times we're living in, Nova Scotians have a lot less disposable income. I'm sure this can cause an increase in the need for the service that you provide. Because of the financial circumstances that people face, do you see your clientele has increased because of that?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, and for the first time in the history of our agency, as you saw on my slide about income of families, there would have been a time within our agency that that slide would have only been $40,000 or below, of families accessing our service. We now have families accessing our service that are $80,000 wage-earners because the nature of the issues that they are facing are no less extreme than the issues of the families earning $20,000 or less and the need is there to help support them clinically through whatever it is that they are dealing with. So the nature of the families that are presenting to us has changed.

MR. BAIN: I noticed in your numbers that you showed us from the interventions for 2010, Victoria County is now listed - I guess I'm just wondering, is that included in the Sydney-North Sydney numbers or in the Inverness-Richmond numbers?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Sydney-North Sydney.

MR. BAIN: Also, when you talk percentages, I noticed as well that there was 18 per cent, I believe, referrals from Justice. They would be referred directly to you?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Directly.

MR. BAIN: Okay, do you receive any funding from the Department of Justice?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No. The partnership that we have with Justice is collaborative, in the sense, but it's not tied to a funding dollar.

MR. BAIN: I think, especially those of us who live in Cape Breton, realize and appreciate the tremendous work that Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia does, and I guess I have a couple of questions just on that. Who else provides that service?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: In the province?

MR. BAIN: Especially for the benefit of the area that you serve, who else provides the service? Is there anybody?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Not that is community-based. The other access, clinically in the province there is the structured mental health system, there are private practitioners and there is us. Some of the other not-for-profits, the men's treatment programs that the Department of Community Services funds, some of them are clinically-based as well. Other than that, no, it's a very large gap for families.

MR. BAIN: I guess the reason I asked that is if you went outside your organization, it is not going to be very cost-effective for the province to get the services that you are actually providing. Is that a true statement?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Is it a true statement that it's not cost-effective for the province to access the services that we're providing, is that what you said?

MR. BAIN: If you go outside yours, to a private or to another agency or . . .

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No, it's very cost-prohibitive for the province to be accessing services outside our agency.

MR. BAIN: I guess that's the point I was trying to get at, thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Bain. Mr. Skabar.

MR. BRIAN SKABAR: Thanks very much for the presentation. Is there a great deal of turnover in staff?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No.

MR. SKABAR: Is that uncommon in other agencies or are you one of the few that is able to sort of maintain a cadre of staff that are obviously committed and professional and stable?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I think that one of the interesting things about our agency is that we have workers who do stay with us for long periods of time. In comparison to some of the other government departments, the turnover, especially with social workers, can be quite high. We have workers, one particular lady who has been with us for over 41 years, one of our therapists.

The nature of the work ties - if you have a passion for working with families and you are clinically-based, particularly as a social worker, we are it for where you can actually find that passion met, in terms of your work.

MR. SKABAR: Congratulations on that; I'm sure it speaks to the management cadre as well. You mentioned that you do collaborative work with First Nation communities. Is that on a cost-recovery basis and is that like with the Mi'kmaq child and family services or with First Nations and Inuit Heath Branch?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Cost-recovery basis. We are contracted to go in and provide social work services. Sometimes it is the band that pays, sometimes it is through - well no, at this point in time our contracts are with the local bands.

MR. SKABAR: The individual bands.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes. We do have the ability - our workers are listed under NIHB so First Nation individuals can access our service through that funding source, through that FNIHB. Sometimes that mechanism is not necessarily what best suits the families so the band has found creative ways to be able to contract us to deliver the service in that community without the mechanisms of the referrals that are kind of heavy within FNIHB. That system is a little bit heavy to process through.

MR. SKABAR: But they have a specific budget for that purpose, even then it's too cumbersome to access?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: They do, it's very cumbersome, yes.

MR. SKABAR: How is the relationship with the private practitioners? Do they deem your organization to be in competition with them? We're getting a far better bang for our dollar with you guys, it's apparent, than with private practitioners. I realize there's a place for all, but particularly with reference to the working poor, especially, do the referrals go back and forth between private practitioners and you guys?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, they do, for sure. Private practitioners, we respect private practitioners, they also fulfill a gap in the province. It's not to say that we would ever be able to survive without them. I would like to see an improved continuum or accessibility where private practitioners can also be used as affiliates within family service, so that it's not about us not existing with them but it is us figuring out a way to help families navigate the services. To navigate the services, either private or with us or the mental health system is extremely difficult for families.

Typically, families are unaware about qualifications and who actually is best qualified to service them, using whatever particular issue it is that they are dealing with. So I would love to see a chance where pieces of the private practitioner world were brought into an affiliate structure within Family Service so that the families would be able to have a single access point for their care. Depending on if a private practitioner was specialized in play therapy, the family only had to know that they had to contact Family Service and then that work could be then be funnelled to the private practitioner who had that specialty.

MR. SKABAR: My gosh, that makes so much sense, why hasn't that happened?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: We're getting there.

MR. SKABAR: One last little thing. Tune-Up Tuesdays - I don't think we have one of those in Amherst but we used to have an Emotions Anonymous group. Again it was anonymous but people would, with the three or four prime movers that - actually they had about 23 or 24 people going on a regular basis - but three or four organizers had left or were not doing anything and they just sort of dissolved.

I have had a number of people kind of mention that. It's slightly different than Tune-Up Tuesdays but people - often men in particular - found that to be a mechanism of sharing things that they wouldn't ordinarily, in a non-threatening way. Is that part of Tune-Up Tuesdays?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, absolutely. Tune-Up Tuesdays was created because we kept seeing the men that were being mandated to access the domestic violence program and we kept seeing that their needs were so much greater than the delivery of a psycho-educational program that helped them learn to be better in their relationships. They had physical health needs, they had emotional health needs, they had mental health issues. We figured if we could create a full-service continuum place where these men could actually become whole again, that they would then be able to contribute meaningfully to their communities. There is a great gap in services for men in the province as well.

MR. SKABAR: And services for families.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, so that's why we created it. We just imbedded it, with no additional funding, we just imbedded it within the Family Service model.

MR. SKABAR: Is that the only Tune-Up Tuesday model?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes.

MR. SKABAR: It's a shame.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It is, we're working on that, too.

MR. SKABAR: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Skabar. Ms. Whalen.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: I wanted to ask you a couple of questions around your funding, if I could, and how it is received. I mean, there's such a broad range of services that you've outlined and I'm impressed by the number of communities that you are active in. I'm wondering if you are receiving any fee for service as you go, as you provide individual programs, or do you have to make a submission for the whole year, or could you explain to me how you are getting the money?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Are you meaning particularly from our Department of Community Services budget?

MS. WHALEN: That's your biggest block, yes.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, that's our biggest. It's a yearly allotment, a yearly grant.

MS. WHALEN: So a single block? Has it been rising each year a little bit, based on the demands in your communities?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No.

MS. WHALEN: Has there been any built-in cost of living even or something related to the CPI or anything like that?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No, we were very fortunate to receive a one-time funding increase to purchase some very necessary equipment and computers. That was about five years ago, but other than that the budget stays as is.

