HALIFAX, FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2016

           

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

 

11:00 A.M.

 

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Keith Irving

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning everyone, I'd like to call the Subcommittee on Supply to order. We are here to continue with questions concerning the Department of Community Services Estimates for the upcoming fiscal year.

 

I will permit us to move forward in a more informal way with respect to initially recognizing the questioner and the minister and then allow a flow of dialogue, but should things get heated or we start talking over each other, I will interject to keep decorum.

 

            I'd also request that we do our best at addressing the minister and member, as opposed to "you", which is parliamentary procedure, and try and keep things at a reasonable level of decorum here today.

 

I understand that the New Democratic Party caucus has 33 minutes remaining.

 

The honourable member for Dartmouth South.

 

            MS. MARIAN MANCINI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for that. I just wanted to indicate initially that yesterday when we were starting the questions we were provided with an additional document from the department, which was very much appreciated. That document I had an opportunity to look at a little more since the questioning yesterday and I'm sure it will be of some relief to note that I won't be going through the budget in quite the detailed manner that I was yesterday.

 

            I did have a question, though, and I think some of it was addressed yesterday after our session. I noted that the document was dated April 19^th but I believe the minister stated she had received it the night before - is that correct?

 

            HON. JOANNE BERNARD: The actual document is dated April 19^th to reflect that that was the day the budget was released. I didn't see this document because, quite frankly, it wasn't for my eyes, it was for Opposition members' eyes, I believe a day or two before estimates began with me yesterday.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Thank you for that answer, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask the minister then, who would be responsible for preparing the document?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It would be the finance group. It was done in the vein of trying to add clarification because we recognized that the estimates galley from last year to this year might be difficult to follow along. It took time to do this and it was done in a spirit of collaboration. We weren't required to do it, we wanted to give Opposition members a guide to help read estimates from year to year.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I want to direct my questions now through you, Mr. Chairman, they relate to the Disability Support Program, community-based programs. We know that the department is planning on moving 25 individuals into community home options. My question is, can you tell us where the beds will be located and in what regions?

 

            MS. BERNARD: There will be a team - after the budget is passed of course - that will be working with service providers and families throughout the province. There will be assessments on clients throughout the province on what their needs will be and what the capacity is in the community. So there is no designated area right now; that work has not begun. It will begin as soon as the budget is passed, but everything is based with the foundation of safety, choice, and to make sure that the capacity to meet the needs of each individual person is done in an appropriate way.

 

            MS. MANCINI: My question now is, will the individuals who are going to be moved to the community-based options going to come from the wait-list or will they come from facilities?

 

            MS. BERNARD: They will come from the large residential facilities in the spirit of the road map.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I see - and you've indicated before there is a moratorium on further admissions into the facilities?

 

            MS. BERNARD: There will be no long-term admissions; there will be short-term crisis emergency admissions.

 

            MS. MANCINI: My understanding is that in keeping with the road map that the short admission to a facility is in keeping with it being in an emergency situation to address urgent situations and considering it to be temporary.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes.

 

            MS. MANCINI: You've probably answered this, but what does the process entail for deciding who will go - I believe the fundamental first ground would be that the person would be in a facility, and then how do you assess it from there?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We, first and foremost, would work with the clients and assess what their needs are, and then there would be an assessment through professionals in our department - the care coordinators - on what their medical needs are, what their social needs would be, and then working with the care providers throughout the province.

 

            This will not be a political process. This will be a process based on the needs of people. We'll be doing that very quickly after the budget is passed and the professionals who work very closely every day with persons in the larger regional residential facilities will be assessing the needs very quickly and matching that with the capacity in the community.

 

            MS. MANCINI: The Nova Scotia Association of Community Living was not aware at the DCS committee meeting. The member for Timberlea-Prospect presented a motion to reinstate their funding, which of course was a big surprise to us at the other side of the table. Is there any reason why - and it was news to the Nova Scotia Association of Community Living; it came as a surprise. They had lost, I think, in the range of $24,000 from their funding - do you know why they weren't informed of this prior to the committee meeting?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Actually all organizations that received a funding cut last year were notified; every single one of them was notified before the budget of last year.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I'm sorry, Mr. Chairman, perhaps I didn't make my question clear. I guess what I'm asking is, why were they not aware there would be a motion put forward to reinstate the funding prior to the committee meeting?

 

            MS. BERNARD: As a former executive director, I wouldn't care if I knew my funding was being reinstated by anybody. They knew that the meeting was happening. They were well aware after the meeting that the call had been made for reinstatement. I wasn't at the committee meeting; I can't speak to it. Perhaps you can ask the member for Timberlea-Prospect.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Yes, I think they would have been satisfied. I can remember that day at the committee meeting not being quick enough on my feet to suggest an amendment to the motion to increase their funding - but anyway, it didn't get to that.

 

            I think the point that I was addressing there was that it was shocking to them, I believe, at that meeting. It would appear that there had been no prior discussion that took place with them so that they could plan their year. The minister would know well that when you have $24,000 cut from your budget, that's a situation, but when it comes back in, it certainly means you can be more creative in what you can do, and you have more capacity. That was the intent of my question there, that it would have been helpful, I would suggest, for them to have known.

 

            What I will ask the minister now is, is the minister aware of why the decision was made just in the last 12 months to reinstate the funding to NSCAL that was cut in the 2015-16 budget?

 

            MS. BERNARD: You'll have to forgive me, but I find it incredible that I have to answer questions about reinstating funding, but anyway I will, because this is part of that process. I can only speak to the day of the committee, perhaps that's democracy at work - a great non-profit organization made a fabulous case in front of government members, and perhaps that's why it unfolded like it did.

 

            Over the last year we've had discussions with various advocacy groups within Nova Scotia and learned that perhaps communication wasn't the best it could be in terms of what they actually did and what our funding paid for. So like any responsible government, you reassess, and that's exactly what happened. I'm pleased with that. There are others that we had the same conversations with.

 

            As a former executive director, that would be a problem that I would love to have in my organization, of trying to find reinstated money and what to do with it.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I'm sure that the minister would agree that Nova Scotians need to be kept informed and apprised of reasons why funding is cut or why it's reinstated, especially in this situation where it seemed to happen in an arbitrary fashion.

 

            I would like to move on and discuss long-term care. One of the road map pillars is reimagining facilities. Can you detail the total amount of money spent in 2015-16 on reimagining facilities and, if you could, provide a regional breakdown of that?

 

MS. BERNARD: I think the document you are referring to actually isn't part of the road map, it's part of a document that was developed by the department. The department is in ownership of many bricks and mortar buildings throughout the province. Let me make it clear that the priority is following the road map, which is moving people out of long-term residential care into the community. When those buildings are empty there will be opportunities in those communities to reimagine what can happen with those facilities. There has been no budgetary assignment to that, the priority is moving folks into the community. As we get further along in the transformation that will be part of the conversation, but at this point in time it is not the priority.

 

            MS. MANCINI: We have an aging population in Nova Scotia, as we all well know, and persons with disabilities are no exception. Would the minister be able to provide some information on the Disability Support Program as it relates to seniors?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We work very closely with the Disability Support Program and in some capacity with Housing Nova Scotia on trying to create programs and encourage aging in place, so there are programs available for that. We know there will be opportunities further in transformation concerning people aging who also live with disabilities because we know those folks have multiple challenges and different conditions that may not be for the demographic of just an aging population. It is part of the conversation of transformation, but there are programs available now.

 

There are many programs available now to help people age in place. There are different - I can think of one that's actually located now in Bridgetown, where it is supported housing for elderly people on one side and the other side is managed by the Department of Health and Wellness. I think as the population ages we'll see more partnerships between the department and the Department of Health and Wellness on how space and services like that will occur in the future.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I'm wondering if there is a specific amount of money designated just for services for seniors with disabilities - or is it just sort of still all part of one piece?

 

            MS. BERNARD: The eligibility for the program is not based on age, it's based on the disability. We do know that in our facilities we do have elderly folks who reside there, and we can get you that breakdown.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Thank you. That was my next question, I was going to ask for a breakdown of the individuals maybe who are above 55, above 65. I would appreciate that.

 

            Is there any sense of whether there will be beds or how many beds will be created to accommodate the aging population?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We don't have a number. We recognize that the demographic is aging. Those are conversations that will happen with families, with other departments. We do provide services, now, specific to persons with disability and they just happen to be elderly. Those conversations will all be ongoing with transformation.

 

            We realize that the folks who are in our facilities now are aging, and we'll have conversations of where they fit in terms of what their choice is for the road map of where they want to live.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I'm going to ask, it is a budget line, if the minister could walk me through the decision making around - as I understand the budget, there was $12 million not spent on income assistance payments last year, it wouldn't appear that the $12 million that was not spent, it was not spent on income assistance - so can you walk me through the decision making around not investing the total $12 million that was not spent on income assistance payments last year?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It was decided $7.5 million be reinvested in the IA program and $3.3 million into DSP. We have to understand that many DSP clients are also IA clients and we wanted to - that's part of supporting that program that, quite frankly, is increasing in urgency in the province.

 

            We also left a little - what was left of that - just as a buffer in case caseloads increased over the coming year. We realize that IA is an eligibility program - if you're eligible you get approved - and we wanted to make sure that the financial support was there to cover off that with the program.

 

            MS. MANCINI: The documents provided to us on Budget Day says that eligible income assistance recipients will receive a $20 increase to their benefits. Is the word "eligible" meaning something that we need to have explained - for example, is there eligibility criteria that needs to be met?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It means everyone who receives a personal allowance in their IA payment would receive the - perhaps eligible wasn't the correct word at that time.

 

            MS. MANCINI: That is what was in the document. So income assistance recipients will receive $20.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I would like to ask the minister a few questions about Career Seek. We submitted a FOIPOP to receive the number of income assistance recipients who had been approved to enter the Career Seek program and found out that it was underutilized. I think only seven people since 2013-14 have been approved to attend and are still actually receiving benefits. Can the minister explain why the program is so underutilized?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's a disappointment that it's underutilized. There are 50 seats available for Career Seek - I think the uptake for last year was one. I think it's a failure on our part to actively work and seek out eligible individuals throughout the province. I can guarantee you that will change in the coming year.

 

            When I went to university the Career Seek program did not exist, but I was well prepared for university; not everyone is. They need some assistance. I'm not in the position, nor would I ever put anybody in the position to go to university and set them up to fail because they simply weren't ready. In saying that, do I think that we could find 50 people within Nova Scotia who would be ready for post-secondary education? Absolutely.

 

We've asked staff to review all the files. We've asked them to talk to people who have some post-secondary, people who have completed high school, and people who have post-secondary options in their career plan. I've asked staff to be aggressive with that. I want to see that program full; it's as simple as that - having one in the last year and seven in the last three years is not acceptable.

 

            MS. MANCINI: The minister alluded to the fact that she did receive social assistance when attending university, but I'm assuming that was prior to Regulation No. 67, so it was a different regime at that time. Again, we were able to see a letter - I guess it's fairly public - in 2013 the Premier mandated DCS to repeal Regulation No. 67, which prohibits post-secondary students from receiving income assistance - is there any progress on that?

 

            MS. BERNARD: I think there was always miscommunication around Regulation No. 67. Actually, Regulation No. 67 enables people to go to university, so I would not be repealing that.

 

            MS. MANCINI: My understanding, and I'm sure you will correct me, of Regulation No. 67 - I understand university student union presidents, whatever, have been lobbying to have that particular regulation set aside. Does it not specifically prohibit a person from going - can you please clarify?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We were to clarify Regulation No. 67. If we haven't done that with university presidents, we will. But repealing it would actually take away the ability of people on income assistance to access post-secondary university education. If I can clarify it, if I can get the roles of communication out there better, absolutely we'll do that. But I will not be repealing Regulation No. 67 because it is the enabling piece of what allows people to apply for university and to be supported while they go.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I'm not going to belabour it now, but I'm assuming the department did an analysis of that to support the decision that you're putting forward today not to repeal the regulation. Would there be any information on that or reports that were prepared by your department to come to that conclusion?

 

            MS. BERNARD: I don't think there needed to be any reports; the regulation was very clear that that was the enabling piece that allowed income assistance recipients to go to university. I think perhaps our external stakeholders, the communication wasn't very clear to them, and it can be. I've had many media questions about this and certainly would be willing to do that again. Part of the transformation is really trying to enhance that regulation because at the end of the day I know, and we know as a department, that education - not just a job, but a career is a pathway out of income assistance reliance. We know that.

 

            I'm disappointed in the Career Seek program. I've made it very clear to my staff that I'm disappointed. I think we all share the need to improve it, to do some retraining, to be more aggressive with recruitment. We believe that there are perhaps people on income assistance who aren't aware of the Career Seek program. We'll be looking at enhancing that communication so that people are aware, and that will be the direction forward.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I would like to pursue this just a little bit further. It is my understanding that the regulation prohibits post-secondary students from receiving income assistance - is that not correct?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Regulation No. 67 actually supports recipients to continue to receive income assistance as they attend university or post-secondary education. The only requirement is really that it be over two years. It does support students going to university while on income assistance.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I have the regulation - it is a person attending a post-secondary education program of more than two years shall not receive income assistance unless the person is funded to attend by the Employability Assistance for Persons with Disabilities program, which is a program for adults with vocational handicaps, funded by Human Resources, be a participant in the Career Seek pilot project. That's what that appears to be.

 

            Just in terms of your own experience, and I asked the minister the question earlier, when she was attending university this regulation was not in existence and I'd ask the question further, if it had been it would have prohibited her from receiving income assistance after the two years, if you were in a four-year program.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I can tell you that when I was on income assistance in the 1990s in my fourth year at Mount Saint Vincent there was a change in income assistance where if you were on income assistance you were cut off completely and you had to borrow your living expenses for the year. If it wasn't for a scholarship that I had received from Acadia for my master's degree, I wouldn't have been able to complete that.

 

            Part of the conversation around Regulation No. 67 - and I don't want the repeal because the repeal would mean that nobody can go - I've asked for an enhancement. One of the sticking points for me was the two-year program, because most university programs are four years. Regulation 67 now stands that if the program is under two years you can receive all the supports. The conversation now is about enhancing that so that two years is out - I've asked staff to do that.

 

            We are supporting people who are in university right now and certainly in post-secondary education. So as it stands now, enhancing Regulation 67 and taking out that two year - I guess to me it's a barrier, but right now there are provisions for people who want to attend post-secondary. They will have income assistance, they will have child care, and they will have travel, all the things I was able to take advantage of in the 1990s.

 

            Right now we currently have about 400 students we are supporting annually in terms of post-secondary programs. The real crunch point I think for both of us, you and I, is the two-year limitation which I've directed staff to change in regulation. I wouldn't repeal Regulation No. 67, but I would change it.

 

            MS. MANCINI: So the minister is talking about an amendment to Regulation No. 67 - has there been some wording in place in relation to that?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We're costing it right now and it's certainly part of the transformation conversations we're having within the department.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That now concludes the one hour of questioning for the New Democratic Party caucus. We will now move to the Progressive Conservative caucus for one hour of questions.

 

The honourable member for Pictou Centre.

 

            HON. PAT DUNN: Last evening, minister, I had a chance to ask one question of a series of a few questions dealing with the same topic, and that was the longevity of large residential care facilities to smaller ones. I'm going to stay on that theme and pass it over to the member for Inverness after that.

 

            The question I mentioned last night was about the costing model, and I think you mentioned there's about $3.3 million set aside at that particular time, I think that was your answer so I'll leave that question to the side.

 

            My next question is, have capital, operational and staffing costs been developed for this proposed change?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We're working on a costing model now, in partnership with the service providers. At the end of the day services are still going to be provided, they're still going to need staff, it's just going to be under a different set of bricks and mortar. So staffing folks who have been doing a great job in large residential facilities eventually will be doing it in an outreach or working in these smaller hamlets of care. That's the model and it's an extraordinary way forward in terms of trying to determine that model because you have to assess the different needs, the unique needs of every individual and to make sure that from taking it from a larger residential facility where there is staff available that those same supports, those same services are available in the smaller community-based options that will be developed through the road map.

 

            MR. DUNN: What financial commitment has the government made to developing additional community-based options to facilitate the move from these larger living centres?

 

            MS. BERNARD: The first step the first year is commitment of the over $3 million to move 25 people from larger residential-based facilities into the community. I think this year will be a pivotal year in informing the department of what the costing will be in years going out.

 

            MR. DUNN: How does the minister propose to deal with these significant mortgages, and other fixed costs associated with these facilities, if admissions are discontinued?

 

            MS. BERNARD: I think what folks have to understand is that this is a long-term process and it's the right way forward, but it does come with a cost. These organizations, these large long-term residential facilities will be kept open over a significant period of time, even as their population within the residential care facilities decrease.

 

            Part of the conversation that we're having now is reimagining what these facilities would look like in the future. I think the possibilities are really exciting in partnering with the Department of Health and Wellness, looking at aging, looking at centres of excellence, looking at different ways of delivering care in the health care model and partnering with the clients with high medical needs, which we know we do have clients now.

 

            When you look over a decade of transformation, mortgages will still be paid, those facilities will still be there and there will need to be a concerted long-term plan into what the use of those facilities at the end of the day will be.

 

            MR. DUNN: When we're looking at this long-term plan, could we be looking as far down the road as maybe 10 years?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Easily.

 

            MR. DUNN: Taking these into account, what cost analysis has been done on per diem rates for small options homes with supports versus residential centres?

 

            MS. BERNARD: I think the way forward in terms of funding for these community-based organizations, for the first time ever we're actually including them in the conversations of what that funding will look like in terms of per diem or block funding. Those conversations are just starting now, as we start with moving our first 25 folks out, but it's really important to note that they are part of the conversation, which they haven't been before.

 

            As we reach a critical mass in the community, those costing modules will be well in place by then.

 

            MR. DUNN: The two facilities - Riverview and Sunset Community - have just undergone significant renovations. What does the government plan to do with these buildings if they are phased out as adult residential centres?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Well of course the renovations have been ongoing for years and certainly before any government had adopted the road map. They are great facilities; they will be used for some purpose. What purpose that is at this point in time, those conversations are just happening.

 

            I have said that the priority is moving folks from these large facilities into the community. The priority right now is not reimagining what they would look like. I want to make sure people are safe and taken care of first, before I worry about the bricks and mortar which they have come from. I want to make sure the bricks and mortar they are going to are actually meeting all their needs.

 

            There will be opportunities with conversations between us, the Department of Health and Wellness and TIR, of what these facilities can be transformed into because they are wonderful facilities.

 

            MR. DUNN: Thank you for that answer. This next question I believe you may have touched on a bit before - has there been any communication with residents of larger facilities and their families, to get their opinions on the care and lifestyle offered and whether they wish to move to another type of setting?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Absolutely, that's the forefront of transformation and certainly the forefront of the spirit of the road map, working with families, working with the individuals, and certainly stakeholders were involved in the creation of the road map. They're well aware of the direction of the province; they were part of that direction. They will continue to be part of that direction so there are working groups that are working very diligently on different aspects of transformation and they are completely involved.

 

            It's critical that at the end of the day the people who are most affected, which are the clients, they are the ones who decide the choice of where they want to be. At the end of the day we don't want to jeopardize or "stress out" - for lack of a better word - vulnerable people, we want them to know that the choice is theirs.

 

            MR. DUNN: What analysis has been, or will be done, regarding the impact of moving long-term residents from what they regard as home. I've had the opportunity to talk to a few family members, and I remember a couple of them saying they are little worried, they're not so sure if their family member will adjust. They feel that where they are now is home, a family environment, and they're worried.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I've had that same conversation with a woman, whom I consider a friend, about her 53-year old son. Those are conversations that we'll have with families. If people do not want to leave - and it's generally a demographic thing, it's generally families whose family members are of a certain age, generally older, they've been there longer term. What we know is that younger families and clients aren't choosing to go to these residential facilities, they don't want to go there. So we'll have those conversations.

 

            Of course at the end of the day it will be completely up to the individual and the family where their loved one will live.

 

            MR. DUNN: As this process unveils over the years and those larger residential areas have fewer and fewer beds, can you foresee maybe a financial problem from that with regard to retaining staff, paying the mortgage, et cetera?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Absolutely, it's a real balancing act. That's where we'll be working with service providers to figure out what the funding models will look like going forward, because while we're building up capacity in one and we're lessening capacity in another there are still financial needs in the latter, and we want to make sure they are met. It's going to be a very strenuous exercise between the department and service providers over the next decade.

 

            MR. DUNN: Thank you, minister. I have one more question before I pass it over to my colleague from Inverness - I see him coming in; he has good timing.

 

            There are residents in some of these homes who would not cope well in a small setting because of the physical or mental health supports they require - where does the minister see these people living once ARCs and RRCs are closed?

 

            MS. BERNARD: That's very difficult to answer; there is no one answer to that. At the end of the day it's about choice, so there will be options in other facilities that are under the health care system because we are talking long range here.

 

            We understand, and I certainly know this from talking to the family members, that for their loved ones who have been in these facilities for 20, 30, 40 years, moving out is not their choice. There will be options and ways forward for those families.

 

            What will not happen will be keeping open residential facilities for a small cohort of people in the way they are now. We're sticking to the road map - we've committed to it, it's the right way forward for the majority of people who want to move out of residential facilities. But, in saying that, we're not going to leave behind and take away choice from the people who don't want to go. We will work with them to ensure that whatever their housing and care option is, it is agreed to with the family.

 

            MR. DUNN: Thank you. I'm going to turn it over to my colleague for Inverness. Before I do that, minister, you have a nice weekend.

 

MS. BERNARD: You too. Thanks.

           

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Inverness, with 46 minutes remaining.

 

            MR. ALLAN MACMASTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, minister, and to the department - some familiar faces from our Public Accounts Committee meetings.

 

            Minister, I have some questions, more so just kind of on the structure of the department and just getting a feel for - I know, of course as you know, we all, as MLAs, work very closely with people in our own regions, advocating for people, and sometimes situations come up where people don't know all the services they can get.

 

I'd just like to try to get a handle on the structure of the department. Looking at the Budget Book - and I can appreciate there was a nice handout given showing the changes -

I'd like to ask some questions about roles, where people are in the department and maybe I'll start with Employment Nova Scotia. I believe it falls under the Department of Community Services. 

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's the Department of Labour and Advanced Education.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Okay. So when I see an item in the budget here like employment and training, field staff and employment support services, can you explain what those line items are?

 

            MS. BERNARD: About 10 per cent of the folks who are in receipt of income assistance receive financial support as well for employment support so that they would help with job coaching, resumé building, and travel to and from training. I know that there is a great program at Stock Transportation in Dartmouth where persons who want to train for - I think it is Class 4 - to drive a school bus, work very closely with the employment support workers of the Dartmouth office.

 

            So those would be the folks who are in those field offices and, to my understanding, they are province-wide. I've met with many of them over the last two years and they really work with individuals who see a way off income assistance and have very few barriers in terms of physical disabilities or other challenges and really want to be self-sustaining. So those individuals work very closely with those clients to really develop a path forward, assess what their needs are, assess what their literacy needs may be, whether or not they need resumé building, certainly refer out to the community in terms of job opportunities.

 

            It's about 100 staff throughout the province, but I think that there is a way to work - and we're in those conversations now - with LAE to really work more collaboratively with LAE on employment support as it relates to our clients.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: That's excellent. That's exactly what I was interested in - just because I've seen situations where I wasn't sure where to recommend somebody go and who to see.

 

            Then there would be people working at Income Assistance which would be more general because some of these people who are receiving employment support help may already be, of course, on income assistance.

 

            MS. BERNARD: They all are.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Just to break down - I know the staff breakdown under service deliveries, about 1,150. There are 100 in Employment Support - how many would be in Income Assistance?

 

            MS. BERNARD: There would be 282.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: So there is Employment Support, you have Income Assistance, then there would be housing support. I've seen that in here, and I think it's about 80 people working in Housing Nova Scotia.

 

            MS. BERNARD: It is 83.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Then there is something called Children Services, which I guess would be another - with a focus obviously on children. So if somebody is in receipt of income assistance, if they have children, is this for children?

 

            MS. BERNARD: No, that would be Child Welfare. Families who are involved with the child welfare system may or may not be on income assistance. We deal with child welfare whether or not you're on income assistance or whether or not you're a CEO of a company. Income level is not an indicator whatsoever where Child Welfare would intervene in cases of abuse and neglect. The field staff for that currently is about 573.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: That - and not in a good way or a bad way - that actually kind of surprises me that there's so many people working in that. I guess it gives an indication of the number of children out there who - I don't know what the correct term would be - may not necessarily be at risk but I suppose certainly some of them would be, so that's okay. So that's Children Services and that could be anything from more specialized help in terms of trying to find if they're having problems with getting education or if they have special needs or even something more serious, like neglect of a child.

 

            MS. BERNARD: They have a wide range of responsibility. I just want to clarify why there are so many workers - it's because no worker has more than 20 cases. That is an area in the province where we monitor the caseload very closely, because all of these cases have extraordinary circumstances and we need to have a manageable caseload for the social workers who work with these families. That's why the staffing is probably higher there.

 

            Social workers monitor and work with families. When children have to be taken into care, then they work with other staff within the department in terms of where those children are going to go, whether it be places of safety, whether it be any one of our care facilities, or whether it be into foster care. Our preference of course is foster care, but that's not always the case. They have a wide range of tools and services available to them to meet each individual need of the kids who come into our care.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: I see this in a couple of places, one of the line items under Service Delivery is also Disability Support Program. Then there's a Disability Support Program which is sort of a separate entry - perhaps the minister can provide some explanation. Under Service Delivery, that must be more the management and supervision and then you have the actual program - I'm seeing her nod "yes".

 

            MS. BERNARD: We've realigned them.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: So under Disability Support Program there's long-term care and community-based programs, can the minister provide some explanation on that - would that be long-term care for people who are clients of Community Services? I'll let the minister comment.

 

            MS. BERNARD: The small group that you see - I forget how much it was, 73 or 83 - those would be the specialists, the executive directors, the managers. We don't employ the people who work in the long-term residential facilities, they are employees of the service provider so they wouldn't be under our bailiwick of FTEs. We do provide a per diem, but the per diem isn't based on how many people work there, it's based on how many people are receiving care. So it would be hard for me to tell you exactly how many people work in every residential facility throughout Nova Scotia because they are not our employees. I would say it would be in the thousands.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: That's good because the funded staff I see is 23, so obviously you are using staff who are being paid for through per diems based on clients. I can think of some of the facilities in my own area for community-based programs. The Green Door, in Cheticamp, I think would be an example of something like that.

 

            Then the long-term care, which I think you indicated - I guess that could be one of those facilities that is really managed or run, at least on a day-to-day basis, by a third party organization.

 

            MS. BERNARD: They all are.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: They all are.

 

            MS. BERNARD: So in your area, an example would be Breton Ability, where they have a board of directors, their own management system, and the complement of staff that would be under their jurisdiction.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Yes, okay. That's good.

 

Under Child, Youth and Family Support Program, Maintenance of Children, would that be basically the children's services we had spoken about just previously?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It would be. It would be everything from foster care to the 18 facilities throughout Nova Scotia that provide places of safety in residential care. It would also encompass the Wood Street treatment facility and residential care there. It encompasses all of providing services and residential support for children who are taken into temporary and permanent care.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Okay. I'm starting to understand how everything is presented in the book here a little better now.

 

            Under Employment Support and Income Assistance, what I was looking at earlier, on Page 6.4, was the management, I think, more so in the field staff. What we're seeing here is actual income assistance payments.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Okay, that is clear. That looks good.

 

            The next question I would have is on Policy and Innovation, that division. I'd just like to get an idea of some of the things that they would be working on maybe over the past year and things that you would expect them to be working on over the course of the next year.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Actually recently we've had - this is an anecdotal thing - a redesign of our space at head office. We've had to move out and move in. We've had lease savings with that, but we've managed to get renovations through the landlord. So yesterday, I actually toured the third floor, where the Policy and Innovation staff are. I was with the executive director, who is a lovely, lovely young woman. As I was going through, I looked at her, completely plain-faced and serious, and I said, where's your office? She said, minister, I've been on the eighth floor with you for the last year. I felt so awful because I know that; I see her every day. I could see her face fall, and I just thought, oh, God, what have I done?

 

            I guess the best way to describe what happens in that shop is they are the engine of DCS. They are the lead on service delivery; they are the lead on policy and research; they are the lead on analysis. They also handle intergovernmental, so federal-provincial relations; they handle all the records; and they handle (Interruption)

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm not sure if that's going into Hansard, but I'll ask all insects to come to order.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Minister, I'll refresh you - you were talking about the Policy and Innovation Division and how they do work interprovincially and I think with the federal government and they keep all the records and that. Could you provide a little more explanation about some of the things they've been working on over the past year, some examples?

 

            MS. BERNARD: They are the lead on transformation, so they are the lead of working with coordinating the experts we have in-house with the design people who have been contracted to come and redesign. They work on all of the policy in terms of regulations, any Acts we are developing - for example, the new accessibility legislation. They were the lead on working with the experts in the department to amend the Children and Family Services Act. They do the research to inform policy decisions, they do the analysis of the service delivery we do, and they coordinate with my various federal counterparts - the federal conversations, the federal agreements that we would have federally and provincially.

 

We are FOIPOP'd an extraordinary amount because we are the holders of many records in terms of adoption, foster care, plus our own records. We are the keepers of these records. When I looked into the room and saw the boxes and boxes, and boxes and boxes, it truly is a machine. So if you were to think of policy and innovation in any way, if you had a car which was the department and you put the engine in, that shop would be the engine.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Excellent, okay. In the coming years is there anything - I mean things come up from time to time, you might not even know what they are yet because they haven't come up yet, but are there any projects that that division is going to be working on this coming year under this budget - could you provide maybe some examples and some background on that?

 

            MS. BERNARD: They are the lead on transformation, but we're also the lead on social services across the province. We also will be the host province for our federal Social Service Ministers meeting next year, so they will be working on that as well. Transformation and policy development really are two of the huge, time-consuming drivers that are within that shop.

 

            MR. MACMASTER: Thank you. I think I might turn it to my colleague here for Kings North.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings North, with approximately 25 minutes remaining in the allotted hour of time.

 

            MR. JOHN LOHR: Mr. Chairman, it is a pleasure to be here. I realize this is one of our more significant departments with almost a $1 billion budget. I will say up front I do recognize, having dealt with the minister a number of times, her own personal commitment to helping Nova Scotians.