MS. WHALEN: How many years has it been frozen? It's essentially frozen, if I can use that word.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It has been at that point for a while, probably around nine, 10 years.

MS. WHALEN: It's a similar story that we hear from women's shelters and women's centres and a few other organizations that are also doing really great work.

So it comes in a block fund, it hasn't been increased year to year. Is there a mechanism where you could show that the usage - like you showed us large numbers of people that are accessing your services, you said your offices keep very good records, so if the usage is going up, for example, if there's an exceptional event like the NewPage closure, which is going to affect an entire community - I think 1,000 families directly, that's bound to impact your needs. So is there a mechanism for you to make that request that you need to have something to address that particular crisis?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, and I would say there definitely is a mechanism. I think that we have very good relationships with the Department of Community Services and the fact that the minister came last year to our Sydney office and heard we had some issues that we needed to discuss with her. So she's very - I feel like they are in tune and there is a mechanism to put in place. At this point we are waiting, along with everyone else, to see what's going to happen with the mill but we will - I have a letter drafted.

MS. WHALEN: It's not drafted, it's in your head?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It's in my bag.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, it's actually on paper.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Can I just add something to that? You asked about our budget. One of the things - and this is why we had asked the minister to come last year - one of the things we did internally was we realized we were no longer able to function with our structure the way we were with the money that we had. We had to become fiscally responsible.

We were unable, as a not-for-profit, to have a budget deficit. So we did numerous things internally to realign ourselves, to make sure that to the best of our ability we did not affect service delivery to families. For example, we went from a four-person management team to a three. We looked at decreasing certain costs; we increased our technology so we decreased our travel costs. We really tightened internally to make us as efficient as we could possibly be, so there is nothing else that can be trimmed at this point in time. We had a realignment committee on our board and we spent hours and hours fine-tuning as much as we could fine-tune it, so that's how we've coped.

MS. WHALEN: If I could, do I have time for one more, a little bit?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Absolutely.

MS. WHALEN: I wanted to ask a bit about the history because right away, when I saw all the things you are doing, I'm wondering why it's not available in metro, where I'm a member, or in other parts of the province that are left out of this continuum. As you said, you're the only one - I think one of your slides said you're the only not-for-profit organization equipped to provide that continuum of mental health services.

You said that one of your staff has been with you for over 40 years, which means that you've got a long history. I'm wondering if you could tell me how you spread to the communities you're in now and if there are any plans to take your organization or your model and replicate it, because we're looking at a mental health strategy coming down now. Clearly, community services available from a non-profit and in your own community is going to be an important component, so is there any talk of replicating it or expanding your services? That would be my simple question.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: There definitely is a plan or a wish from our perspective. We have been invited to community talks in other areas of the province, to begin discussing the idea of what it would look like if we could expand our services. It would need to be expanded based on collaboration from both government and community and it would need to look like an affiliate structure, so that if in areas of the province where there was already clinical-based not-for-profits and, as I mentioned, those three other domestic violence programs that are clinically accredited and follow the same best practice standards, we would never come into a community and replicate something that they were already doing, so it would take some affiliations but it's definitely possible.

There is the Family Services Association in Halifax, so there is actually one in metro. Their service delivery model is a little bit different than ours. They are a fee-for-service model and they're not quite as linked to community as our history has been. We are steeped in our history of being linked and tied crucially to community and we respond to the gaps in the community.

One of the things about being a member of Family Service Atlantic is each of us is able to, as much as we are under the same name, each of us functions a little bit differently so we are a different model than the Family Services Association, but it is definitely from where we are seeing a possibility for us to expand into the rest of the province, but it would need continued partnerships for sure.

MS. WHALEN: I can understand that. I'll stop now because I think you probably have others on your list, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, I do. I wonder if I could ask one question myself at this point because it seems to flow from Ms. Whalen's question. It would appear to me that there is less of a history of family service activity in Nova Scotia than perhaps in every other province of Canada. I don't know if any of you at the front of the room have any comment about why that might be? Is there any reflection on that?

MR. FRANK CAPSTICK: I think from an historical point of view in Nova Scotia, Family Service roots were sort of aligned with the Diocese of Antigonish. If you look at where we are today, it aligns very much with the boundaries for the diocese of the Catholic church vein, who originally were the funders of the service. As time went on it became more secular, the government recognized the value of the service to the point now where it is probably paying out 80 per cent of our budget. Why it hasn't developed across the province is because, I suppose, the private sector is there and they're able to provide services.

I think our strong sense of community in our region, it sort of made for a natural kind of relationship between family services. It's not the first and only example of collaboration and in order to survive we always say, how can our partners help? We have a history of being able to bring Health and Wellness, Justice and Community Services and the community in general and the private agencies together. From my perspective, that's sort of why it has flourished in our area.

As we look to the future we kind of feel that the best bang for the buck for government is the model that we work from. If we could do that in collaboration with the private sector on an affiliate basis, I think it would be good for our agency and I think it would be good for the communities, and government, of course, that want to reduce its cost. It could be a win-win-win for everybody. Charmaine, would you offer?

DR. CHARMAINE MCPHERSON: To build on what Frank just said in terms of the expansion element, offering more broadly, the other piece that would be added would be on the quality management side. Nancy spoke earlier of the potential for single-entry point. When you look at the quality management pieces that are built into Family Service programming - evaluation strategies, built within pretty tight structures, strategic planning, whatnot - it would give reassurance for those who are paying private practitioners some sense of what quality dimensions are there, which is a key liability that we all worried about in terms of when you're not using your own direct service and what you are actually purchasing. That is a major piece of what we have been planning around proposing.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Prest.

MR. SIDNEY PREST: In your organization, is there any focus on mainly helping families or individuals of families to restore their confidence and to get them back on track, rather than just direct financial help?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Absolutely. I would say the majority of our interventions with family is that complete safety net of emotions. It's to bring them together, to figure out how we can support each member of that family to help them feel whole again, to help their personal functioning. The financial piece of any therapy would be very small in terms of more of the emotional care that is provided to families. It's the entire focus of our agency.

MR. PREST: Would you have any idea what percentage of your budget would focus on that aspect of it?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: What percentage of our budget focuses on actual family engagement?

MR. PREST: Yes, to restore the faith and confidence so that they can help themselves a lot more and not just to give up?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I would say 100 per cent of our budget. Our whole mission and mandate is to do exactly what you just said.

MR. PREST: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: That takes us to Mr. Orrell.

MR. EDDIE ORRELL: You mentioned that you served over 6,000 people in 2010. Has that risen quite a bit over the 2008-09 years and approximately what percentage has that gone up each year?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: There are two pieces to that answer. We continue to see an increase in the families accessing our services and percentage-wise, I'm thinking back to stats maybe, I'm not sure it's 2009, but I'm thinking maybe 2005-06, we probably were closer to the 5,300 to 5,500 range. The other piece of that to recognize is that the level of need for each family is increasing, so the number of interviews and therapeutic involvement - the time that it takes is increasing. In particular, certain communities have greater need and more complex cases than others.