 

            One of the issues that we've had in Kings County, and I think I've raised it before in the House - I raised it last year - is the caseload that individual staff are carrying, the numbers in Children and Family Services in particular. In some cases, it was said, I think it was up 40 cases per staff worker sometimes; that was the rumour. I know I asked the minister about that in the past. Can the minister tell me what has been done to alleviate the high caseloads - in fact, what are the caseloads for staff workers at Family and Children Services in the province and in Kings County?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Sure. I actually had brought those statistics to you, but you had left for vacation. I had brought them to the House for you. As stated before, the standard in Nova Scotia is 20. The information that you received came from a social worker outside of the department. She wouldn't have access to what caseworkers, child welfare workers, in Kings County were responsible for. The average is about 18 to 20; that's why we have 582 child welfare workers on the ground in Nova Scotia on any given day. They are monitored almost daily because that is an area where we will not let caseloads go above what the standard is for the province.

 

            MR. LOHR: I asked this, and I think I know what you're going to say, but I'm going to ask anyway. When calculating the caseload, is this the actual caseload per staff worker, or is it simple math of saying, for instance, we've got three or four senior management who don't actually have cases, but we're adding them into our calculations. So people who are not carrying cases might be added into the math on that - for instance, maybe you have 20 people in the department and only 15 of them are carrying cases. Are you using the actual number of caseworkers when you do that math or are you using that branch or department's total number of employees?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We only use the number of actual caseworkers who carry a case. Right now, as of today in Nova Scotia, the average child protection case is 16.5, and the average children in care case is 14.5 per worker.

 

            MR. LOHR: Another issue that has come up in talking with parents is the issue of trying to find some resolution with Children and Family Services without going to court. In other words, what is the mechanism? I can't imagine a parent who would possibly have a child taken away from them who wouldn't protest. I realize most of these end up in court, but is there a non-court mechanism for someone to protest a decision of Children and Family Services or any part of your department, and what does that mechanism look like if it's there?

 

            MS. BERNARD: The short answer is yes, there is significant involvement with our Child Welfare staff as soon as a case is opened with DCS to work with the families to help mitigate whatever the challenges are that they are facing. We have a pilot project happening now in Sydney that I announced last year that has a very comprehensive 24/7 caseload so that we don't get to a point of apprehension.

 

            I hate to tell you this, and it's a fact of life in this province, but there are parents who abandon their children every day in this province. They do so without a fight, and they do so for their own reasons. It is our responsibility to make sure that the priority is those children, they are taken care of. But there are instances where, for whatever reason, children are left in the care of my department.

 

            MR. LOHR: Yes, I'm well aware that that unfortunately is the case. The other reality is there are parents who, because of addictions reasons or poverty reasons, or maybe lack of education or lack of a good role model in their lives, find themselves in a situation where their child has been apprehended and is being taken away by Children and Family Services, and yet they want to keep that child; they love that child. Even people who have huge problems in their lives still love their children.

 

            At that point, what I understand, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, if a parent finds themselves in a situation where their child has been apprehended or taken in by Children and Family Services and they would like to protest that, they either go to court or the protest mechanism, which I understand is in place in your department, which you can clarify if I'm wrong, but what I've heard is if you have an issue with the decision of your caseworker, you can appeal to your caseworker's supervisor. If you don't like that result you can appeal to the supervisor of the supervisor and eventually go right up the ladder to you, I believe.

 

            That is what I understand right now is the internal appeal process that doesn't involve lawyers or judges - can you tell me if that's correct?

 

            MS. BERNARD: No, cases don't get escalated to the minister; I don't make decisions on individual cases. I think what's really important to know is that when children unfortunately come into the care of the province, the work is not just beginning. There has been work that has been done before that with the family and there will be work that will be continued after a child comes into care.

 

            I think you can never lose the priority, which is the safety of children. The department works with families every single day in the community, whether it be in community-based programs or in addictions services to help alleviate, to help mitigate, and to help eliminate the challenges that parents have in terms of custody of their children.

 

            We know that the best case scenario for children is in a safe home with their parents. We know that's not always possible, but the point of child welfare is to make sure that we try to get back to that place where they come back to a safe home where parents are healthy and engaged with their children.

 

            We work with families every day and I can't imagine as a mother myself having to justify my existence as a parent, but at the end of the day I've worked with many women over the years who just need the help to be the best parent that they can be. The majority of mothers and the majority of fathers want that as well. There are some that don't. I've seen that, I get it, but we work with families every step of the way, because at the end of the day the safety of children and, hopefully, the returning of children to their families is the outcome that we have.

 

            I've been very, very vocal in this province as a minister before that we do a great job of separating families, but we haven't always done a great job of keeping them together. That's why I wanted to make investments in community-based parenting programs; that's why I wanted to make investment in the new pilot program in Sydney and in Halifax because I want to get to a place where we can support families better before they get to a place of crisis, because once you get to a place of crisis that opens up doors that you don't want opened as a parent and certainly as a child who is put at risk.

 

            So expanding programs, changing the Act were very important to me and, quite frankly, the reason why I put my name on a ballot. I've seen how child welfare doesn't always - the safety of children always must be paramount, and it is, but providing support sooner really should be the focus for any government.

 

            MR. LOHR: Yes, and the gist of your - keeping families together and providing better supports, no question. I do want to keep going on the question of the appeal process because I think that when things go to court, sometimes other effects happen. Sometimes the extended families get involved. Maybe that's a good thing, but this idea that if a caseworker - and things aren't always as they seem, caseworkers are human too and I realize they are under, as you said, I can imagine, I'm sure it would be a daunting task for any one of us to even deal with two or three cases at a time, let alone 15 or 20.

 

            Going back to the appeal process, if the internal appeal process within your department, you said it doesn't go right up to the level of the minister, but otherwise at some level I was essentially correct that the appeal process if you don't agree with the caseworker's decision in your case, you appeal to that caseworker's immediate supervisor. And if you don't like that, you keep going up the line to some level approximately, but not the minister - is that essentially correct?

 

            MS. BERNARD: In terms of the appeal process, it generally doesn't go beyond the caseworker's supervisor, it stays within that shop. Once it gets to a third party adjudicator - the courts - nobody from our department can intervene. I couldn't intervene, the deputy couldn't intervene, and that's why we have a third party adjudicator because the system is not perfect, we know that and that's why we have legislation, because at the end of the day it's about the protection of children.

 

            I understand that if you go through an appeal process and you don't have the outcome you like, working with families so that you don't get to that point or you don't feel that the wrong decision has been made is something that caseworkers and social workers do on the ground every day. Generally, from my experience outside of the department, I haven't seen appeals that have worked and there were reasons why they didn't work, because what needed to be done in the home hadn't been done yet. That's where we, as a department, need to provide the support so those things can be done.

 

            MR. LOHR: Yes, but I would like to suggest that having the appeal process, if you were in the unfortunate position of having had a child taken away and your appeal process was to go to that caseworker's immediate supervisor, there are all kinds of reasons why, in my mind, I can see that might be kind of an inadequate appeal process - for one, the immediate supervisor might have already decided, in conjunction with the caseworker and likely did, on how it was going to be dealt with, so you are appealing to someone who sees it already from exactly one way.

            Another reason is that sometimes between caseworkers and supervisors, maybe on a Monday morning the supervisor has given a directive to the staff that you need to be more tough on this certain situation and then in the middle of the week it arises and you've already, as a supervisor, given a certain line of instruction to a caseworker and maybe that will interfere. So there are a whole lot of elements in that relationship between a caseworker and an immediate supervisor that just makes me feel that it isn't a fresh look at likely what's happening.

 

            I guess I would suggest, and I wonder if the minister would ever consider this, of trying to implement a slightly more - robust is what I would call it - a little bit more robust appeal process for people who are dealing with Community Services, Children and Family Services and are likely headed to court but maybe would like to just have another set of eyes look on it, and even have an appeal process of where a couple of retired Community Services staff workers looked at it would be adequate, but just not the immediate supervisors.

 

            I'm not saying that these people don't have the best interests of the family and children at heart, but I just see the situation where the decision was already made and you are just asking someone else, are you going to change your mind, instead of having a fresh set of eyes look at that. I think it has the potential to save maybe one or two - and I really don't know - but even if it was a couple of situations where it got looked at differently and didn't end up in court, I think that would be positive.

 

            I think you know, Madam Minister, and I know that not every decision that Children and Family Services makes about where a child is going to be placed and then it goes to court, Children and Family Services doesn't always win every one of those decisions. I mean sometimes what the family wanted is done, not Children and Family Services. So if those court costs could be avoided through an appeal process that had another sort of set of eyes, a new set of eyes that wasn't already invested in what was going on, to look at it, even someone who is retired from your staff, I think that would be positive. I just wonder, would you comment on that?

 

            MS. BERNARD: I would never have a third party outside of Child Welfare, unless they were in the court system, look at any appeals of any cases. The social workers who are trained on the ground to make decisions about support and taking children into care do so from an informed way.

 

            Can the appeal system be robust? We can certainly do an environmental scan and see if that's best practices across the country and make sure we're in line. I know for a fact that's looked at routinely, regularly. I can tell you, with all due respect, that if it's the case that you and I have talked about over the last year, that very few child welfare cases get escalated to me through a briefing note. The one that you and I talked about has, so I stand 100 per cent behind the decisions that have been made, not only by the worker's front line but the court system in this case.

 

            MR. LOHR: Actually I'm not talking about that case, I have another one and I don't know if I should . . .

 

            MS. BERNARD: I don't think you shared it with me.

 

            MR. LOHR: I can share with you another case which did go to court and the family did have the children returned - four children.

 

No, I wasn't thinking of that case at all, actually, but I know the general principle would apply, what I'm advocating. I'd be happy to share the details and actually I don't know any of the names involved, I just know of another case - but you understand that everybody knows everybody in Kings County so that's sort of the way that goes.

 

            I want to say that I do think there would be merit in having an appeal process that avoided court, that had some mechanism in it - and I realize what the minister says about confidentiality which is why I suggested the former staff of her department who have experience with this. I know that it would bear some looking into, I realize that, probably almost everybody who was losing their children presumably would appeal in any way they could, so likely all I'm doing is suggesting another layer of bureaucracy because I would think anybody losing their children would appeal in every way they could.

 

            I realize that is inherent to the thing but, on the other hand, the cost of court is highly significant, too, and I think there are some things that can happen in the court process sometimes that can be difficult for families. For instance, sometimes if grandparents want to be involved in it then they have to be in on the court process, and that makes it difficult for them because then they are exposed to what their son or daughter, who was the parent of the child, all of the stuff about this.

 

            I just think there's merit in looking at having another line of, sort of looking at the decisions, a review or something that the families involved can appeal in a way that they have confidence that they're simply not appealing to the people who already made the decision. I can't imagine that any decision to apprehend a child would ever be made by one caseworker alone. I have to believe that the supervisor and the next supervisor up - I'm sure it's a big discussion. I know it would be an agonizing decision and no one person would want to do that, so the appeal process that's in place is, I would think, simply going up through the ladder.

 

            How much time do I have left, Mr. Chairman?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Five minutes.

 

MR. LOHR: We have a serious issue with accessible housing in Kings County. I think of the case of Will Harvey a couple years ago. I don't know if you know that name but he was a young man who was in a powered wheelchair and came into the horrific winter of two years ago - arrived in January and we helped him to find an apartment by the first of February in that winter of all the snow. It proved daunting to find accessible housing for Will. We eventually did, but it was only through using publicity - and there is a lot of good will in the community. I know you know that.

 

            I'm just wondering, what can you tell me your department is doing to try to create more accessible housing for people in wheelchairs?

 

            MS. BERNARD: The upcoming accessibility legislation that will be coming forward in the Fall will have guidelines around built space going forward; certainly anything that is built by the department or Housing Nova Scotia is accessible.

 

            We also offer programs and work with landlords who want to adapt and make accessible a unit or two; we have programs that can assist with that. At this point in time we do not have any legislative authority to make private landlords make accessible units. Eventually we'll get to that spot in Nova Scotia, but my sense is, in talking with investment property owners, that they see this as an opportunity. They see this in going forward with any bills that accessibility - the term that's new to me over the last couple of months is called "visitability", which means that you may not necessarily have a physical disability, but somebody coming to see you would and they would be able to access your unit based on the fact that it is accessible.

 

            We know that going forward that that very much will be the conversation around the Real Estate and Construction Association, around certainly anything that's built here. Those are conversations that are going to happen with TIR here because there are offices that are not accessible throughout Nova Scotia.

 

            So it is a conversation that thankfully has started; it will be bolstered by legislation in the Fall. It has certainly been a practice of any social housing that if it's not built, then it's certainly adapted to accommodate persons with disabilities.

 

            MR. LOHR: Another issue we have in the Valley is - I know I'm running out of time right now - you have a program through Middleton for repairing seniors' housing and it is my understanding that there is a wait-list of people for funding or to get the work done. Can you tell me what your plan is for seniors' housing? Right now it's almost like triage - only the most urgent things are getting done, but there are other things that need to be done besides roofs, to keep seniors in their own homes. Maybe you could just let me know where you see the funding for that program going, and has it been increased this year, and has Middleton had an increase for the Annapolis Valley?

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: The time has expired for the Progressive Conservative caucus. We will now move on to the New Democratic Party.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Could I take a two-minute break, please?

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, we'll have a recess for five minutes.

 

            [12:35 p.m. The committee recessed.]

 

            [12:40 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. We'll call the committee back. We'll now proceed with one hour of questions from the New Democratic Party caucus.

 

The honourable member for Dartmouth South.

 

            MS. MARIAN MANCINI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This actually wasn't the question that I planned on asking, it's more a moving-forward type of question and I'm picking up from my friend. I know he has picked up on that theme quite a bit, of an appeal, because I remember when I was fairly new in the House and he was talking about appeals that I kept thinking he meant appealing a court order in Community Services. I said that can't happen, but now I understand better what he was talking about.

 

            I spent the last full year of working as a lawyer doing child protection work. It was mostly with Mi'kmaq children and family services in Sydney. It was a pretty tough situation. I was saying to my friend, if we could get rid of opiates, if they were banned from the universe, then we would have a lot of parents and kids together. It's a very chronic problem.

 

            It was the first time that I spent an entire eight months doing entirely child protection work, so it was fairly intense. There's no question that over the years the process has become increasingly litigious, that caseworkers have to provide an awful lot of documentation; there's a lot of information and it all has to be disclosed - they have to have affidavits for every court appearance, they have to provide their case notes, any conferences the agency have, all of that has to be. There's a lot time, a huge amount of time for the caseworkers in doing that. I often wondered how they do it, how they can do that and keep trying to do the therapy work they need to do with the parents - for the most part, I have held the caseworkers in very high regard.

 

            At the end of that year I started thinking, because I had had an opportunity to look at some of the therapy courts that have been emerging, one being the Mental Health Court and the other Domestic Violence. Those courts are probably not set up - certainly the Mental Health Court you'd almost say it was quasi-judicial. The judge can ask all kinds of questions, there's a lot of information flowing back and forth, the rules of evidence are very relaxed, all of that is happening. I often wondered whether there could be such a model put in place - I understand the minister would need to confer with her colleague in Justice on this sort of idea, but I thought what an opportunity just to mention it because it was one that I had had.

 

            I know in the new amendments there is a provision for case conferencing. It has been my experience that having a judge in the room makes a big difference. I'm not really familiar, but understand that maybe in another country, like New Zealand, they have very in-depth case conferencings that really amount to almost going to court.

 

It would be an opportunity to bring all the parties and it would involve the lawyers, the judge, the parents, the caseworkers, but also the service providers because sometimes I would find - and it's so crucial, obviously it's the type of therapy that you get - if your therapist doesn't know you're dyslexic, or you could have an addiction, but nobody would know that other issue. Or if your access facilitator or somebody who's supervising your access doesn't know there are certain things - or the family skills worker provides an individual with information about better parenting skills, and they don't read and maybe won't self-identify.

 

There's a ton of stuff that could be on it, but this process would give the opportunity for a more fluid discussion, and it would be a much more non-threatening environment.

 

            I've done a little bit of just observing the Mental Health Court, and it appears to be quite effective. At that case conference or in the Mental Health Court, when everybody meets and discusses the case, it's a very intense discussion, and all the parties are there and they develop a plan. It's done with everybody there and everybody participating.

 

            Anyway, I just put it out there as an idea because I think it would save money. I think it would certainly allow the caseworkers to spend more time with their clients as opposed to having to be constantly preparing notes. I just think it's an idea that would be beneficial to everybody. I'm just wondering if you have any thoughts about that.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Absolutely. In the cases that I've seen, particularly in the nine years at Alice Housing, if there had been more communication, if there had been more effort made by all parties to work on case conferencing - I would also add not only the service providers but also the schools, the teachers who work with the children if they're in school, or the child counsellors, or in some cases, the guidance counsellors or the administrators who are very involved in what's happening with the child, just by the nature of them spending so much time there. I think the changes in the legislation are going to give us the ability to be creative. I'm very familiar with the Domestic Violence Court and the Mental Health Court. Those are on the individuals, where the client is the centre of what happens around them.

 

            In dealing with children, there has to be a way to do that as well. I don't have the answer right off the top of my head, but I absolutely respect your way forward with that, and it's absolutely something that I would look into.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Much appreciated; thank you very much. When we cut off last time, we were talking about Regulation No. 67. I was a little bit confused by your response, but I think I've figured it out since then. I think you were saying that if you repealed Regulation No. 67, it would leave people worse off, and I think it's because it's in the Statute - so there's a statutory restriction, then?

 

            MS. BERNARD: The way forward for Regulation No. 67 is not repeal. It will be amended, particularly around the two-year time limit because we know that most university courses are four years. The way Regulation No. 67 sits right now, it is inhibitive in nature to people who want to do a four-year university degree. That is going to be changed, but the appeal of the whole regulation will not be; it will be amended.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Do you have a sense of what that wording might look like at this point?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It would be around the time frame, but I'm also very cognizant that if we have a client who is on IA and they have a disability that a four-year time frame may not fit into their ability to complete a four-year university cycle. So I want to make sure that what I replace it with doesn't just create a burden, lift a burden for one group of people we work with and create another one for another set.

 

The wording has to be very inclusive of taking into terms what everybody's different challenges may be. If I just take out the two years and replace it with four years - well it took me five years because I was single and couldn't go full-time the first year. A person with a disability may not be able to complete in four years. My son's girlfriend had to leave university for health reasons two years in, before she went back and graduated. I don't want to hinder the completion of a university degree by putting in a specific time frame, so the wording has to be very cognizant of that.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Okay, I guess it could just be done through an amendment to the Income Assistance Act itself, though, could it - would that not be the easier way to deal with it?

 

            MS. BERNARD: My inclination is that there will be many amendments to that Act as we move further in transformation, including if we need to do it for Regulation No. 67.

 

            MS. MANCINI: I did want to ask you a little bit about the transformation. I don't have a lot on that. I had been at Public Accounts Committee and we probably addressed some of these issues at the time. The transformation proposals, the RFPs - I have since come to know what they are and have read a couple of them - did make reference to the Ontario model, when Ontario went through a similar transformation, of which I am sure you are well aware.

 

What happened after they completed their transformation, a lot of it had to do with their IT transformation. The Auditor General presented a report - SAMS, but I'm not exactly sure, it's an acronym - has the minister had an opportunity to look at that report?

 

MS. BERNARD: The Ontario Auditor General's Report?

 

MS. MANCINI: Yes.

 

MS. BERNARD: No.

 

            MS. MANCINI: The only reason I bring it up is because if there is reliance on the Ontario model it seems there were some grave errors that occurred as a result of their, maybe, haste in getting the IT system, not properly testing it. I would recommend that you read it because it was pretty startling to see - overpayments, one person on disability who had a huge overpayment but didn't really understand and of course that money was gone; and then there were people, one individual who was charged an overpayment, never received the overpayment, but was getting it deducted - all kinds of horror stories like that.

 

            I just mention it to you because it seems as though somewhat the Ontario model is being followed here. I guess what I'm wondering is, are there sufficient precautions built into that aspect - the IT aspect?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We have our own IT system. We don't use - nor will use - the one from Ontario. I think the case study will be on what not to do in terms of an IT system. I think the reference would have been around the generic transformation and not specific to the IT system that they use. We have our own; it may need to be enhanced certainly, but at this point in time we're staying with what we have.

 

            When you look at other jurisdictions in the country, and there haven't been many that have had a significant transformation of their social services systems, that's all part of the environmental scan - you look at what worked, what didn't work, and then you mould that into your own experience.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Yes, Ontario hired an outside - IBM, somebody - to do theirs, but within this system, because the IT system is really going to change this whole service model, it is a significant part of the transformation, is it not?        

 

MS. BERNARD: At this point in time we're not changing the IT system that we have; we're not bringing in IBM or any outside stakeholder like that. We will be enhancing the system to fit the business model that we will eventually transform into. We do rigorous testing with that and using the expertise of the people who use the system. So we bring in front-line workers, we do test modules with them, so our systems will be enhanced to better fit the internal changes and structures that we have already changed, but we are not looking at replacing that system whatsoever.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Thank you, most of my questions have been answered. The one thing I did want to ask about - and I guess it does relate to the transformation - the minister stated that it's the lowest point you can get when you're on social assistance, and that's true. Well, maybe it is, but getting caught or having your income frozen can be even lower. So people have been challenged over the last two and a half years. Is it because of constraints in the budget or is it because you wanted to complete this process that things got frozen?

 

            MS. BERNARD: When you say "things got frozen," can you be specific?

 

            MS. MANCINI: I meant rates got frozen.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I guess we got to a point - or I certainly got to a point where I didn't know what money increments, what money would make a difference in the lives of people. My remembering of being on income assistance is that $2 to $4 doesn't lift anybody out of poverty, $20 doesn't lift anyone out of poverty, and I think over the last couple of days in talking to many of my constituents, I was looking at that through my middle-class lens because they told me, quite clearly, that any increase in rates is going to enhance whatever they have in their lives - I think I lost focus on that.

 

            So correcting that - and certainly with the largest increase in the history of the program - my hope is that when we transform the system and we take some of the paternalistic policies that we know are in there and the administrative burdens that are on both clients and our front-line workers, that at the end of the day the outcomes that people have, if they have to be on this system, improve because we all want them to improve - every member of this Legislature wants them to improve.

 

            I think that probably that's where my head was over the last couple of years. When I walk away from this position, whether it be the Premier's decision or the decision of the folks of Dartmouth North, I want to be able to look back and say that system that helped me is better than what it was in the 1990s.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Thank you for that. My final wrap-up, though, is that the groups, many of the not-for-profits that did receive cuts or whatever to their budgets in the last couple of years, I believe you indicated many of them were unable to provide measurable outcomes of their work?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We do, we have to really work on that with non-profits. The United Way, about eight years ago, offered a wonderful program for non-profits to come in and help them measure the work they do. The bulk of executive directors want to measure the work they do, they want to know that the work they are doing is making a difference in the lives of the people they serve.

 

That's not 100 per cent in the non-profit sector. When organizations don't have their finances audited, when they don't provide audited statements, when they don't have any clear reporting mechanisms to any funder, those are causes for concern. They should be a cause for concern not only for taxpayers but for any funder of any organization. Whether we like to equate it or not, non-profits are businesses; they often deal with either government funding or philanthropic funding and they have a responsibility to be transparent and accountable to those funders.

 

There are very few non-profits that are completely funded through a social enterprise, it's usually they can have it part of what they do, but large organizations like the Adsums and the Phoenixes of the world, and transition houses, all have a very good way of reporting what they do. I think our role, particularly in my role in the voluntary sector, is to make sure that the smaller shops know that's their responsibility - and not only know it's their responsibility but give them the tools to be able to do it.

 

            One of the things when we increase funding to family resource centres is that we knew that some of the smaller ones in the rural areas were going to have a difficult time in building the capacity around their evaluation methods and their methods of reporting. We knew that, so we were able to provide training for them in terms of providing that evaluation, so that they knew any new programs or even the work they were doing was working for the people they were serving, particularly in the cases of where the funding was doubled and, in some cases, tripled.

 

That was a lot of responsibility put on staff who weren't used to that type of responsibility, because they got to grow their programs. They got to pick what they wanted to do, they got to expand their catchment area, and it would have been very unfair if we weren't there every step of the way to provide that training and that support in making sure that the money they were spending was in a way that at the end of the day they could say, do you know what? This is the best bang for this buck and we're proud of the work we do.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Were some of the organizations that did receive cuts, was it based on that, that they weren't providing appropriate accounting?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Some of it was. One program ceased to exist anymore, a couple of programs were perhaps the communication of what they did and what we thought they did were different.

 

            I've mentioned before that when I came into this role, the question executive directors have throughout the community is how do you decide who gets what. We have great organizations that have been chronically underfunded for years, and then we see others that haven't changed the way they deliver service in 30 years. How does that happen?

 

            It was my vision to measure if it mattered. That was the challenge that I put out to my executive team and to my financial team, really looking at asking the questions of when organizations get funding. It wasn't good enough to say well, they've always gotten it. I wanted to know, do they know what we do, and what difference does it make in the lives of the people we serve? Those are not unreasonable expectations of any funder to ask any organization, particularly when it's taxpayers' money.

 

            The conversations and the great capacity that we've built over the last couple of years with the non-profit community has probably been the best that it's been for a long time because we're having those conversations. We're helping organizations evaluate what they do, and in some cases they've changed what they've done, and they're doing it better. That support has never been there for non-profits - trust me, it has not.

 

            MS. MANCINI: Minister, I just want to thank you for the time that you gave to this. I have completed my questions, and I'll pass to my colleague.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook- Salmon River.

 

            MS. LENORE ZANN: Good afternoon. How is the minister doing now?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Besides the hornet attack - you weren't in the room, but it was horrific. It landed on my forehead and went into my ear, around that area. It was about that big, the size of a small helicopter. I'm doing fine, thank you.

 

            MS. ZANN: Did it bite you?

 

            MS. BERNARD: No. It scared the crap out of me. It was huge; it was the biggest thing I've ever seen come close to me like that. By the time I tell it to my wife, at the end of the day, it'll be a small truck.

 

            MS. ZANN: I'm glad to see you've survived the hornet attack.

 

            I'm just going to be asking you a few questions about the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women. We've had some funding put in there for the Sexual Violence Strategy. There's funding that was announced earlier, and now it's going to be spent, I believe. One of the questions that I had was on the budget line for the Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women. It includes funding for the council and women's centres, too - correct?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes. The funding that you're talking about is not Sexual Violence Strategy funding, that is all administered through DCS. The funding that was transferred over was for all of the women's centres, all of the transition houses, and Alice Housing.

 

            MS. ZANN: Okay. I was going to ask what organizations and programs are actually funded from that budget - can you give me a breakdown?

 

            MS. BERNARD: The bulk of the money for the Status of Women - it went from $760,000-something each year up to $8.1 million - it goes towards all transition houses, including Alice Housing, and the eight women's centres. What the difference of that would be what is to support the work of the Advisory Council itself. The budget is - $8,192,530 would be the total that would go out of that office to community-based women's organizations.

 

            MS. ZANN: To program grants? It says "program grants."

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes.

 

            MS. ZANN: That includes family violence, though - is that right?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It includes all transition houses and all women's centres. It was merely a transfer of those 19 organizations from one budget line at DCS to a new budget line of program grants at Status of Women.

 

            MS. ZANN: And they now give out that money?

 

            MS. BERNARD: They do; they administer it all.

 

            MS. ZANN: What was the idea behind that - could you walk me through that?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It was something I felt very strongly about. As the executive director of Alice Housing - and I'm just going to preface this by saying that the staff who are with me now were not there when I was the executive director of Alice Housing - access to DCS for a stand-alone women's community organization was nonexistent. The only time I ever got to the upper echelon of DCS is when I called Lynn directly, and I had worked with Lynn on the domestic violence committee for over a year, so she was familiar with my work. We were stand-alone; we were ignored. There were some political decisions around funding to Alice Housing. We were not part of the THANS, the Transition House Association of Nova Scotia; we weren't part of any women's centre.

 

            I know from working with those executive directors throughout the years that access and respect for what we did, that when you work from a feminist lens in any one of these organizations and your point of contact doesn't work from a feminist lens, you're lost. You're not only lost, sometimes you're damaged.

 

            When I came into this portfolio I said very clearly, very quickly, every women- serving organization, and we'll start with these, that delivers services around violence or support in the community, must be transferred over to the Status of Women because I knew that regardless of who was at the helm of Status of Women, they were going to be a feminist. They were going to be able to do their work and help these organizations through that lens. That was it quite simply - that was my explanation to the transition houses; it was my explanation to the women's centres; and it was my explanation to Alice Housing.

 

            Initially, I think it was met with, oh, what does that mean - now we're not part of the big DCS machine? But over the last year the communication has certainly been enhanced. I know that whenever I needed anything in terms of sponsorship or an event, I didn't go to DCS, I went to the Status of Women. I had a stronger relationship with the staff at the Status of Women - I didn't even know half the people DCS who I needed to meet with. I think moving Alice Housing over might have been strategic on my part because the women I've worked with for many, many years, knew - Alice Housing is like a second child to me - if this was something that I was willing to do to this organization, it was something that came from a good place, that it had the best of intentions.

 

            I understand the distrust between community and government. I will say that that distrust starts when somebody in your point of contact within the department builds that distrust. When I came into this role - and it has nothing to do with political Parties or anything - the morale, the relationships, and the trust that DCS had with women-serving organizations was at the lowest I had seen it in 15 years - absolutely the lowest. That's unfortunate because it takes a long time to rebuild that. When I brought in transition houses and I brought in women's centres and Alice Housing, I was frank with them. I was part of what they felt for nine years, and this was me genuinely trying to fix that.

 

            MS. ZANN: That sounds really good. You talk about looking at things through a woman's lens and how important that is. I was just thinking that that's partly why I was vocal and many others were so vocal about the Ann Terry Project and things like that, the fact that they lost their funding because they were saying that we don't all fit every mould. There are women coming through our doors who aren't going to be comfortable going into a great big, huge place where there are men and women, and everybody is all thrown in there together.

 

            I think it's important for government to look at things many times through a woman's lens because it's going to improve society.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I absolutely agree, and that's why I'm so proud that I actually am bringing gender-based analysis to policy. Two months ago, I stood down at the Westin in front of 60 senior managers and executive directors in government. They were spending the day learning about GBA because at a federal table I said I was bringing it to Nova Scotia. We've started.

 

            What's really exciting is that we haven't just started in the Status of Women, because they don't need it. We've started it in Priorities and Planning, which is the hub, as you would know, of what happens in policy and legislation in government. We are 100 per cent supported in that. That's the first time it has ever happened in the history of the province. It's going to take time, but it has started.

 

            MS. ZANN: That's good to hear. The funding levels for women's centres, how are they actually determined?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Historically, every women's centre has gotten the same. It's not like transition houses, where it's based on occupancy or use or something like that. I know that when your government was in power, there were increases. There certainly were increases when we came in. I added it up the other day, and it was $35,000 in the last five years for every single one, which is a significant increase.