You would see, if I were to go back and look at those stats - sometimes the number of cases seems to be relatively moderate compared to the number of interview counts and those are in particular communities that are facing extremely difficult hardships. Those families require a great deal of care.

MR. ORRELL: You mentioned hardships. Is there any particular hardship that you find impacts a community more than others? Is there any way of maybe predicting that so that staff could be changed or funding for that area could be changed, if there's a specific incident? I'm just wondering, like with NewPage, obviously there is going to be more there. Is there anything else that would impact on that?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes, there has been. Out-migration in Cape Breton has had a huge negative impact on families. We have purposely been very creative with our staffing in terms of added contract positions and trying to keep up with the demand, particularly in the Glace Bay area; that's the community I was talking about in terms of the issues being very complex. The out-migration and that drive to Alberta, or wherever else families are going, is very difficult on families, very difficult. The second part to that is, we knew NewPage was coming and so at the management level, we're trying to figure out what we can do. Can we take staff from one office, can we put them somewhere else? We ethically will do what we need to do, but it's very difficult.

MR. ORRELL: So out-migration is the biggest thing. What are the majority of requests from the families that come from that? Is it like a Big Brother support request-type of deal or is it counselling?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It is to help parents; I can give you lots of examples. It's for helping couples in terms of their communication, their parenting strategies when the individual comes back into the family when they've been gone a month. It is helping kids grieve through the loss of a parent because they don't see them for three weeks at a time. It's helping the individual who is away with their own grief or loss because of the loss of their daily contact with the families.

MR. ORRELL: Just one last question. You say your agency offers workshops to businesses. Can you explain that process to me about what the workshop would involve and what businesses would be involved?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Sure. In order to help our funding line of our budget, we are able to hold EAP contracts both nationally and locally, employment assistance ones. Workplace seminars would be workplace mediation, it would be work/life balance, it would be effective communication. Those are just some of them and sometimes they are an hour at lunchtime and it's already part of their contract. Sometimes businesses will contract us outside if it's a complex workplace mediation issue, sometimes it will be contracted separately, but those are some examples.

MR. CHAIRMAN: If I could ask another question and there seems to be time. Many years ago, I worked in the formal mental health system as a social worker and I went from there to manage a family services agency in New Brunswick. I remember thinking one of my main responsibilities would be to develop linkages between the agency I was about to manage and the formal mental health system in the new community where I would be living. I think my fantasy about that work was that I would be involved in referring people to the formal mental health system that the agency I managed wasn't able to handle. (Laughter)

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: That's funny.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, it was. What I discovered very quickly was that the formal mental health system referred to us continuously, and the psychiatrists and other people that I interviewed to try to get the lay of the land were eager to redirect many of the clients that they were treating for the services that we offered in that context. I guess I'm curious about your relationship in eastern Nova Scotia with the formal mental health system and how that balance works.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: We have a very solid relationship and we try to work as closely as we can. We sit at joint management tables and we sit at community tables with mental health workers. Over the past three years - and directors of mental health could be sitting beside me and they would agree to this - the structured mental health system has redefined its entry points for families on who can actually access their care and they have become, out of necessity due to the demands on their services, very access-one oriented in terms of families needing a diagnosis in order to access their services.

We have absolutely seen an increase in referrals that are coming the other way, from mental health to us. Similar to your experience in New Brunswick, there was a time in our history where it would have been more of an even flow. We would be a community- entry point and we would be working with a family, and one of our social workers would diagnose and assess a serious mental health issue with an individual and make a referral to mental health. Now we're seeing less of us making the referrals and definitely more of the referrals coming from mental health to us because of the fact that they typically are not in the business of family work or couple work, which is our whole, entire agency. Somebody can be seen at psychiatry and we will actually be doing the couple work with that individual.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We could talk about that longer, but thank you.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Charmaine just wanted to add something.

DR. MCPHERSON: I think I could add to that. The other piece besides the referrals back and forth, the shifting in direction and how that has gone with the narrowing of criteria for intake into the formal mental health system, is where are people going to go? It's the early-intervention type of piece so when there's a marital breakdown, when anxiety is developing, before it's a full-fledged disorder where things become long term, expensive, catastrophic especially in terms of workplace and family dynamics, that's where Family Service is available for people and this is on the self-referral side as well.

Where I worked in the formal mental health system for many years, we traditionally back then would have seen people at early stages of mental health difficulties. When Nancy is talking about access-one diagnosis, that's when you have an established disorder, so where do you go before that? Early intervention and again, high on the prevention side which is really the mantra of health promotion, wellness, a well society, that's a key piece to bear in mind; besides the formal referral piece, it's that catching.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good point, thank you. Ms. Kent.

MS. BECKY KENT: Thank you all for coming in. It's abundantly clear certainly to everyone around the table how tremendously valuable your services are, speaking as a mother of three teenage boys and a rough time to raise kids as a divorced woman who has gone through that emotional upheaval, and in particular as an MLA who has a riding that has that out-migration - certainly the call of the West is prevalent - a trucking association industry, as well, that changes family dynamics, and certainly our military, so I'm familiar with the struggles and the challenges that families face. I'm glad to hear and see that you do deal with such an early age to a lifetime experience, so thank you very much for the work that you do.

My questions are a little bit more technical around where we're seeing your budget allocated; 75 per cent is coming from the Department of Community Services, I'm glad to see that. How much of your budget is associated to salaries?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Out of our $1.1 million overall, our salaries are $740,000.

MS. KENT: So around almost a similar number just shy of probably 75 per cent.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes.

MS. KENT: How many paid personnel would you have, and I guess if you could break it out to be a counsellor role versus an administrator role and then if there are any subsidiary staff members that would be under your umbrella? Can you give me a sense of where that lands in numbers? How many people are you paying?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: There are three managers for the whole agency and there are 14 front-line staff.

MS. KENT: What would be front-line staff?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Front-line staff are therapists and of those 14, four are clerical and all the rest are actual clinical social workers, psychologists, whatever.

MS. KENT: What would the average salaries be of the managers?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: The managers, that would be me. In the high $50,000s.

MS. KENT: And what about the counsellors?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: The counsellors are probably in the high $40,000s and the clerical are in the low to mid-$30,000s.

MS. KENT: Again, I'm just trying to get a sense - of course, considering there's a provincial revenue stream for you and I recognize your partners - your fees for services, your user fees. I wanted to understand a little bit better on how you charge a family, and I'm not debating the need within the family, but people's ability to access services - and I'm not questioning either the need within a geographical area versus the services you can potentially get here in the greater Halifax area. If you had a family that had an $80,000 annual income versus a $25,000 annual income with the same issues, what kinds of fees are they both paying?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: At intake, the very first thing that our clerical do is try to figure out if you have the ability to pay yourself, and if you don't have the ability to pay yourself, if you have a revenue stream that you can access like private insurance, EAP, whatever. If you are a $20,000 family and you have the ability to pay, your fee would be $15. If you are an $80,000 family earner, and that's a combined income, it's $85 an hour.

MS. KENT: Would that be comparable to a private practice amount?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It's definitely lower. Very, very few of our clients - and I actually don't know of any who are paying $85 right now, and you have to remember that none of our DCS clients are charged.

MS. KENT: Again, just to give me a little scope of the area you're covering based on the information in your slides and a little bit of research that we have, are you pretty much covering all of Cape Breton? Do you feel like you kind of have a handle on - you're into all areas of Cape Breton and then you have Pictou, Antigonish, New Glasgow. Are you covering that whole tip of the mainland?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Yes.

MS. KENT: Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Regan.

MS. KELLY REGAN: When we were talking earlier, someone asked you about whether you get any funding from the Department of Justice. Do you get any funding from the Department of Health and Wellness?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No.

MS. REGAN: So it all comes from Community Services, the 75 per cent, it's the lone department from which you get funding, is that correct?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: That's correct.

MS. REGAN: If you left us with one thing today, if there was one thing that you really wanted to underline for committee members today, what would that be?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I think it would be that due to the phenomenal issues that families are facing in the Province of Nova Scotia and the fact that Family Service is a champion of private and public partnerships, that we work together across government departments to find a way to make the service accessible to all.

MS. REGAN: I'm writing this down. (Laughter) I think I'll just leave that for the moment, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm going to go to Mr. Bain in a minute but I'm going to take the liberty of asking another question. (Laughter)

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: He's passionate about Family Service.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I'm delighted that you're here, that we're having this discussion. You pointed out early in your comments that Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia fills a gap somewhere between where government services are provided and where the private practice world may fit. I guess I want to come back to that notion that much of geographic Nova Scotia does not have access to what you do. Perhaps many people here in HRM don't either, although there is an agency - there are a lot of people who live here too.

Again, I'm interested in your reflection on what filling that gap means, or the reverse - what would happen if you weren't there to fill that gap? What's the impact on communities, on families, on the population, do you think?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: If Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia was to shut its doors tomorrow, it would have a huge impact on the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Wellness, the Department of Education and the Department of Community Services because those families that we're providing service for and with would be trying to access service somewhere else, so those government departments will always require clinical services. Without us, they will need to go to the private practitioner field in order to access those services.

Families would have a very difficult time coping with the issues they are facing. That's where some of the passion comes from with trying to make it accessible to the rest of the province. We are very aware of the fact that families in Annapolis, in Kings, in Cumberland, do not have access to the same level of care. From where we're sitting, it is a critical service to this province. Families cannot survive without the access, at times throughout their lives, for this clinical service.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I felt at some liberty to ask these questions because the last name on my speakers list - at the moment anyway - is Mr. Bain.

MR. BAIN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I thought you were going to ask some more questions there, sorry about that.

I have just one question and it might be a difficult question to answer or it may not be, and it's how you measure your outcomes. I guess you have to look at your successes, your weaknesses and everything else. Because the services you provide are so diverse, how do you measure your outcomes - successes and failures?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: We measure those outcomes, we spent a huge amount of time working with our national body to make sure that we are following accredited standards for our outcome measures. So within our particular agency we have a client satisfaction survey, which is either provided to the client at the end of their service with us or mailed through the mail. That is a confidential questionnaire that really gives the client or the family an opportunity to provide direct feedback about that particular therapist.

When that's mailed back, it's mailed back to me. The majority - and I could have easily provided the stats, or I have this on PowerPoint if anyone is interested - the majority of our feedback from clients is extremely positive. They were seen within a reasonable amount of time, they felt listened to, they felt that the therapist understood their needs and their concerns, and they felt that they had been able to work through whatever the issue was that they had presented with. If and when there is a not-so-positive one, which does happen, then I bring it to the immediate supervisor and we sit down with that worker and we pull that file and have a discussion around what happened with that particular file.

Our therapists actually, annually they have their client satisfaction surveys all compiled and during their annual performance evaluations they have a chance to sit and look at all their immediate feedback. They wait for that feedback because it is one job - it is very rare in therapy to actually have the opportunity to have feedback from your clients, in a way that the client has felt safe to do so. It is very meaningful for our therapists because continuing to learn and be educated from the families that they are dealing with is very important to our therapists so they really appreciate that.

The second piece to our outcome measures are pre- and post-outcome surveys. Every single client who comes through our door is given a pre, and a pre matches accreditation standards and it talks about their physical health and their emotional well-being and their emotional health. The client rates it themselves.

At the end of service with us that same client is given a post and the whole point, hoping, is that intervention with Family Service has improved your level of personal functioning. We have statistically shown with pre-intervention and the post-intervention, that there is a post-intervention improvement for a family's personal well-being.

MR. BAIN: Thanks.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: You're welcome.

MS. WHALEN: Have you got anybody else?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I don't. Would you like to ask a question, Ms. Whalen, I do not have anyone else on my list at this moment?

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much. I just had a couple of follow-up questions, if I could. We were talking a few minutes ago about the Family Services Association in Halifax. They are receiving their funding on a fee-service basis and yours is received on a block basis. I wonder if you've had discussions on why the difference.

In looking at their ability to respond to needs, do they have more flexibility? Have they been able to, I guess, reflect the growing needs through a bigger budget? Has it been a better model for them?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I'm not sure I can actually speak on behalf of the Family Services Association, to be honest with you, I'll try.

MS. WHALEN: It's different, it's interesting that there are two agencies with the same sort of mandate names that are funded differently.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I'm actually not sure about the history of that. This is all we've ever known in our area of the province. I certainly wouldn't want to speak on behalf of Valerie. I do know that the funding structure across Family Service Atlantic changes. Some of our affiliates are fee-for-service, some are core funding, depending on the department. I don't actually know the difference or why that is in existence. I'm not 100 per cent sure, I wouldn't want to fathom a guess on the impact of service delivery between those two models.

MS. WHALEN: All right, I understand. I just thought you might have looked at it carefully or closely.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: No, sorry.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, another question on funding and that is, when we hear from a lot of agencies that are serving people in stress and people in times of trouble, they find that often their core purpose is sometimes blurred or obscured because they are chasing funding dollars that become available through special - whatever the flavour is this year. I can't think of exact examples. Sometimes it is employment, everything is geared towards getting people back to work or finding employment training opportunities, so an agency that might be a women's centre suddenly becomes more of an employment centre because they are trying to just get the funding of dollars and even keep their core work going.

Are you subject to that as well? I know it's very time-consuming to look for those opportunities and then do proposals for them.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I would say that prior to our realignment strategy, in the history of our agency, we may have been subject to that. Part of our realignment strategy helped us focus in on ensuring that our core purpose was never put at risk, so we are very careful about what grants we apply for. The grants that we apply for only help us perform work or create programs or do projects that fit within our core purpose.

We also see very many not-for-profits around us mission-drift due to grants and we are no longer one of those.

MS. WHALEN: A good term. That's good to know and that's an interesting term for us to watch at the Legislature - mission drift. I know consultants have "scope creep" so we can all use different terms.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It causes huge problems in our sector.

MS. WHALEN: We've heard here at this committee, when I was a full member of the committee, this often was a problem of just how do you keep your staff? How do you supplement their income and keep going.