 

            I think what you have to remember, and when we get to service level agreements this will become more clear, is that in government we fund core services of organizations, what their core programs are. Many, if not all, women's centres do extraordinary work in every community they're in. For instance, I know there are 15 staff in the Yarmouth women's centre. We don't fund 15 staff in a women's centre. We barely do that in a transition house that is 24/7.

 

            If organizations want to expand their services in the community - and they have every right to; I did it myself - most of them apply for project-based funding. It is unfair to increase your capacity within the community without working that out with your core funder. They have had increases in the last five years, more so than other organizations for sure, but I find that the projects they do are usually short-term and project-funded.

 

            I had probably three or four of them myself at Alice Housing. I was not core funded at Alice Housing; I'll just make that perfectly clear. If I was, and I chose to expand my programs, I would be having conversations with my primary funder first. If they couldn't do it, then as the executive director, I had the decision, with my board's guidance: do I expand and find the money elsewhere, or do I not? That's just good business management in the non-profit sector.

 

            MS. ZANN: What is the actual core funding for each women's centre in the province right now?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's $205,716.

 

            MS. ZANN: And that's for each one? Did you say it's 19 centres?

 

            MS. BERNARD: No, there are eight.

 

            MS. ZANN: Eight centres, so $205,716 for eight centres. Is Alice Housing separate from that, or is it included?

 

            MS. BERNARD: They are separate.

 

            MS. ZANN: And they make the same amount of money, do they?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Alice Housing is not a women's centre.

 

            MS. ZANN: I'm just wondering what the core funding is.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Core funding for Alice Housing is $160,700, so it's actually less than a women's centre.

 

            MS. ZANN: Just to be clear, when the sexual assault strategy came out, and the money was announced for that last year - was it $600,000? $700,000?

 

            MS. BERNARD: No, it's $2 million a year for three years.

 

            MS. ZANN: I was talking to a number of different women's centres that said they couldn't apply for it because it needed to be from a new group, that they couldn't actually apply for that funding.

 

            MS. BERNARD: That's not true because I've actually given out funding. They've partnered with other groups. I did one last week.

 

            MS. ZANN: So if they partner with another group, it's okay?

 

            MS. BERNARD: I guess I can't say it any plainer: the status quo of what was happening in terms of sexual violence services was not working, particularly in the rural areas. People told us that in the consultation. We spoke to hundreds of people. We had 19 groups throughout the province. We met with men's groups, with women's groups, with the queer community, with the disabled community, and with youth. They told us they did not see themselves in the services that were offered, if they knew about them in the first place. The 13-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted was not walking into a women's centre in Antigonish. Let me make that perfectly clear. A man was who had been sexually assaulted not walking into Avalon Sexual Assault Services. Transgender people had nowhere to go.

 

            One of probably the most diverse sexual assault centres in the province was chronically underfunded, and that's in your area. We right-sized that.

 

            MS. ZANN: You mean Margaret Mauger's one?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes, absolutely. She does tremendous work for many demographics. Her catchment area is from Cape Breton all the way down to the Valley. What she was doing on the funding that she had was mind-blowing.

 

            We knew that the sexual violence strategy wasn't going to be about funding the same services. It was about funding organizations and groups that could look at sexual violence in a different way. Part of the work was the innovation grants. Groups that had never thought they could ever come to government for funding could come to us with their ideas where previously there was no funding pot for them: student unions, youth groups, Native Women's Association, the Fédération des femmes acadiennes. The diversity of the 35 groups that have received funding is mind-boggling because they have not been part of the conversation in sexual violence, and people told us that. They weren't seeing themselves reflected in any of the help that was out there.

 

            The other problem was that the help that was out there wasn't coordinated. People worked in silos. We have nine hubs made up of volunteers who are working on coordinating services in different areas. That's part of the strategy, and that's going very well.

 

            The other piece was public education, and we'll be launching a campaign in September, just as kids are coming back to school. We made it very clear very early on that this strategy was not about funding the services that people told us weren't working for them. We core fund Avalon. We core fund Colchester Sexual Assault Centre. We're increasing the same services. But we knew that there were pockets in this province that were doing their own sexual violence work that we didn't know anything about, so the coordination of that has worked very well.

 

            I made it very clear that this was not about giving money to the same organizations that are doing the work, but the people in their communities are saying, I don't go there.

 

            MS. ZANN: So why weren't people going there? For one thing, I guess, they needed more funding. Would they have been able to do a better job if they had funding and had been able to let people know their doors were open and that they were welcome and had a welcoming environment there if they were sexually assaulted?

 

            MS. BERNARD: No, I actually don't think so. A 13-year-old girl is not going to walk into a women's centre. A man is not going to go into Avalon.

 

            MS. ZANN: So where are you saying a 13-old-girl would go?

 

            MS. BERNARD: She's going to youth organizations, and that's what we're funding. The work that we've done with HeartWood all over this province has been extraordinary. I'll be making another announcement on Monday about another partnership.

 

            We heard very clearly - and I'm not going to second-guess survivors of sexual violence. They said that the services weren't working for them. They didn't see themselves in the services. They didn't relate to their situation. I'm going to listen to what they say. I'm not going to second-guess that.

 

            I think it's up to organizations to figure out why it isn't working. This all comes back to service level agreements and evaluating what you do. Why aren't we reaching these people? It's not up to government to tell you why you're not reaching these people. It's up to you as an executive director. It's up to you as a board to determine why we aren't reaching these people.

 

            I know that women's centres do great work in the schools, but it wasn't translating into youth seeking their services. I ran an organization for nine years. I saw 312 kids come through Healing the Bruises. Two of them, two out of 312, told a teacher about what they were living through. What are we missing in the education system so that children can't disclose the domestic violence that's happening in their home? We don't want kids going to other kids. We don't want a 10-year-old telling another 10-year-old.

 

            Two days ago, I met with Sarah MacLaren, who is the executive director of Leave Out Violence. We've been doing a lot of work with the former Indian Brook community, and a week from today we'll be having a girls' round table. I brought the girls' round table back from the United Nations two years ago. The conversations that she's having with these young girls is, if it's another girl who has sex with you, and you didn't want to, that's not rape, right? Those are the conversations that are happening in our Aboriginal communities with young girls. That's not okay. We're missing that.

 

            The services that we have do meet the needs of some, but they weren't meeting the needs of everyone. That's why we encouraged women's organizations within the Aboriginal community to come forward, not only to work with the young girls but also to work with the young boys. So we have programs now where elders in the community will go in and talk to boys in Grade 7 about consent in the Aboriginal communities. That has never happened.

 

            This is what's going to make the difference in terms of changing attitudes and changing education around consent and what it means. Good touch/bad touch isn't working. What we're teaching our kids at the lower level is not working.

 

            MS. ZANN: You've probably heard me talk in the House a number of times about the fact that we need to educate our children from an early age. We need to teach them mutual respect. You're right. I would say too that actually there's probably a lot of elders who would need to learn what is okay and what isn't okay because a lot of people learned some very bad habits at a young age too.

 

            It's systemic really, isn't it? I was shocked to read some stories coming out of the United States about some of the states there. There was a case where a young woman had been attacked while she was passed out, but it was orally, and they weren't going to count that as rape because it fell between the cracks or whatever. They said she couldn't do anything about it because she was passed out. Well, that's the point.

 

            It's definitely a learning curve for many people. There was a radio program on the other day that I was listening to. All of these different men were calling up and were saying some of the most extraordinarily bad things. I just felt compelled, I had to call up and say something just to get a woman's voice in there and say, excuse me, but actually I really think we need to be going in this direction. It's quite frightening actually.

 

            I was going to ask, given the importance of evaluating the outcomes, what funding is provided to organizations to undertake evaluation? What opportunities for learning are there about how to do evaluation?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Which organizations, the ones that have just received the funding?

 

            MS. ZANN: The women's centres.

 

            MS. ZANN: The women's centres, to undertake evaluation of what they are doing and what they're providing and how they're providing it.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Usually when there's project funding, an executive director would put a component to apply for funding for evaluation. I know that, through the Department of Community Services, there have been efforts in the past to go out and offer training for that. I also know that various organizations, through the volunteer sector of Nova Scotia, have offered training in evaluation in outcome monitoring.

 

            Currently, we're working very closely with the Community Sector Council in offering that throughout the province, evaluation and outcome monitoring. I learned how to do it from the United Way. The United Way had a great program about eight years ago, and I learned how to do it through the United Way. Then I got really good at it through the Donner Foundation. I could probably teach it. It's not hard, but it's unique to each organization. So we're working with the Community Sector Council and with organizations. Many of them already do it and do it quite well. But for the smaller shops that don't know how to evaluate their programs, we're working with the Community Sector Council to make sure that training is there.

 

            MS. ZANN: You mentioned earlier that a lot of the women's centres were doing short-term projects.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Some of them, yes.

 

            MS. ZANN: I would say probably that's again due to the fact that they really needed more core funding, and they're probably used to having to do things in short spurts because they don't know if the funding is going to run out. Their resources are quite stretched.

 

            MS. BERNARD: One of the exercises I had as an executive director in working with my board was a strategic section on what your core programs were. As much as you would like to include your children's healing program as a core program, it wasn't. It really is about taking a raw look at what your core programs are. Any addition, you either find the funding for it through project funding, or you fundraise for it.

 

            It's very dangerous, in my opinion as a former executive director, to have 100 per cent of your core funding from government. You really don't want to be put in that position because anything could happen. A government could come in and not value the work of any organization, and it's just completely gone, or they cut it by 50 per cent or by 75 per cent. So you really want to have different revenue streams.

 

            Women's centres have gotten very good at that because they can do a project on transportation in the southwest area. That's not a core program that government should be funding, but they found the money for it through a foundation or through a service group.

 

            Settling refugee families and helping settle refugee families is absolutely important work in Antigonish but not part of the core funding or core programs of the Antigonish Women's Resource Centre. It's a great program that they are offering, but it's not part of their core programs.

 

            MS. ZANN: Getting back to what we were talking about earlier about sexual assault, how is the SANE program going? Do we have enough of them yet across the province?

 

            MS. BERNARD: SANE isn't under me, it's under Health and Wellness. You know what my opinion would be.

 

            MS. ZANN: That we need more, yes.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I'm glad there's going to be two more. I hope that's the beginning of a trend.

 

            MS. ZANN: Okay, right. According to the latest statistics, many of the people who are accessing the SANE program are actually of university age, between ages 17 and 25. I was just wondering why the sexual assault strategy doesn't mention colleges or universities.

 

            MS. BERNARD: It actually does. We made our very first announcement at Acadia University, partnering with the student union there. We're working and partnering with CFS in the Fall to do a province-wide conference on consent. When I went out and asked organizations to apply, student unions came forward in a big way. They were rewarded with funding because what they asked for was innovative, whether it be Dalhousie, the women's organization at any one of the universities, or a student group at Acadia University.

 

            My opinion is that by the time you get to 17, you're too late. You're too late. That's why I was glad to see groups working with kids in Grades 7, 8, and 9 receive funding within their areas of expertise of working with younger kids.

 

            We are partnering with the Federation of Students. I'm going to look forward to that. It's happening in September. I don't know what campus it's on, but I do know that it will involve student leaders from every campus in that symposium.

 

            MS. ZANN: That's going to be in September, did you say?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It is. It's called the student summit, and it will be held in the Fall.

 

            MS. ZANN: Did you say that you've already announced that one?

 

            MS. BERNARD: No. We have an announcement. We're a partner in that. We're not organizing it. We're a funder. I assume that the Canadian Federation of Students will take the lead on announcing that in the coming months.

 

            MS. ZANN: Is that funding part of the budget right now?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It is.

 

            MS. ZANN: Where would we find that? Which line?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It was part of the innovation funding.

 

            MS. ZANN: That's part of it, okay. What is the Status of Women's perspective on issues of privacy in small jurisdictions? That had come up when we were talking with Minister Regan.

 

            MS. BERNARD: In terms of reporting, do you mean?

 

            MS. ZANN: Just what's your perspective on it, issues of privacy? She had said that there were privacy concerns. She mentioned something about privacy issues in small jurisdictions.

 

            MS. BERNARD: The need to protect victims is first and foremost, and I think that's the spirit of where she comes from. We know that in smaller universities, if there is a specific reporting mechanism, and then there's a small base of students, that student loses their anonymity. We never want to put that student in that position. In saying that, it's up to universities to work out a way of balancing that, balancing the privacy of the student while ensuring that the university takes action.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: Three minutes remaining in the allotted hour.

 

            MS. BERNARD: My understanding is that that is the way forward through the MOU. I know that staff from Status of Women have been working very closely with her department officials on that.

 

            MS. ZANN: I just want to ask one more question. I believe there was one job lost, one person laid off, from the Status of Women this year. What are the implications of that? What particular position did that person hold?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It was a leftover outreach position. They had been eliminated years ago in the province. It was in the southwestern area. She was working 50 per cent time, so it wasn't a full-time position. We knew that we could use those funds in the core work of Status of Women. They used to be all around the province but for some reason this particular position wasn't eliminated years ago. When we evaluated our programs and the services that we offer as a department, I knew that we could use that money centrally for more outreach provincially instead of having it just in one area.

 

            MS. ZANN: I would imagine that's my time.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: You have one minute.

 

            MS. ZANN: In that case, I think that it's really important that we start early with kids. We've talked about this before. I think that society is at a turning point, although people like Mr. Trump don't exactly help it when he's making unnecessary comments about female politicians and where they might be at any given moment if they're not on the stage. I think that these kinds of things are not helpful. Again, I think it's about education, so I am glad to see that you're going to be working with the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development about that and getting kids off to a good start.

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's exciting, the work that's being done with young people throughout the province, particularly around consent. I won't release too much, but I will tell you that the public education piece that's coming out in the Fall is animated.

 

            MS. ZANN: Oh great.

 

            MS. BERNARD: That's what tested. When I saw it I was like, oh my God. But when kids saw it they were like, I get this. I don't need to get it. I'm 52. I don't need to understand what consent is because I know.

 

            MS. ZANN: Some 52-year-olds might though.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Well some might, but I need kids in Grades 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 to get it, and they're going to get it through this.

 

            MS. ZANN: You know, I suggested that ages ago to people, that animation is the key.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: Order, please. That concludes the hour for the NDP caucus.

 

            We will now move over to the Progressive Conservative caucus for one hour of questions.

 

The honourable member for Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley.

 

            MR. LARRY HARRISON: A little bit of pressure to come back, that's all.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Okay. Are we on that road?

 

            MR. HARRISON: Yes. How did you know? We're going down the dirt road again.

            I often wondered how flexible Community Services can be with respect to people who are right on the borderline for - let's say, $12,000, which I think it is. That's pretty rigid, and so many people have different circumstances. Some may pay more in medication than others, or they might have a higher power bill than others. I'm just wondering if there is any flexibility so someone maybe over that $12,000 might still be able to qualify.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Unfortunately, there isn't. The reason for that quite simply is, where do you stop it, if it's $12,100? It's eligibility. Our department should be the department of last resort for people. So if there are EI programs that can be accessed, or if there are assets that can be liquidated - we literally are the last resort.

 

            In saying that, can there be flexibility within the program that we have? Absolutely. I was very vocal a couple of weeks ago about the fact that we don't have a mechanism to help people through short-term difficult times, that we require them to quit their full-time position to go on income assistance so that we can help them in the short term. I used the word "ridiculous" then, and I'll use the word "ridiculous" now.