On the side of youth, I was looking under your programming chart that had the different individual programs that you've put on. You have a "Youth in Transition" - what is it that you have been transitioning?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: That was a pilot project that was in partnership with the Children's Aid Society in Cape Breton which the name, I'm not - anyway it's part of the Department of Community Services. They had indentified a particular need with their youth in care with the employability of their youth in care. They came to us and we partnered to create this youth in transition program so that youth in care would be given an opportunity to meet weekly to learn job skills, to job shadow, that's that program.

MS. WHALEN: That type of program. I just wondered who the youths were and in what circumstance - there's actually an organization here in HRM, the city has it and Becky would know about it - Youth Live, isn't it? - where the city themselves hire a lot of youth that are at risk and have them on their staff for six months and teach them a lot of the job skills that they need and even the discipline to come to work every day and things like that that fill in a lot of gaps. When they leave there they get other jobs, it sets them on the right path, so I thought that was interesting.

On the 50 per cent self-referral, I thought that was very interesting. I think what I see in my community and even in people I know more closely, people are often searching; they don't know where mental health services are. Even as MLAs, we are often a little bit stymied about where you go, where do you send people? Because of the waits, if we look here with children and send them to the IWK there can be long waits through what you call the formal mental health services. I'm wondering how people know about you, how you advertise. You've been around a long time, but how do they know to come to you?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: We do very little advertising. We are so integrated into the communities and our collaborative government partners are so aware and so trustworthy of our service that the referrals and the intakes and families are just directed to us. Because of our level of quality of care and because of our accredited standards, the government departments especially have no problems with referring. So you think about - and that's the brilliant part about our model is that a family doesn't have to be attached to a particular system to access us. They can be anywhere above that, any of those systems, as well as just from a community in order to access us.

MS. WHALEN: Again, it would go back to 50 per cent have found you without an agency referring them.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Without a direct referral from an agency. What I mean by that is that they could have come to the Department of Community Services and an intake was done and the intake worker has decided that it is not going to become an open file. But that family still needs some help and some assistance so they can make an informal referral, they can suggest that the family call us. We're so embedded in those government departments that families that don't fit within those government departments' mandates are just informed of our service.

Similarly, private practitioners do a huge amount of employment insurance, EAP work. EAP contracts are very time limited and they might be six to eight sessions. When the six to eight sessions are finished, private practitioners make the referral for those families to come to us for continued work.

MS. WHALEN: My final question would just be going back to what Dr. McPherson had mentioned about the quality assurance, and I wasn't sure I quite got the point so I wanted to go back to it. Does that mean that people can be so assured of the quality of your counsellors or does it go beyond that? Were you speaking about your own counsellors and their qualifications?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I was speaking about our own counsellors in particular. There has been a trend recently in the province that people are suggesting that they're offering counselling. There's a very big difference between supportive counselling that's provided to a family from someone who's unqualified and not insured and doesn't follow a code of ethics, compared to the work that we do. That's exactly what I'm talking about when I'm talking about quality standards.

MS. WHALEN: I think we've seen some of that at the Legislature because there has been talk about some sort of credentialing that would mean that by law you would have to have certain education and background in order to hang out that shingle, because otherwise people are vulnerable in going to see someone who doesn't really have the skills.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: And the families are just unaware.

MS. WHALEN: And again, I would go back to the fact that they're quite desperate to find somebody who can intervene with their children or help them with parenting or help them with relationships, because those things can be very undermining to the rest of their lives if they're not working right or if they don't have the skills.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: Absolutely.

DR. MCPHERSON: If I may clarify what I was speaking to earlier, our planning in terms of the possibilities for affiliate-type expansion provincially would be if there were affiliate partnerships with private practitioners, then our quality standards come into play. If you are an affiliate, single-entry point through Family Service and you are a private practitioner with affiliate status, then they would be subject to the quality standards that exist within the agency.

MS. WHALEN: That actually makes more sense when you are talking about your partners as well, I just wasn't sure of the context so I wanted to make sure that I understood it, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Whalen. I don't have anyone else on my speakers list at this point - am I reading that properly? - so I am going to ask one more question. Not much has been said about governance and I guess I'd be interested in having you talk a little bit about the role the board of directors plays in the life of Family Service of Eastern Nova Scotia and in what ways it is either important or troublesome or however you would like to talk about that.

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: It's crucial but I think I'll let the chairman of our board answer that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's probably wise.

MR. CAPSTICK: Thanks for that question. Yes, the governance model is, I would say we're fairly close to what is known as the Carver model. I don't think we're 100 per cent pure. Our first task is to hire an executive director who is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the agency. We do all the kinds of things necessary to make sure that we get a quality person at the head of our agency. I'm sure everybody in this room has had an opportunity to listen to Nancy this afternoon. We're very proud of her and I think she does exceptional work for us.

From there, we consist of 13 members. We have some who are on our board who we call designated members, in part because they provide some funding - Department of Community Services, Sisters of Charity - so we have three positions of that. The other 10 positions are located across the seven eastern counties that we are involved in, so we have people from New Glasgow, Antigonish, Inverness, Glace Bay, Sydney, New Waterford and so on. Our goal has been to try to have each of the communities represented. It's not always possible but it has always been our goal.

We, as a board, I guess what we see is to provide a strategic plan or to collaborate with the staff in developing a strategic plan that fits with our mission. We set the direction where we feel we should go as an agency. We are community members, we are very conscious of need and we want to support families and we want our staff and our agency to respond to those kinds of needs.

At times we get involved in the financial side, which maybe the Carver model wouldn't see that as necessarily a board's primary responsibility. We feel it's important to support Nancy and from time to time, we've not gone out and sold raffle tickets but we've done a few things to help bring in a little extra money for special projects, so we do a little bit of that.

I think basically we're also there to be somewhat of an evaluator and public relations and to deal with our funding partners on that level, again a little bit outside the Carver model. So like I say, we tend to say, Nancy, here's the ship, run it and here's the direction and here are the sails, you make it happen for us. We kind of keep a little bit of our hand on the rudder, if you know I mean. I would say that's primarily the role that our board plays.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I think we are at the end of our questions. Are there any final comments or summary comments that any or all of you would like to make?

MS. NANCY MACDONALD: I would just like to say thank you for the opportunity. We saw it as a great honour to come and any time we can talk about the agency, especially to well-informed people like yourselves; we greatly appreciate the opportunity. My phone number is there so I'm hoping to receive some calls.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for being here, it has been really informative. As somebody pointed out this is a passion of mine so I'm particularly delighted that you said yes, you would come to explain the work of your organization and the services that you've been providing for many years to the people of eastern Nova Scotia. I hope that the transcript that comes from this will help inform many other people who aren't in this room today. So thank you very much.

We'll take a short recess to allow our guests and witnesses to exit the room and then we need to reconvene to do some other committee business.

[2:25 p.m. The committee recessed.]

[2:34 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. I call the committee back to order. We've made good time but we have some other work to do. You'll see we have some issues to discuss under Committee Business. I think what I'm going to do is just start with the date for our next meeting.

We have - and this is kind of on our minds as we have other discussions - we have agreed to meet on November 1st and I think this has been confirmed with the group. We agreed to meet with the representatives from the Dartmouth Adult Services Centre, a decision we made some time ago at our preliminary meeting in September. Also, we've learned at this point, which we didn't know at the last meeting, the House will be in session when we meet in November.