 

            We understand the value of helping people through a short-term layoff or an illness, something that we know is going to end. It makes perfect sense from both a financial standpoint and a humanistic standpoint.

 

            The young woman who was on a three-week layoff through no fault of her own because there was an oil spill on the flagging site in South End Halifax should not have to quit that well-paying job and raise her three children on income assistance because she's behind in her daycare, which put her rent behind, for three weeks. That is stupid.

 

            There needs to be a mechanism where we can help people who literally are on the porch of income assistance. They don't want to come in the house, but they're on the porch. We don't have that. My goal is to bring that flexibility into the program.

 

            MR. HARRISON: That would be a great goal to have. I know in the church, my congregation would always give me so much money for people who came in because they were out of food or needed something for medication, or whatever the case may be. You're limited in the amount you can give, but it would suffice for that very short term. Even if it was for a day, at least it was something.

 

            But of course, everything gets abused. I understand that years ago there were discretionary dollars given to politicians to use for people who would come in off the street for whatever. But we all know that that gets abused, and of course that has to stop, but it's just that kind of thing. If social services could offer that, that would be absolutely great.

 

            MS. BERNARD: It just makes sense. The mother sat there. She had been through domestic violence. She had had addiction issues as a teenager, and she had three children under the age of eight. She went back to school. She got this job. She loved the job. It was outside. It was everything she wanted. It was a great, liveable wage. But because of circumstances beyond her control - an oil spill in the south end part of the city - her company couldn't do what it was paid to do for three weeks. She didn't get paid. She couldn't apply for EI, but she could see her bills starting to collapse. To have a caseworker, who probably hated to say it, say that you have to quit your job in order for me to help you, it's insane.

 

So we're looking at ways of how that could be delivered, and it doesn't even necessarily need to be delivered by government. It could be delivered by a non-profit that has a provincial scope. It doesn't have to sit with us. There have to be guidelines around it so that it's not a revolving door. It's very simple to determine programs like that that can help people out of a short-term bind so that they don't have to go on to long-term social assistance.

 

            MR. HARRISON: I hope you hang onto that one.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Oh we will.

 

            MR. HARRISON: Good. When I'm talking about sexual violence here, I don't want to get into the older age group, but just touch for a moment on the really young girls and young boys. It may even happen within the home. I don't want to use the term "luck," but I'm going to use it because I can't find another one right now. How much luck has the department had in finding out when this does take place in certain homes? Have neighbours called? Have relatives called? Or it is just kind of nothing?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Sexual assault in a familial setting, within a family, is a child welfare issue if it involves children. I am not a social worker, but I see briefing notes, and I'm thinking of one briefing note now, that no other minister in government sees. I see and I read about the degradation that happens in homes and that small children endure in this province. I'm not going to share those with everyone here because, quite frankly, I don't want that in this forum.

 

            If you are an adult, and you sexually violate a child, that's not about education. That's not about consent. That is about something far more sinister than any education program or any sexual violence strategy will ever fix.

 

            There are laws, and there are government functions that are put into play to protect the children who are sexually violated either by caregivers or parents or other family members in the home. The sexual violence strategy was more of a cultural change outside of the home, so it's two different things. I can only hope that whatever crossover we can get in a youth group or in a classroom dealing with violation of a child's body triggers a young mind to tell somebody. I can only hope that.

 

            MR. HARRISON: Likewise.

 

            MS. BERNARD: But I can tell you with great certainty that there are sexual violations happening with children - whether it be infants, toddlers, children, or teenagers - who are being trafficked in this province. Education is going to work for much of it. I have my own personal thoughts on people who sexually violate children.

 

            MR. HARRISON: The thing is that they wear that for the rest of their lives.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes, they do.

 

            MR. HARRISON: They can hide it. They can do a lot of things to cope. But at some point in their life - they may be 80 years old - it's going to come back. That must be awful to live with.

 

            MS. BERNARD: It is, and we see it as a society. These children grow up - we talk about resiliency in children. That can only take on so much. I've seen it in kids. I've seen kids who have come to Alice Housing who have gone through horrors - witnessing or having been abused physically themselves - and don't speak. They've self-muted. They're eight years old, and they don't speak or they speak in a voice of a cartoon character.

 

            With support, safety and counselling, I can see the resiliency kick in. But I can tell you that the children that I know in my career who have been sexually violated do not have the outcomes that they deserve - not what we would like to see but what they deserve. Like I said, I have my own brand of what I would like to see happen to perpetrators of that crime.

 

            MR. HARRISON: I think I mentioned at some point last year in the Legislature that I was part of a pilot project called Fire in the Rose, and that was back in the early 1990s. I believe it was 1992. There were six communities chosen throughout Canada to participate in this pilot project. It ran for about two years. We did a number of things within the community to try to help people look at violence, look at family, look at sex, and look at all kinds of things in a different way. I think we probably made some headway in that.

 

            What I might do, though, is give it to you. I was trying to look at all the documentation that we had on it, and I finally did find it. It's huge, but I might give it to you just to have a look at that. There may be other projects that we may need to look at to help with that.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Please.

 

            MR. HARRISON: You've been working, Pat. My colleague has been working.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I'm not going to say that would be a first, because that would be rude. I love Pat.

 

            MR. HARRISON: Again, I thought of this at various points in time: people working when they're on income assistance, how does that work?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Those conversations are part of the transformation, of course. Currently, when people on income assistance work, the first $150 is free and clear, and then 30 per cent of their net or gross - either one of those - is held back by the department, but they can still keep the 70 per cent.

 

            MR. HARRISON: Is there any possibility of getting that changed?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's very much part of the conversations for transformation.

 

            MR. HARRISON: Because I would think that would be a good incentive for people. Some people just have to work anyway. They're not comfortable not working, where others certainly are.

 

            My colleague has down here, describe the Harvest Connection Program. I've never heard of it. Have you? It has to do with seasonal work during the summer.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I'm getting educated. It's a program that doesn't exist anymore. It was incenting folks who are on income assistance to work on farms, particularly blueberries. But there wasn't huge uptake on it. I think that's a challenge that fish plants in various coastal areas are dealing with right now, a shortage of people to work, and also farmers during the harvest season. There just wasn't the uptake on it.

 

            MR. HARRISON: Eligibility for the Poverty Reduction Credit?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Which, thanks to you, is no longer stamped on the cheque.

 

            MR. HARRISON: I'm going to take that as a good thing.

 

            MS. BERNARD: That was an excellent thing.

 

            MR. HARRISON: Can families with children receive that?

 

            MS. BERNARD: They do. They can qualify for that. They also qualify for the children's tax credit provincially as well - the Nova Scotia Child Benefit. Generally, single parents can be eligible for both and also the old federal child tax benefit and certainly the new more enhanced federal child tax benefit.

 

            MR. HARRISON: I'm going to finish up by saying there are a lot of really good things on that road map. I hope they get accomplished over the next five to 10 years.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Thank you. I appreciate that.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: Does that conclude the questions from the Progressive Conservative Party?

 

            MR. HARRISON: We'll leave it to the Liberal Party to ask any questions they wish to.

 

            MS. BERNARD: All right. Here we go. Buckle up.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: We will now turn to the Liberal Party for one hour of questions.

 

The honourable member for Fairview-Clayton Park.

 

            MS. PATRICIA ARAB: Mr. Chairman, as you know, I have the honour of being the Chair of the Standing Committee on Community Services. Over the last few months, we have had numerous conversations and correspondence directly related to the ESIA program through Community Services. We actually have a meeting coming up specifically on ESIA in June. I'm hopeful that, through you, Mr. Chairman, the minister will be able to provide us with some comprehensive detail on the goals of the ESIA transformation.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Why yes, I can. Transformation came at a time in the department when the minister, obviously, was new. The deputy had been there for six weeks. Within the next year, every executive director, including the associate deputy, came on as new to the department. It was a perfect storm of being able to work on transformation in a way that wasn't hindered by a department culture of change not being good because 12 to 15 people were then on the same path that things had to change. The first year was about getting our own house in order. Very early on what we knew from what people have told us over the last two years, both stakeholders and from income assistance participants, was that quite clearly they need a change.

 

            I actually wrote something down on this. I want to read it because it encapsulates what I would love to see in income assistance. We knew we had to modernize our system to make it better. We knew we wanted to improve the quality of life for the people who come to us, in terms of their social well-being, their resilience, their inclusion, and enhancing self-sufficiency skills. We knew that. We wanted to create a program that was administratively simple so that people didn't have to give us scores of receipts or scores of forms which, quite frankly, as you would know, we lose anyway.

 

            Well, we do. Every MLA in this House will tell you that, besides not getting phone calls back, losing forms is the second complaint. We know that's an administrative burden on the people who deliver the services. But it is also a financial and an onerous burden on the person who has to get on a bus to deliver it because they don't have email, or they don't have access to a fax. We knew that. We also knew that it was all going to take time.

 

I recently read a stakeholder report on what was said. This mission statement - it has not been called a mission statement. It's just on the back of a page, but it really encapsulated to me what we want. To sustain an effective ESIA system, we should limit administrative burdens while ensuring that clients' needs are met, that they are immersed in their communities, and that they have positive interactions with their caseworker. If I wanted to simplify that, it would be there. That's what we want.

 

            MS. ARAB: You mentioned a number of challenges that we MLAs present to you. What can we do from our offices to enhance the service that's provided and make sure we're working collaboratively with the Community Services staff so that our constituents' needs are best met?

 

            The minister and I, Mr. Chairman, have the opportunity to talk about this quite a bit. The vast majority of the casework that comes into my office is DCS related, so I'm wondering if the minister could maybe share her thoughts on how we can work collaboratively to make sure that our constituents' needs are best met.

 

            MS. BERNARD: If you haven't already, I invite you to go to your local office where you would get the most clients going through - in your case, I think it's Gottingen Street - and introduce yourself. Go in and meet with the district manager. Try and put a face to the names of the caseworkers I know you would deal with every day.

 

            In my area, I had a district manager previously who actually went out to all the MLA offices and met with them and gave his card and said, if you have any questions or issues, let me know. You can always come to me, and I will always push you to Erin. I don't just offer that for the 33 who are in my caucus. I've offered that for all 50 MLAs. Whenever I have a resource, I share it across Parties. To me, it transcends politics when you're dealing with people who need our services. It's about making sure that every MLA knows the process and is familiar - and everybody's caseworker now would be very familiar with many of the policies that we have - but more importantly, that we nurture those relationships between an MLA's office and the district office which they deal with.

 

            I can tell you, the MLA previous to me was a complete and utter nightmare for the caseworkers and the district manager of Portland Street - condescending, threatening, and bullying. Those are three things that are not going to get you anywhere with anybody in any situation. If you're not getting respectful communication, feedback or assistance, then I want to know, and she wants to know because we're all in the same boat of trying to deliver services to people who need them.

 

            I know that you and I have talked about it, and I know that you have a high rate of folks who come into your office on income assistance. There are decisions that have been made that you're not happy with and I'm not happy with. We are going to follow up. I just asked that question.

 

            People can come to me, or they can come to Erin, if they're not feeling that common sense and compassion are being utilized, knowing - and I've said this to everyone - that you're getting one side of the story. Make sure that you get all sides of the story so that we can have a resolution that's fair and reasonable.

 

            Introducing yourself to your district manager would be step number one. I know some have changed over the last year. There was a big restructure within the district management level. But that's what I would do.

 

            We have an executive director of service delivery. He would take 30 minutes to talk to any MLA who wanted to come in and meet with him because he is responsible for service delivery in Nova Scotia. He would take that time.

 

            MS. ARAB: I think I just have one more question. The minister spoke a bit about transformation and the impact on the clients that they serve. As well as having a large number of constituents who deal with DCS, we also have a lot of stakeholders within the community that we work with. I'm wondering if you can talk about how transformation impacts them.

 

            MS. BERNARD: For the first time ever under the service delivery model that we have, we actually have a manager of stakeholder relations (Interruption) A service provider relationship manager. We never had that before. Now there is a point of contact and access for stakeholders in different areas within the province. They don't have to start here and follow this path. They have a direct line to who they need to speak to. That was one of the major complaints I had as a service provider and that I had heard very early on in my mandate, we don't know who to call, and nobody calls us back; we have no relationship with the department that gives us $1 million each year.

 

            It was ridiculous. Graham Poole is the director of service delivery. His responsibility is not only to make sure that the individuals who utilize our services are taken care of in a respectful and reasonable way, but also that stakeholders who do tremendous work on behalf of government taking care of vulnerable citizens every day have access in a way that's timely and in a way that's productive for them. We have really changed that, and I'm proud of that.

 

            MS. ARAB: If I had a dollar for every time somebody said or I said, "working in silos," I don't think I'd have to work anymore - in a silo or not. It is very much one of those things that I learned early on in this position, that there are a number of amazing service providers out there, but individuals don't necessarily know that they're there. There isn't a lot of communication. Since I've been in office, my office has tried to be a bridge, tried to connect people who come into my office to where they need to go and connect them with DCS. Is there any sort of a plan that will bridge groups together in a more public relations way, like the marketing of it?

 

            MS. BERNARD: We're going to have to come in and do this. In my riding - and it is rolling out to two other communities; I don't know where - Between the Bridges is really about breaking down those silos.

 

            There's a social deputies table, and a year and a half ago, all the social deputies got together and did an environmental scan of all kinds of different communities in Nova Scotia. They looked at incarceration rates. They looked at IA rates. They looked at the investment in the community, in public services, and in non-profits. They looked at attachment to the community, employment rates, people moving out, people moving in, voting standards. It was an incredible piece of work.

 

            I won. I won something I didn't want to win. I'm number one in all of that. The 10 blocks between one bridge and the other has the highest IA attachment, the highest unemployment. People move out every five years. It has the lowest voter turnout in all 51 ridings. It has the highest homicide rate, domestic violence. I could go on.

 

            That's where Between the Bridges was born. Between the Bridges started small. It started with the five social deputies taking a couple of staff from DCS and Education and Early Childhood Development and really working with the community and finding out that over these 10 blocks, there are something like 40 non-profits that get millions of dollars in private and public funding, yet we still have these poor outcomes. Why? What are we doing wrong? We're working in silos. We're not working with community groups. They're not working with each other. Departments aren't working with each other.

 

            You've got the Departments of Community Services, Education and Early Childhood Development, Justice, Health and Wellness, and Labour and Advanced Education now spearheading something called Collective Impact. It has never happened in Nova Scotia before. It's based very much on what happened in Detroit and in Harlem. It is about following families from cradle to career.

 

            The other thing I'll add is that I have the highest dropout rate in Nova Scotia, at almost 50 per cent, even more than Spryfield. Only 50 per cent of kids who come out of John Martin Junior High will make it through Dartmouth High School. We know that.

 

            Collective Impact started to gain momentum. In the last six months, we now have the Nova Scotia School Boards Association signed on, with the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, to an agreement with the United Way. We're all involved in Collective Impact in that 10-block area called Between the Bridges. We're seeing a turnaround. We're seeing it with our young people. We're seeing it with community groups that never talked to each other before. We're seeing it with education. We're seeing it in Harbour View, where kids aren't bringing guns to school anymore. We're seeing decreasing rates of some of the ills we suffer through. We're seeing more community engagement.

 

            When I see it in the budget, $500,000 has been spearheaded for this. This is something that comes from the Premier on down in terms of changing the way we do things in communities that have the worst outcomes going. We know the capacity is there. So I'm excited over the next year where that's going. I have no idea where it's being branched to. We're the pilot. It's working, you roll it out throughout the province.