What we've been doing over the last two years, plus - I guess two years, anyway - is meeting in the mornings. We've continued to meet while the House is in session, but we've met in the mornings because that was the time that was available to us.

You'll see on your agenda sheet that we're assuming we'll meet with the Dartmouth Adult Services Centre on November 1st in the morning. Is that an acceptable plan to go forward? I'm seeing nods, okay. I just wanted to clarify that.

Under Committee Business, in terms of updates, first of all there was an update related to Wendy Keen. We at some point had a request to - I keep forgetting the name of the group that Wendy - the men's intervention association of Nova Scotia, through their executive director, Wendy Keen, had requested an opportunity to meet with us. At that point Wendy made it clear that they were primarily interested in meeting because they had some issues that they wanted to negotiate with government, with different government departments, and if we were able to facilitate some connections with the ministers involved. Those meetings have been held, the issues have been resolved, and we had communication from Ms. Keen that they no longer had a need or an interest in meeting. That's just to put some closure on that item. I don't see any questions about that.

We also had a request at one point from MLA Zach Churchill to meet with the Gambling Awareness Foundation of Nova Scotia. I think that letter arrived to us at a moment when that organization had changed its name from one thing to another and none of us around the table were exactly sure what the group was. We went away with some interest in checking it out and discovered when we did that there was such an organization but it had been disbanded as part of the evolution of the Nova Scotia gaming strategy.

We have not been in touch with Mr. Churchill to let him know that we have explored that, but there is no such group at this point to meet with. I think a suggestion that might be in order - I'm sorry, yes. Ms. Regan.

MS. REGAN: Is this the organization that there was the story about on the front page of the Metro today that has folded in as part of the health strategy or something? Is this that same organization?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I haven't seen the front page of the Metro today.

MS. WHALEN: It sounds like it to me, I read it this morning.

MR. CHAIRMAN: My understanding is the functions of the Nova Scotia Gambling Awareness Foundation were to be absorbed or taken up by the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation and perhaps by the Addiction Services component of Health and Wellness. Ms. Kent.

MS. KENT: Perhaps a suggestion. I assume that Zach is no longer a member of the committee, is that correct? (Interruptions)

MR. CHAIRMAN: He was never a member of the committee.

MS. KENT: Okay, it was just a request through his members? That would be the normal routine for that conversation to flow, perhaps for the members of that caucus to take that information back to him and see if there's - and if there was a request, perhaps they could put it forward through their regular representation scheduling?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that's a good suggestion, Ms. Kent; I'm seeing some nods from the Liberal caucus. It does occur to me, too, that there continue to be ways to explore this issue in terms of those groups that will be responsible for the functions that the Gambling Awareness Foundation was handling. Is there anything further on that issue? I don't see any.

Also, under Correspondence, we have received a second letter from the Retail Council of Canada and you'll recall that we had an initial piece of correspondence from that organization after we interviewed witnesses from Mount Saint Vincent, who were talking about food and nutrition in Nova Scotia. I don't know where we take that, but again it occurs to me that it might be worthwhile to think about the Retail Council of Canada as a possible future witness around issues related to food security and how food is made available to people in Nova Scotia. I think I'll just leave that on the table for consideration as a possible future topic.

I guess the next item relates to the request we had from Dalhousie Legal Aid and Nova Scotia Legal Aid. First of all, we had a request that they meet with us and we had agreed to meet with them today. They subsequently were in touch after some meetings with the Department of Community Services, with the minister, to indicate that they were in discussions with the minister and the department and wished to postpone representation being present today, so as a consequence, we will not have another meeting today. They did ask if they could be rescheduled so we need to discuss that.

We received, which Kim has copies of, a letter - today or yesterday? Today - you have it in front of you now. We received a letter from the Department of Community Services asking for us to agree that, should we agree to meet again with Dalhousie Legal Aid and Nova Scotia Legal Aid, they would be seen as witnesses during that presentation. So I guess that's the item on our agenda now.

Initially the Legal Aid requests for postponement I guess are on the table and we need to look at whether we would be willing to meet with them again and when. Just to put this out here, our next convenient date to meet would be the first Tuesday in December, that's one possibility. Mr. Bain.

MR. BAIN: Mr. Chairman, I guess I have just a couple of questions. The first one, Dalhousie Legal Aid said they might want to meet with us again. Is that what it is, that they might want to meet with us at a later date?

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just have to go back to the actual letter. There are two Legal Aid letters. The letter from Dal Legal Aid reads:

"Further to my letter . . . I am writing to advise that we are currently involved in discussions with government regarding these matters and are requesting a postponement of our appearance and
presentation before the Standing Committee on Community Services, previously scheduled for October 4, 2011." They are looking for another opportunity to meet.

The other letter - these are not the same groups, just similar names. This is from Nova Scotia Legal Aid:

"I am writing to advise that some discussions are now underway . . . That being the case, it is our view it would be best for our scheduled appearance to be put over until this Committee meets in
November 2011. I would kindly ask that you bring this request to the attention of Committee members."

So that is what we're doing right now. Mr. Bain, we'll let you finish.

MR. BAIN: I guess I don't have any problem because we are scheduled to meet with Dal Legal Aid anyway. We are intending to meet with them because I think our meeting was initially planned for a full day, today, and it was, because of the presenters, four hours.

I guess what I have to wonder about is the request from the department to appear at the same time. You just informed us, Mr. Chairman, that the department has already met with Dal Legal Aid, to go over some of their concerns. Normally we allow two hours for a group to present and they would do their presenting and we, as a committee, would ask questions.

It looks like the intent of the letter from the department is that the questions can be asked to the department for clarification. I think what we're doing is actually having two sets of witnesses at the same time. My question is, are we being fair to Dalhousie Legal Aid?

MR. CHAIRMAN: My understanding is what we had agreed to do had we met today - and I see Ms. Kent and Ms. Regan on my agenda and Mr. Burrill. When we were planning to meet today, my understanding was that we had agreed that we would meet with - I can't remember if we had chosen an order exactly but we were planning to meet with Dal Legal Aid, for example, for a period of time and then with Nova Scotia Legal Aid for a period of time.

Just, I guess, as a point of information, we have had, at least during my time as chairman, at least one occasion when we've met with three sets of witnesses at different time periods in the two hours, so it is possible to think about how to schedule multiple witnesses in the same time period.

MR. BAIN: So the intent is not to include them in the same discussions going on now with Dalhousie Legal Aid; it will be a separate discussion with the department?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We haven't gotten there yet in terms of how that would be organized.

MR. BAIN: That's what I'm interpreting. Reading this letter, it seems like the department wants to answer the questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think it's for this committee to decide who we call as witnesses, so I will certainly honour that. Probably when people correspond with us they might communicate their intent in different ways, but I think it's for this committee to take . . .

MR. BAIN: I think I speak for our caucus when I say that if the department wants to appear separately, I don't see a real problem with it, but I don't think it should be one that's going to be a betwixt and between Legal Aid and the department, especially if they have already met with the department in the first place. That's the way I feel.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I think we'll just hear some opinions and try to reach some understanding of where to go. Ms. Kent.

MS. KENT: I'm just trying to get a sense, not being on the committee but understanding how committee scheduling happens. It appears to me that you have DASC already lined up, and I think in fairness to them I would suggest that it's reasonable that you not bump them; they're ready, they're prepared to come. I don't see anything here for December 6th, so it would be my suggestion that you move that request from Dalhousie Legal Aid and Nova Scotia Legal Aid and the department to December 6th, give them the whole meeting.

I would absolutely agree with Mr. Bain that when they come in, anytime you get into a scenario where one might ask a question or perhaps present in a light that is challengeable by either an MLA, a committee member, or by someone from that organization, or from a department, you don't want to put anyone in a situation where you're encouraging that kind of back and forth.

On other committees, it's not unheard of that two different perspectives - or two perspectives in this case, you've got two perspectives that at the end of the day they both want good-quality service in that field. To have all three of them in the same room gives an opportunity for everyone to be at the table, questions to be asked, voices and concerns to be heard by everyone, so I think that's a good venue, to have all three of them together. I would suggest that we move it to December 6th, to give them the whole session but separate presentations.

Should a member have a question, I think in fairness to the - I read that differently, but I'm looking at it from the perspective of how committees generally operate. That's looking for clarity, it would be an opportunity for a committee member maybe to hear something from Dalhousie Legal Aid or Nova Scotia Legal Aid and then if they have a question later, knowing they can ask a question later to the department, or vice versa, however it goes, they still can do that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms. Regan.

MS. REGAN: I'm just wondering, based on the desire of all of us who want to have the issue of the ESIA benefits - if you want to call them that - dealt with in a timely manner, my concern is if we put this off until December, people who are waiting for clarification around this issue are going to be waiting an awfully long time. If DASC is amenable to switching to December, I'm wondering if it would be better for us to hear sooner rather than later from the legal aid societies.

I do agree that they should not all appear at the same time. I do have concerns around the fact that we are now putting three organizations in a period of time that's normally reserved for one, because now we want to hear from three organizations - Dalhousie Legal Aid, Nova Scotia Legal Aid and the department - over the space of two hours, which I have some concerns about whether we will be giving short shrift to any of the organizations. So I have concerns about that, quite frankly.

I can certainly understand that we can't do what we had previously expected to do today which is to expand it to four hours, have our meeting that long, but I do think this is something that is of essence for people who have disabilities. I am concerned about waiting until December to hear from them and I am concerned about hearing from three organizations in two hours.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Just in terms of the timing of meetings, I think some other committees, of course, don't meet at all when the House is in session, so I think that time is a premium matter while the House is in session; it's something that we do need to keep in mind. Mr. Burrill, I think, at this point.

MR. GARY BURRILL: Well, on the practical matters, first Mr. Bain's point, I think it's important that this discussion be organized. When we say "together" we don't mean simultaneous, we mean in succession. I think this is the right way to approach it and I agree with that.

On the practical matter of the timing, I think that I would approach it the way - an organist I once knew said that hymns should be played at funeral services as fast as is decently possible. (Laughter) I think being expeditious is important but there may be other considerations.

On the substance matter, I have found in this important question of the special needs and the kind of policy debate that has been around it, that there has been an unhelpful lack of precision, from my point of view, enough so that it has not always been clear to me that the contending parties in the disagreement were actually talking about the same policy object. I think it is helpful to be able to do a quite close and precise side-by-side comparison of, in fact, very precise matters of regulatory change that are being contended over. I think having the parties here in a way that would allow us to do that would be helpful.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Ms. Kent.

MS. KENT: Just in keeping with the members on both sides of the table here today, if there was an agreement around the table on switching, on approaching DASC but having all three - an agreement that all three presenters would present on the same day, whether it be October 4th or December 6th, talk to DASC if DASC has no objections, then it would go on that date, if not December.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, depending on what is the most convenient way to arrange things.

Just as another - I think that's an interesting thought. It also has occurred to me that because some discussions are occurring and have not been concluded between government representatives and the two legal aid societies, they might need a little more time too. They are in discussion and trying to find some conclusion to their discussion, I'm assuming. Ms. Whalen.

MS. WHALEN: Yes, if I could - and I'm not a regular committee member, as Ms. Kent is not either - but I just wanted to say I thought this letter from the Department of Community Services is quite unprecedented, from any committee I've ever sat on. The Public Accounts Committee hears from things that are often contentious and I'm sure government would like to be there when we're talking to other people. They always follow those debates very closely, they have an opportunity to have input afterwards and we always have the opportunity to invite them. If we're left with questions hanging or can't resolve the differences of opinion that we're hearing, then you can always follow up with another meeting.

I thought it was really quite unprecedented that because this strikes close to home for them, they're saying they want to be there. I think their presence, if you wanted to get the story of how legal aid feel about their role representing their clients, I think it will be impacted by having Community Services at the same table. These are the people they need to negotiate with and if they're sitting together, I think it might mean that you won't get as frank a story from the witnesses.

I would be reluctant to see that happen. I think it would be better for the committee to decide if you still have questions afterwards and then allow the department to come in and resolve them.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your opinion. I think, again, the idea on the table, which seems to be evolving from where we perhaps began is that if we are to interview the three sets of witnesses, it would be in sequence, not simultaneously, so there would be different parties in the room providing perspectives on a similar theme, on the same theme I guess you would say.

MS. WHALEN: I think that would be preferable to do it that way, if you must have them at the same time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I do agree, if I could say this, that the letter is somewhat different than others that I've seen; there's not much ambiguity. Anyway, it's an assertive letter.

MS. WHALEN: It is, and that's unusual.

MR. CHAIRMAN: It's unusual. Ms. Regan is next, I think.

MS. REGAN: Well, actually in fact I would suggest that if the Department of Community Services would like to come and present, they should present first. I have some concerns about the way this was done, it is done because somebody else has indicated they want to come and be heard.

I wasn't a member of this committee for a brief period but I can't recall ever getting another letter like this from a government department where they are doing this in reaction to something else. I have concerns about that. If they would like to present to us, go ahead, present, but do it first.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Mr. Bain.

MR. BAIN: I guess I'll just go back to what I was saying before, Mr. Chairman. We discussed this at our last meeting as well, I think. We have always allowed two hours for each presenter - are we going to cut back on them just because we want to get three done in two hours? If that's the case I don't think that's being fair to anybody in this whole process.

Committee meetings are public meetings as well. There is nothing to stop anybody from the Department of Community Services from sitting there, taking notes of the presentations that are there. If they have concerns or feel there are things that need to be corrected, they could inform the committee of that or appear before the committee later.

I don't think we should short-change Dal Legal Aid or Nova Scotia Legal Aid or Community Services to try to get three of them in, in that two-hour span, if we stick with our policy of allowing two hours per presenter.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Kent and then Mr. Burrill.

MS. KENT: I'll pass for a minute because I wanted to comment on something about what Kelly had brought forward and I've lost it for a second, thinking about what Keith just said. It was relevant to that, that's all.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We'll give you a moment, Ms. Kent. Mr. Burrill.