 

            What that does is, it saves on justice costs, it saves on DCS costs, and it saves on health costs. It's just common sense. I get very passionate about that project. It's not there because I'm the minister. It's there because I live in a community that had the worst outcomes in Nova Scotia.

 

            MS. ARAB: That's great. That's wonderful. There was actually a lightbulb moment, too, that Between the Bridges literally is the area between the bridges. I never knew that. I love that. It's like branding gold - that's wonderful.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I must say that that name came from Brenda Murray, who I read a resolution about the other day on her retirement after 29 years - not just in government but in DCS.

 

            MS. ARAB: Can we talk about housing? My constituency has the largest public housing in the province. It's a very unique and wonderful community . . .

 

            MS. BERNARD: Bayers Westwood?

 

            MS. ARAB: Yes.

 

            MS. BERNARD: They have a great soccer field there.

 

            MS. ARAB: They have a wonderful soccer field.

 

            Wait-lists in general, the minister and I talk quite frequently about this. What direction are we going in? What steps are happening so that we preserve the community as it exists, but we also address the needs that are out there for those not in housing at the moment?

 

            MS. BERNARD: I'm proud to report that, over the last 18 months, the wait-list has gone down by almost 600. A large part of that is due to the rent supplements that we have successfully filled, 353 of them over the last 18 months. That was through the deferred federal contribution.

 

            In saying that, the wait-list provincially is still 4,000. It's going in the right direction, but I'm still not happy with 4,000, so I've directed the lovely gentleman to my left to further reduce the wait-list 10 per cent this year.

 

            One of the difficult conversations that we have to have in all public housing units is about moving people out. My idea of public housing is in, up and out, but we haven't seen that. We have seen in, up, and stay. So what we have is a single mom who may have moved into a public housing unit back in the 80s. Her children are grown. She's living in a three-bedroom unit by herself. Her daughter may have moved two doors down, so it's their own little community. Meanwhile, I have a mother with three children on a wait-list who can't access that unit.

            We have to have very difficult - they don't always need to be difficult, but people don't like change. If they've been there for 30 years, it's daunting to folks to move out. We need to have respectful conversations about how we can move that along, working with people so that we can say, we will help you find a place that's going to meet your needs. Those are difficult conversations to have. But in the meantime, we have families that aren't having their housing needs met, and we have people who are tremendously over-housed.

 

            All of the public housing that we have is family units. They're two, three and four bedrooms. Oftentimes, what we're finding when we do an audit, an inventory, of that is single people in those units, and they're completely over-housed.

 

            It's difficult to walk away from very low rent. It's very difficult to walk away from electricity being paid. It's difficult to walk away from 25 cents to do a load of laundry. I get that, but we need to have some movement.

 

            MS. ARAB: Along those lines, I understand that it's a very difficult balance, because it hasn't been the practice in the past, people moving into public housing, getting back on their feet and then moving out. We do have, particularly in the Bayers Westwood community, people who, like you said, have been there for 20, 30, 40 years. So that's the first part. And they have put equity into their homes. They have done work on their own and do not consider them to be public housing but consider them to be their family homes. How open is the department to thinking outside of the box in terms of keeping people within their community, but also making sure that we are supporting those who are on the wait-list?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's a very fine balance. It really is. I can tell you, the way forward in building any type of social housing through federal-provincial agreements will be more single units, one bedrooms, because right now that is the largest cohort that's on the wait-list, single people. It's the largest cohort of income assistance folks.

 

            There are 12,000 social housing units in this province, and it's probably fair to say that they're all family or senior. So if you have got a single person who would be wanting to move out of one of these units, there are very few affordable places for them to go. So it's a fine balance, and it is about being creative.

 

            MS. ARAB: Again, I'm not asking for a commitment. I'm just asking for an open conversation on this. If we have three instances of a single mom whose kids are now gone, and she is living in the same house that she has lived in, which is a three- or four-bedroom, but there are two others in the exact same situation, what about having a conversation about having those three individuals then move into a home within the community as opposed to three separate one-bedroom apartments outside the community? Is that a conversation that we can have? Is that on the table?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Yes, that's not a barrier through housing. That would probably be more of a barrier through income assistance. Part of the conversation is it's absolutely ludicrous that you wouldn't allow people to live together so that they could combine their shelter incomes to get a place that's going to meet their needs.

 

            That is done now. There are situations where people roommate, and it's split that way. Yes, those are conversations that can definitely happen.

 

            MS. ARAB: Thank you. I appreciate it. That's all for me.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Timberlea-Prospect.

 

            MR. IAIN RANKIN: Listening, the housing wait-list is about 4,000. I'm just wondering, do we have an up-to-date number on the wait-list for the small options homes for people with disabilities?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's a different wait-list.

 

            MR. RANKIN: Yes, I think it's more like 1,000.

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's about 1,000, but they're not all waiting for small options homes.

 

            MR. RANKIN: In this budget, I know there are high level bullet points of where money was going. I think there was $3.3 million going for something that resembled housing for disabilities. I'm not sure if that's exactly what it is. I'm just wondering, is there any new money going into the budget to address that wait-list? Where in the budget would you find that? Would that be under Disability Support Program, or would that be actually under Housing Services?

 

            While you're thinking that over, the way I understand it is, the money in the budget is to take people from the institutions and move them into the community. I think that's great, but I'm just wondering about the kids that are adolescent age with parents seeking a solution. It's a huge issue. It's probably one of the more common issues that comes into my office, other than income assistance, that people are looking to us for follow-up on their behalf. It's one of the most challenging issues I face as an MLA, to not really have an answer for these constituents and these families that I meet with - no real answers. There's never going to be a real answer. There's always going to be strain on the resources that we have. We're not going to be able to get everybody into a home when they need one.

 

            Just back to my original question, is there any new money to address the wait-list for people who are not in institutions, the ones who are in their family waiting to find a solution for their housing needs that isn't an institution but is more community-based care?

 

            MS. BERNARD: You're correct: the money that is being invested into the DSP system right now is for moving persons from the larger residential areas into the community. We will be building and working with families and individuals to build that capacity. I'll give you a breakdown of what the wait-list looks like right now, and that might give you some idea. There are 1,143 people who are now on the DSP wait-list requiring a residential support option. Of those folks, 383 are receiving no supports at the moment, 503 are receiving support in their family home, and 257 are receiving a type of residential or community support. Of the 383 individuals on the wait-list with no supports, 78 are in hospital ready for discharge. Of these, 23 require the highest level of support. Currently, there's no capacity within the DSP system to support these individuals. That's where we're at. With an aging population with the highest rate of self-identified disability in the country, we're transforming a system that has been on the brink for about two decades.

 

            MR. RANKIN: I'm not by any means an expert on how these programs work. Is it respite care that they mostly get? What supports are there when they're in their family home? We've got 503 in their family home. What does Community Services offer them during that period?

 

            MS. BERNARD: When they're in the family home, it's respite care. People come in, and the family members who are taking care of them are able to leave, do errands, go on trips - whatever that needs to be. There also would be a special needs component in that in terms of monthly allowances for folks and what they need. What they need determines what those monthly supports look like. I must say that the financial capacity for those folks is significant. There can be funding up to $3,800 a month depending on what the formula is for what the person needs.

 

            MR. RANKIN: That's a good point. I was just curious about where that falls in the budget. Is that Housing Services?

 

            MS. BERNARD: It's DSP, Community-Based Programs. It wouldn't be in housing at all. That's separate. I must tell you that even though I've asked that the wait-list be reduced by 10 per cent, the housing wait-list, I have also challenged the department to make sure that there is some movement within that, decrease for persons with disabilities, so that we do have that movement. The issue, in many cases, is that we have creativity within our funding programs to build homes for persons with disabilities, but it's the operational sustainability after that. We always have to make sure that we don't do one without ensuring that the second is there.

 

            MR. RANKIN: You said different levels. There obviously is different complexity of the various disabilities, intellectual and physical.

 

            I want to go to housing now. When we were looking at the specific programs, it seems, and I could be wrong, that the program is one-size-fits-all. When someone owns a home, and they have someone in a wheelchair, they were looking at the same program as someone who didn't really need to build a ramp or didn't need the same assistance for someone who was living with them. In this strategy, is there any flexibility provided for the different scenarios that parents have when they are looking for support?

            The reason I ask that is because I had an individual who was trying to qualify. The cost for something like that was pretty huge for them to purchase the wheelchair itself and a whole bunch of other things they had to purchase. It seems like they were being looked at similarly to someone who didn't have those challenges. I'm just wondering, are we going to be able to expand the flexibility of that service offering?

 

            As you're thinking about that, I'll just continue on with the income threshold. Are we looking at that at all? I think it was $40,000 for family income, somewhere around that, to qualify. Your family income had to be below $40,000. The proposed client had a great point to say a family with someone who has a wheelchair that owns a house - how many people are actually out there who are paying a mortgage, but their family income is only $40,000? It's hard to imagine how many families can qualify for that because they have an income that sustains a house. I don't know when the last time was that the income threshold, the de minimis line, was updated, but maybe that would be something to look at, raising it to $50,000 or $60,000. Or is there flexibility in those types of scenarios that are going to come up more and more? As you said, we have the highest percentage in the country. A kid who's in a wheelchair, with family income of $40,000 - it's probably not going to happen. Maybe they have an income of, say, $70,000, which is by no means a high income for a full family, especially spending money over the years on all the things they had to do out of their personal funds. I'm just wondering, is there flexibility? If there is, do we review the income level to qualify for these types of programs every so many years?

 

            MS. BERNARD: The household income levels are actually set by CMHC. They're not set by the province. They review them about every 18 months, looking at the rental market in the area, so they're different for each province.

 

            One of the things that I have been really pushing for at the social ministers' federal table, and I'll push for the same thing in June when I go to Victoria, is flexibility, flexibility within the programs that are partnered. We partner with the federal areas, whether it be for adaptations for persons with disabilities in their home or for seniors to help them age in place. Over the last while, there has been very little appetite federally for flexibility. My sense, from both the conversations that Dan has had with CMHC and certainly the ones that I've had with federal counterparts, is that they've heard flexibility loud and clear.

 

            It really should be up to individual provinces how to best meet the needs of the demographics that they have. If I have an aging demographic here with a high rate of self-described disability, the housing programs here should be able to reflect that need, and that's what we'll be asking for. So in answer to your question, we're working on it, and I think there really is an opportunity for flexibility in these programs.

 

            MR. RANKIN: A question on navigating all these various programs - there's such a huge list of them, and it can be daunting for some of the families. I know they said they go on the website and there's lots of programs, which is good, to have such a long list of them. Do the staff actually get engaged with the client to go through them all so that they understand which ones they're eligible for? Is there any way to improve that to make sure they are able to navigate that system?

 

            All of the MLAs probably get calls, and then we're able to help them through it. But if there's a way that we can enhance the client experience through that, that would be good.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Things can always be better. I do know from the personal experience of a family member who has navigated this that the person they had on the other end of the line was very understanding, first starting with what you're eligible for, going down to what the process is and how this is going to play out over the next couple of months. If that's not happening, I need to know about that because Dan needs to know about that.

 

            Throughout the province, the housing authorities and the housing staff within the rural areas are very hands-on in helping people navigate the many different programs that are there because you may be eligible for one but you may not be eligible for another, or it may not fit your needs. The staff is also very knowledgeable on what you are going to get the most out of. You may have your heart set on one thing, but then they've got another program that actually is going to meet your needs and more.

 

            Improvement can always happen in terms of communication. It also depends on the level of calls that staff would get. In my experience, they certainly have had a fairly good track record in reaching out.

 

            MR. RANKIN: I must say that in some of the scenarios I had, once I engaged Dan, we were able to figure out solutions. The staff has been great whenever I contact them.

 

            What about autism? In terms of strategy there, I remember seeing it in the budget highlights. I know that the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development is really where a lot of it should be, early intervention programs and things like that. Is there anything we can speak to that we're doing within Community Services this year that could be different from last year's budget?

 

            MS. BERNARD: There has been an ongoing working group. I know that the Minister of Health and Wellness, the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development, and I have been updated. We have different rules to play with within that strategy.

 

            The investments in the Child, Youth and Family Support Program and the DSP reflect the complexity of cases that we have. As we know, autistic children grow up, particularly boys, and we now have 20-something, six-foot-five-inch, 300-pound autistic men in DSP facilities who can pose both a danger to themselves and others. Those investments really help with the maintenance of what they need, in terms of keeping them safe in order to make sure they receive the services they have.

 

            The strategy itself sits more with Education and Early Childhood Development and Health and Wellness, but it certainly relates to our programs in the maintenance of children and the DSP. The investments we'll be making this year, there's nothing specific, but it's all global in terms of helping. We don't specifically take out the autistic cases that are both in our caseload in child and family services and the DSP. It's just that's where it goes to.

 

            MR. RANKIN: I think my colleagues might have some questions. The funding - I think NSLAC is the acronym for the group that was looking to get funding for a part-time person in the Valley region. I'm just wondering if we were able to help them out in this year's budget?

 

            MS. BERNARD: Their funding has been reinstated. Good job.

 

            MR. RANKIN: Thank you.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Hants West.

 

            MR. CHUCK PORTER: I'm pleased to have a few minutes this afternoon to chat a bit about the Department of Community Services. I want to start with a couple of things.

 

            One, I've been around for about 10 years and have had a lot of dealings in my constituency with the Department of Community Services both here in Halifax, at the department, as well as locally. Things have changed quite a bit over the course of that time frame. When I was first elected, we had the opportunity to work with individual workers, which we no longer do. We deal directly with supervisors in our locations at home, which is fine. We certainly know all the workers as a rule anyway. They're involved in many aspects of the clients' needs. Throughout working through those files, we have some input.

 

            I guess I just want to touch on that briefly because we probably have, I would argue, one of the best you will find anywhere by way of a supervisor in Denise Zinck. She's a stellar performer, in my opinion, very good to get back to us with information, and I would say, probably goes above and beyond when it comes to trying to help these clients. I should be doing something on her in the House, actually, because of the work that she does do - and her staff. It's a team effort over there. I've been through the department a couple of times, touring and meeting staff. There have been some changes.

 

            They work pretty hard over there. I'm not sure of numbers, caseload. Provincially, if there's an average number, we probably fit somewhere in the average. We have quite a few files, and they come, and they go. Some people are short term, and some people are longer term. I think that's probably fairly common, and you would know that better than I.

 

            But when it comes to really looking after these people regardless of the circumstances, as I said, I think we have probably one of the very that you would find anywhere. In saying that, I don't want you to take her anywhere or put her anywhere. I want you to leave her right there where she's doing a great job. We hope she stays around for a good long while yet because she's doing a good job.

 

            MS. BERNARD: Her name is?

 

            MR. PORTER: Denise Zinck. Denise, like I said, is a local gal there who does a great job along with her staff. It's a team effort. I do realize that as well. It's huge, how much work goes into some of these files.

 

            I want to talk about a number of things before I get to a question. We deal a lot with housing. There are a number of housing requests. I know that some move quicker than others. We've been fortunate in my area to renovate a place called the Windsor Elms, which is now Windsor Heights, the old nursing home that was in the Town of Windsor. The folks who came in there and bought that have renovated that and done a great job. Some of your staff have probably been there at times. I'm not sure. I can't remember back that far now. But they've done a great job, and we've worked closely with that landlord and others as well to get people into housing through Community Services.

 

            Some of those are subsidized, but I'm always curious as to how many. We find a new one every week by way of landlords. In my office, I always say we're the biggest resource, and we're the biggest lobbyists, two of the things that we do, and we do them well. That's really all we do. When people ask what you do, that is what you do. You're always doing those two things or one of those two things and, in some cases, both at the same time.

 

            We always have a running list of landlords. People are coming looking for rentals, a lot of them low income. They're looking for assistance a lot of the time. In many cases, they are not aware of the subsidized housing options, both those looking and the landlords. There's a lot of landlords there now, and we've introduced this process to a number of landlords, including when we were renovating the old Windsor Elms and talking to the gang up there: did you know that this exists? Are you interested? We continue to do that. It tends to make that entry much quicker for some reason. They're very interested in this as landlords.

 

            I don't think I've ever seen a document come out - it may only be me. Again, there's a lot of paper that goes back and forth between government and departments and MLAs and their offices. I don't think I've ever seen a piece of paper that said, hey Chuck, did you know that this program exists? It probably does somewhere. We just haven't got there because we've done business differently maybe over the years, and we've worked our way through that. We've been successful at that, and that works too.

 

            But this has certainly been something that has helped reduce our wait-list of those low-incomers looking for housing. I know that there are some, and it depends on the situation, who are single individuals or couples versus families. There are different requirements. There are different locations. Government owns a variety of housing throughout my constituency.

 

            There are places a little more remote. A place called Pembroke is pretty near to Walton. It's about 40 miles down along the shore, a beautiful place. But each time that we've offered that recently, it has been, no, that's a little far for us. We really don't want to live way down the shore. You have those kinds of things. I don't want to call them complications - needs or issues. It may be for various reasons: people are working, no car, trying to get transit. There's all kinds of reasons why they don't want to be that remote, or they have health issues. There's a lot of that that goes on.

 

            Our housing, I don't want to call it scattered. You would know better than me, or staff would, where these locations are. There's no row of, here you go. It's good that it's not segregated. I think that's great. It's very diverse. It fits into every and all neighbourhoods. It doesn't link to anything specifically. We have a whole variety.

 

            We have Kendall housing for seniors. You are supposed to be 58 and over to get in. We know there are some cases where some who are a little younger than that get in, but they are specific or special cases whereby that happens. Again, that may be part of that subsidy as well, to assist them getting into housing.

 

            I think that's a great program. I don't think we do enough, in all honesty, to promote that program, both to low-income individuals and/or families and especially on the landlord side. I would really love to see something more done, I think on the landlord side even more, because they are often looking to get a good client in there for a long period of time. What I have found, at least where I come from, is that they stay considerably longer. We have seen occasions where individuals or a family may have moved out of a home, and only a few months later, they come back looking to see if there's anything available. They have regretted moving out, based on their financial ability to pay their rent and the power bill, et cetera, whatever it might be and all that goes along with that.

 

            In a lot of these cases those subsidized programs, as you know, are all in one. It's very hard for individuals, especially if they are single. The value they get each month is considerably lower than perhaps with a family. We all would agree - minister, you and I have had many conversations about how much money actually goes to an individual who is on assistance. It allows them to survive, to exist, but it doesn't allow them to live much beyond that.

 

            I know that's a challenge when we have a large number. There's only so much money, we understand, and we always strive to get better. I know through our conversations that you are extremely passionate about that, probably one of the most passionate I've talked to about that, in how to make that better. It's not as easy as just saying we're going to make that better. I realize there's an incredible amount of work that has to go into that, and you have a department that is huge and broad by way of scope in the things you do, from housing of individuals and families and different cases.

            We've talked about single mothers, as an example. I think I've brought a case or two from my area to you for discussion, to say this lady who is a great person wants to go to work. She has a child who needs child care either prior to school or after school, or maybe isn't old enough to go to school yet. She says it's easier for her to stay on assistance because she can't afford to come off.

 

            When you think about what that value is that they're getting each month, you're thinking wow, how does this happen? How does this work?

 

            We've had discussions, and I think I brought that to you probably right after you were elected and became minister and had a chance to get your feet wet a bit. We had some discussion around how we incent - I use that word for lack of a better term - this same individual to come off. When I talk to that individual, she says, what I need is that support to carry on while I get my job. That job is maybe paying minimum wage or $12 or $15. When you think about that, and you do the math, that's not a lot of money either. Yes, it's better than being on assistance, but it's not such a big wage that you're going on a holiday to Cuba, let's be honest. It's getting by. It's paying the bills maybe or maybe not in some circumstances, but they find it difficult.

 

            If there was ever a program whereby we allowed the assistance to be weaned off - again, for lack of a better term - I think about that process. Maybe it's a year, maybe it's six months, or maybe it's three months. I don't know. Likely all circumstances and all files would be different, based on the job that was found by this individual in this example. You may find somebody who finds a minimum wage job versus somebody who doesn't. Someone who is an educated person can pick up a job doing something at $20, $25, or $30 an hour. We would never say every case is the same because we know that they are not.

 

            I really hope somewhere - and I know that takes a long time. There's a lot of discussion around that, and it's very easy for me to make those few comments on how we get into that. I don't want to call it a mess because it isn't, but it's very convoluted, and some may refer to it as a mess. How do we begin? Where do you start?

 

            The important piece here is there has to be a starting line. Regardless of where you put it in the mix of up and down and all around or wherever it might be and what level or where you start or how long, there's got to be a starting point to say, this has to turn back the other way. We all know individuals in our communities who are on assistance who don't want to be on assistance. They're too proud. They come into our offices and say, I don't want to go there. We actually have to force some people and say, you need to go there so you can get a place to live and so you can get a meal tonight. We provide the early intervention, but the longer-term assistance here is really about how we get you set up and where you need to be.

 

            There has to be a starting point, somewhere to say okay, these are the steps. We're going to take the example of the lady who has a child or two and has found a job. She wants to be able to go to work. It's good for government. You and I have had this conversation. The benefit is to government and the taxpayers, whose revenue we are talking about here in general, to help this person through that process, to allow them to go to work, whether they work three months or six months or a year.

 

            Maybe it gets reduced a little bit, and we help them with that budgeting process. Those workers are still involved in these files. The best part though is, these workers see that light that they've been looking for for so long at the end of that tunnel. They can say hey, in a year's time you're going to be here, and we're going to help you through a process instead of just processing that piece of paper on the 17^th of every month or whatever day it needs to be in by, just stamp, here you go; see you next month. Instead of that happening, we're going to actually - I don't want this to sound like they're not going a good job because I just said our staff are doing a fabulous job, and there's a lot more than just doing that. I understand that, and I want to be clear that I understand that. You know that I understand that. That's a really short, quick analogy to make that worker that much more involved. They are able. These workers are good folks. They know. I'm sure they would also take some great pride in seeing somebody going through that process, going back to work, and coming off a system they didn't want to be on in the first place.

 

            When I look back over the years and I think about folks on social assistance or whatever we call it - the name has changed over the years - there's a whole variety of circumstances why people end up where they do. Anything can happen to any one of us tomorrow that we don't know about. Any of us could be there. Today we're very fortunate: we have a job, and we're working. But we don't know what tomorrow, next week, or next year will bring. Whether it's losing a job, or health issues, whatever that might be, there's all kinds of reasons why people end up - good people, well-educated people - where they do, looking for that help. Most of them, as I said, are far too proud to even go there, and they'll wait. We see these people coming in the door, these good people coming in the door who have waited. Their power bills are now at $2,000, $3,000, or $4,000, and they're getting their notices for cut-off. One wonders, how do we ever let them get that high before they get that notice? But it happens. We deal with them. You deal with them as a member, so do I, and so do the others. We deal with that. That's fine. That's no problem; we have a process for that.

 

            They found themselves right there, pretty well at rock bottom. Mortgages are due, other bills are due, and meals that need to be had can't be found. We can end up there. Many people have and have come off with great success.

 

            As I said, you and I have spoken about this in the past, and maybe it's something you are working on. I'm sure it probably is. I know it's very much at the forefront, and it's something we need to continue to build on and make a conscious effort on. Even the small steps, as we work through it - they don't have to be great big steps. They don't have to be amazing, all in one year. This is a long project. We're talking years of getting to where we are. We're certainly talking years of getting away from where we are by way of a plan that works.

 

            There's time and tested and true things that we'll find over the course of the years ahead that will be good. On some decisions, well, the thought was good. The process might not have been that great, but we're working towards something.

 

            I think people would be excited, to be quite honest with you, to see what government is actually doing to help. We look at some of these people who come into my office who find themselves in a position where they are filing for hardships because they can't pay things like an overpayment where mix-ups do occur. That happens. It's not a big deal. We look at it and go, okay, that's not a big deal.

 

            We know it's tough to pay it back. We've got great workers. We'll work with you, and we'll set up a process. I have found the department to be nothing but reasonable in those circumstances. But $10 a month coming off their pay, which isn't very big to begin with, is a lot of money to some of them. That's a meal to some people when you start really thinking about that. How does that happen? Is it $1 a month for five years? I really don't care. It doesn't matter to me. That's how I feel.

 

            People are in tough times. It has been tough the last few years. These circumstances, again, happen for any number of reasons. I'm really hopeful that we're going to get somewhere, even the small steps to begin that process.

 

            The other thing I wanted to talk about: we had change recently in how housing works for us when people came in and they applied for housing. We were always in the western area with Theresa and Janet and the gang down there, who we got to know very well over the course of years, and now we have Halifax looking after that. I'm very pleased to say that they've reached out to us. Our new people who are working out of the city and managing our area have reached out and called, the transition has been very good there.

 

            We use it a lot. I don't know what other members do, or how other MLAs work.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: One minute remaining.

 

            MR. PORTER: One minute. Okay, well I'll get there. I guess I won't get a question in, but that's all right. I've had a chance to express a few things this afternoon, and that's okay.

 

            I want to say just on the housing that we do a lot of grant stuff with housing. I hope that stays in place for a very long time - the roofs, oil barrels, doors, windows, and all of those kinds of things. A lot of older homes are now in need. We do an awful lot with that.

 

            I guess just in closing, there's a lot of good programs there. There's very little time left. I would say, however we can help promote those things that exist, like that landlords' subsidized rent option that might be there - it might be nice to see something from the department to throw in a newsletter that we put out a couple of times a year, as an example. We like to ask, did you know that this program exists? We do a lot of that, at least I do in mine and we do it for a reason. We see uptake on it, so we would love to see more of that if we could get it.

 

            I guess I'll say thank you for the opportunity to say a few words this afternoon. Thank you, minister.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: I believe that is all the questions we have for the minister today. That leaves us with about eight minutes or so for final comments from the minister and to put the resolutions on the table. I'll do my best to give you a signal when it's most appropriate for that resolution.

 

            MS. BERNARD: I just want to thank everyone who has asked questions over the last two days. I particularly want to thank Pete Newberry, Lynn Hartwell, Dan Troke, Kristen Tynes, and Dale MacLennan, who have been the staff here supporting me.

 

            It's really funny: I had a conversation this morning with another minister who sits beside me. We were watching the Minister of Health and Wellness answer questions during Question Period. He was saying, you two are the only ministers who like what you do, and nobody else wants to do what you do.

 

            It's true. It's a difficult department, but I cannot see myself anywhere else with the passion that I have for the work I do. I can tell you that I've never worked harder in my life, but I've never loved my work more. I consider this a privilege every day, not only to be the member for Dartmouth North but also to be the minister of this diverse - Jeanne Farrell is also here, from our finance group. It really is a privilege to go to work every day. I am always astounded at the work that people do. My level of frustration, the more I get acclimated to this position, gets lower. That's always a good thing.

 

            Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the opportunity to share our goals for the coming year with Nova Scotians. Improving the health and well-being of the people who live here is key to strengthening our province. This 2016-17 balanced budget demonstrates our strong will to support those who need it the most. To summarize, the budget for this year for the Department of Community Services is $930 million, up by $14.6 million, or 1.6 per cent, over last year.

 

            We are allocating significantly more base funding directly into programs for people with different abilities and for children, youth, and families: an increase to the Disability Support Program of $9.9 million and an increase to Child, Youth and Family Supports of $5.4 million. I'm pleased that we are reinvesting $10.5 million into new initiatives that will directly address the needs of people we serve. The new investment of this $10.5 million includes the priorities of $7.5 million to increase the monthly personal allowance for income assistance recipients by $20, and $3 million for the Disability Support Program to increase community living and adult day program opportunities.

 

            Our goal for the coming year and this year's budget is to continue the momentum created by transformational change. This opportunity to completely redesign the province's social support system is historic. This redesign will result in a department that is responsive to the challenges and diversity of Nova Scotia in the 21^st Century. We're talking about strengthening our families, our neighbourhoods, our community, and our future. This is about doing what's right for the people we serve by creating a system that better supports them in reaching their goals because transforming our social supports is only meaningful if it helps people transform their lives.

 

            Community Services is where Nova Scotians turn during times when they are vulnerable and need support; at any given time, that's actually one in five Nova Scotians. The people we serve will have greater control over their own lives, safety from abuse and violence, the ability to meet their basic needs, and inclusion in the community and workplace. We want to make sure we get the best possible results for the people we serve.

 

            There are no reductions to programs or services included in this budget. After three years of financial challenge, this budget contains significant increases to reflect current expenditures in all major program areas. We have also invested in significant new initiatives. I am proud that the 2016-17 budget demonstrates our commitment to those Nova Scotians who need it most. Over the last couple of years, we've had to make some very difficult choices under financial conditions.

 

            We know that the work that we do helps people get to a place in their life where they feel self-sufficient and supported. Unfortunately, the program that we do this in is aged. It reflects the last century, not this century. So I'm very happy to know that that transformation will continue. We are about halfway through phase two. I'm excited to see where the next part of phase two will take us and even more excited for phase three, which will truly determine and reflect the changes that we see.

 

            Over the last two and a half years in this position, I have really learned a lot about government, about policy, and probably more importantly, about politics. I truly believe that when you're dealing with vulnerable people - whether they be persons with different abilities, whether they be vulnerable children, whether they be victims of violence or sexual violence - that we must take politics out of the equation. We've really tried to do this in this department.

 

            We've done it in the housing area. When we looked at housing, and I had the good fortune to spend the deferred federal contribution, we did it where the need was most, regardless of where it was in the province. That was my instruction. It transcended through housing authorities, and it transcended through the seniors' properties in HRM, $4 million at the insistence, the advocacy, the stubbornness of two of my colleagues - Minister Kousoulis and the late Allan Rowe - who diligently and very persistently said, we represent seniors who live in housing that has not seen any significant investment over the last couple of years - well for more than a decade.

 

            I proudly remember standing on the terrace of Alderney Manor in 2014 with Allan Rowe by my side and announcing that $4 million investment, including over $1 million that went into renovations to Alderney Manor. We've gotten to a point with our seniors who live in these manors where we actually have open conversations and have a more collegial relationship with them. People who wanted to move out are now staying, and people who never wanted to move in are now wanting to move in.

 

            That really is a testament to the housing authority staff under Janet Burt-Gerrans. It's a testament to Dan Troke as CEO of housing. It's a testament to the work that has been done by housing staff over the last two years.

 

            We're at a point in time now where we still have plenty of money left in the DFC for further investments, but I'm proud of the ones that we've made thus far.

 

            MR. CHAIRMAN: Shall resolution E4 stand?

 

            Resolution E4 stands.

 

            The Subcommittee of the Whole on Supply is adjourned until Monday, later afternoon. Thank you all.

 

            [The subcommittee adjourned at 3:07 p.m.]