MR. BURRILL: Just practically, to Mr. Bain's point, is it out of order for us to consider allowing an extra length of time in such a meeting, to make sure that this concern didn't happen?

MR. BAIN: The House is going in, we're going to be in the House shortly - that day, that afternoon we're in the House. We don't know what the House hours are, whether they are going to be 12:00 noon to 6:00 p.m. or they are going to be 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., we don't know, so at this point we can't make a determination.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Speaking to that point, we could meet a little earlier, to just prevent having such a need to get out of the room at a certain time.

MR. BURRILL: I just think it's a reasonable point and it's probably not unaccommodatable.

MR. BAIN: Again, in fairness to everybody, I think we have to allow six hours if we're going to have three presenters.

MR. CHAIRMAN: On this committee, since I've been chairing it - we'll come back to Mr. Burrill - we have on a number of occasions taken decisions to use our time in creative ways and certainly we have never assumed that a fair and reasonable amount of time is two hours per presenter.

I think that in deference to this topic, we are talking about three sets of witnesses, all of whom wish to address the same change in regulations. It's not - this is quite a specific and technical discussion. Mr. Burrill.

MR. BURRILL: I just meant to say that I thought Mr. Bain's concern that no one should be cramped by our agreeing to have these three together is a reasonable one and one way to deal with it might be to say that we would consider having a meeting of up to two and a half, two and three-quarters, three hours for example. That would be a way of accommodating that concern and I can't see that anything would be out of order about doing that, or we would consider our hours extendable by 45 minutes, or something of that sort.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Kent.

MS. KENT: I've thought of my point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well maybe you could add more.

MS. KENT: I'll wrap it up.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We are past 3:00 p.m. and maybe we'll give you your point and then we'll try to reach some conclusion.

MS. KENT: I'll just wrap it up very quickly. I think the comments about the unprecedent-setting regarding this letter are really irrelevant to the discussion about whether or not it's in the best interest of the committee, if it's in the interest of the public to have the people before this committee, whether it's a department or an outside agency, to be able to put their information forward. The request is there and in the interest again, I think I reference back to my colleague here that it is a complicated policy and to have in quick succession would be helpful to a committee, if I was on it regularly I know I would find that helpful.

I believe, on other committees I have sat on, and it's sort of in keeping with what Mr. Burrill has mentioned, rather than designate a time today, have a consensus around the table that knowing that three presenters are coming in, that at the end of the time elapsed there is a motion put on the floor that do you think another half an hour is relevant to this presenter, do we need another half an hour or 45 minutes, but do it at the time and make that decision together knowing that that is an option, I know we've done that on other committees, rather than specify a specific time now.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Whalen, one last comment.

MS. WHALEN: I'm sure you want to make your final decision on how you go forward. I do think the tone of the letter is unprecedented and unnecessary. As a committee of legislators, we should hold our heads up and determine who we want in front of our committees. This committee calls government people frequently and can call departments and can call private agencies, non-profits, a whole range of issues. I think that it's intrusive of the department to react like this, it's like a knee-jerk reaction from them and I think that should be noted.

All of us have a responsibility to hear the issues and to call those that we choose and I just think it has a little bit of a tone that's a bit demanding and I'm just taking exception on behalf of the members of the Legislature with that and I think the committee members can then decide how they would like to move forward.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Ms. Whalen. I think your point is duly noted. As I've said before, I think it is the responsibility of this committee to decide who it interviews and we will do that. (Interruption) I see your finger in the air, Ms. Regan, but I think we've had sufficient discussion on this matter and we need to reach some conclusion.

Trying to understand what I think I've heard over the course of the discussion is that, while there is a range of opinions, there would be a willingness to either at our November meeting or our December meeting to interview Dalhousie Legal Aid and the Department of Community Services in sequence, not jointly. If the Dartmouth Adult Services Centre would be prepared to adjust its own time and can conveniently do that to our December meeting, we would be prepared to entertain that and to use our November meeting to discuss the special needs regulations. Am I hearing that properly?

MR. BAIN: Just for clarification. Are we just talking Dalhousie Legal Aid or both?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We are talking Dalhousie Legal Aid, Nova Scotia Legal Aid and the Department of Community Services. First of all we'll determine whether Dartmouth Adult Services Centre is prepared to delay its appearance until December. If the answer to that is yes, we would offer our November time to Dalhousie Legal Aid, Nova Scotia Legal Aid and the Department of Community Services and would organize our agenda accordingly. I'm seeing nods and I'm seeing some people leave the room. (Interruption) I understand that, but I'm trying to get some consensus.

MR. BAIN: Could we sort of plan our time like 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. or something like that and leave it open? If we get out earlier, that's fine.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm hearing that as starting a bit earlier, is that an acceptable arrangement? I'm hearing enough yeses raised by Mr. Bain and I'm hearing affirmatives on the other side. Ms. Regan.

MS. REGAN: I would just like to have Community Services, if they are, in fact, going to present their - and which I do not agree with - but if they are going to go, they should go first. I think that putting them last is akin to the prosecution in a trial, they get to answer all the questions. They should know what the issues are and they should present them right off the bat.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Skabar.

MR. SKABAR: Well, I'm anxious to hear from Community Services, particularly after having heard from the legal aid presentations. To take up on your point, if they have met previous to this, which I understand that they have, and they haven't been able to come to any conclusions, I would be as anxious to have questions of Community Services, after having heard the Dal presentation or the legal aid presentations, for my own benefit, for clarifications on my own part.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I guess the other thing I would like to say, as the chairman, this is not - I think your analogy of defence and prosecution may have its place but this is not a court. We do call the people who present to us witnesses and we enter into a process of examination, but not so much into a process of evaluation. I think what we are trying to do is clarify, to help pull out information for the transcript, for public record, which helps both ourselves and those people who are interested in these issues to better understand what's at stake.

From my point of view, who goes first or next is not nearly as important as making sure that we ask good questions. (Interruption) Flip a coin. I think we've had enough discussion about this, I think we've heard opinions so as the chairman, in consultation with the clerk, I will try to work out an agenda that tries to respect our interest in getting a clear understanding of things.

Yes, one final word to Ms. Regan.

MS. REGAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. For that matter, if Community Services went second, if one of the legal aids went first and one of the legal aids went last, then they would have the chance to answer some of the issues. But you would also give them a chance to answer what Community Services says because, as near as I can tell, this is a very contentious issue and giving the department the final word when, in fact, they have all the power in this situation, I don't think is fair, quite frankly.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you for that. I think that point has been taken and made and heard.

I'm really concerned that we've gone 10 minutes past our time, but we also had on our agenda the selection of additional witnesses. There is a list attached to material that has been distributed to you. I think what I'm going to suggest - unless the clerk would wish to debate it - is to ask you to take away that list, to think about it in your various caucuses and to add to it, if you think that would be wise.

The purpose of this part of the discussion would be to think about the next set of witnesses that we might try to schedule, who those should be, where we should be trying to shed light in some new areas. This list is here for your information, as a starting point, but not to restrict you. Let's come back to this at a future meeting.

I think we have completed our business as best we can and I will thank you all for your participation.

The meeting is adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 3:09 p.m.]