SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES (CONCLUDED)
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF TREASURY AND ECONOMICS (CONCLUDED)
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
The House resumed at 8 p.m.
House in committee of supply.
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF COMMUNITY AND SOCIAL SERVICES (CONCLUDED)
On vote 2902, adult and children's services program; item 4, income maintenance, and item 5, adult social services:
Mr. Chairman: Resuming consideration in committee of supply of the supplementary estimates of the Ministry of Community and Social Services. If I recall, the member for Prescott-Russell (Mr. Boudria) was in the middle of a discussion at which time we terminated that by leaving the chair. I now turn to the honourable member for continued discussion.
Mr. Boudria: Mr. Chairman, we tend to lose our train of thought when we have to spread estimates over more than one day. I hope not to be repetitious and ask the same things I have already asked. Nevertheless, if I recall correctly, the minister had just finished responding to some of my introductory remarks. Incidentally, it is interesting to note that one complete political party seems to be missing from this Legislature tonight.
Mr. Nixon: Let's move to abolish the NDP.
Mr. Boudria: Perhaps it would be in order to move to abolish the New Democrats. Nevertheless, continuing with the debate, the minister had just finished explaining in response to my question on welfare why --
Mr. Nixon: We thought the NDP had finally folded.
Mr. Stokes: If you need my assistance, I'll be happy to oblige you.
Mr. Boudria: I am glad to see the member for Lake Nipigon. I want the record to show he is here.
We were just discussing the fact that the welfare rate in Ontario is at approximately 67 per cent of the national poverty line. In response to that, the minister was explaining that welfare is a very small percentage here in Ontario in relation to other provinces. Of course, I concur with that, but one of the problems we have is that welfare was originally designed to be something of a very temporary nature. That is, even within all the legislation, the meaning of general welfare assistance.
However, we have many cases now, especially in my part of the province, where people have been on welfare for months and in some cases even years, because there is simply no work to be had. There are other cases where people are ill. I know the minister will respond that people with illnesses should properly be on family benefits and, of course, I concur with him.
However, the reality of the situation is that people often stay on welfare for a long time until their cases are finally heard by proper medical authorities or finally approved or dismissed by the family benefits people. Then they go in front of the social assistance review board, are rejected there, and apply over again. We have people in my constituency who have been on welfare for a long time for that reason and for several others, such as lack of employment.
I recognize their number as a percentage may be smaller than in other provinces, but at the same time I think the minister should recognize that for those people who are unfortunate enough to be on general welfare assistance it is of very little comfort to have to live on basically 67 per cent of what they need even to make ends meet. After all, that is the definition of the poverty line, that level at which one cannot provide anything but the bare necessities.
I recognize that we went ahead and moved in a positive direction when we increased the rate for the permanently unemployable people last year, as the minister pointed out. That is very true. That needed to be corrected and it has been done and I am very glad to hear that. A lot of people in this province who are drawing that type of benefit are very pleased with that as well.
I would also like to point out that the female recipients of Gains-D are eligible as of today to avail themselves of the services of family benefits as well. Prior to today, a married female recipient of Gains-D could not collect such benefits. If her husband was unemployed, they both had to go on welfare. Of course, the reverse was not true for a male. As of today, April 1, that situation has been rectified and I think that is a very positive move as well.
I would like to go back again briefly to sole support parents and this business of their being transferred to general welfare assistance. In the case where they have dependants, it is still very difficult to imagine that those people who are now drawing mother's allowance will have to go on general welfare assistance. In view of the rate for GWA, they are going to have a hard time making ends meet. I would like the minister to address that and elaborate on how that will be done and what the benefits will be.
I wonder if the minister could talk a little bit about homes for the aged and living conditions in them. In Toronto lately we have heard a lot of discussion, especially about one home operated by Metro called Greenacres Home for the Aged. There has been quite a controversy about the living conditions of the patients in that facility. I am sure it must be a symptom that exists elsewhere as well, but perhaps we have not heard as much about other homes as that one. It seems to have attracted an awful lot of attention.
One final thing, if I may: I should perhaps have addressed this in my original remarks. The federal Minister of National Health and Welfare has suggested that there should be an increase in the Canada pension plan for the disabled. We know Ontario has what is in effect a veto power over such changes. A province or a combination of provinces which have at least one third of the population can veto.
That is to say, one needs the agreement of at least two thirds of the provinces. In view of the fact that Ontario by itself has more than one third of the population of this country, that gives it an outright veto in this particular case. I would like to know what the government's position will be on that increase suggested by the federal minister.
Those are all of my comments, Mr. Chairman. I would invite the minister to respond to them.
Mr. Chairman: I will have to have my memory refreshed if we are going in rotation. Oh, the minister is going to respond. Fine.
Hon. Mr. Drea: That was the precedent the other night, Mr. Chairman.
Before I start, I would like to thank the member for Prescott-Russell and the member for Scarborough West (Mr. R. F. Johnston) for their very kind consideration of a conflict I had the other evening, by agreeing to adjourn this particular matter until today. While it may be heresy, as I pointed out to the member for Prescott-Russell a few moments ago, it is quite often much easier for a minister of the crown to rearrange his schedule than a back-bencher. I do appreciate the very kind consideration shown by the two of them.
Just to elaborate for a moment on one concern of the member in regard to having a single social assistance delivery system for the able-bodied, we are not going to transfer able-bodied persons under the Family Benefits Act to general welfare assistance. There will be no more GWA or FBA for the able-bodied; there will be one program.
8:10 p.m.
As I pointed out in the address I made to the Ontario Municipal Social Services Association last June, the non-able-bodied will not be considered as recipients of social assistance or, in the vernacular, welfare. They are now to be regarded as provincial pensioners. They will not be in the normal welfare system. Their allowances will be paid directly by the province and their community endeavours -- because, as I continue to emphasize, we are not mere cheque-writing machines -- their community endeavours will be through community groups which are funded by the province on a transfer basis either directly to the agency, the community group, the church, whatever or through the municipality.
Why the change? I do not think you can go on much longer with two competing delivery systems in a community. First, there is waste and duplication. Second, one of the delivery systems is far superior to the other. The municipal one is far superior, whether it is city, county or regional, because it has many offices. Right now it has to process all of the applications. It is the only one capable of delivering. The province is relatively remote. The province takes the paper from the municipality.
In the case of the able-bodied, the real concern of those in the social services field is to try to get them back into the community as much as possible. The present system leads to segregation and ghettoization because the delivery system that is there in great numbers at the municipal level is not allowed to handle a case after 90 days and it goes on family benefits. Why should they open a case file and begin to look at counselling or a whole lot of other things because -- and remember we are dealing with the able-bodied -- there are always other things. They are not things you can snap your thumb at and tell somebody your real problem is this or that, so just cure the problem.
I think the member has had enough experience in this world to know that quite often those are long and difficult and require specialized help. The files are not even being opened on them. Why should they be, because in 90 days they will become a provincial recipient? When you become a provincial recipient it is a remote thing. You get your cheque at the end of the month. If you do get into any difficulty and need special assistance or anything else, you go back to the municipal system.
What we want is one system for the able-bodied and one system on a comparable but different basis for the disabled or what we now call the pensioners. We will fund it accordingly. There will be one rate and so on. It is not a lowering of rates or a raising of rates, it is the integration of a service component so that social assistance will have the potential and the reality of being a hand up and not a handout. None of us wants that, because it does not do a single bit of good, particularly for the long-term cases you are referring to.
For years, not only in this Legislature but in the gatherings of concerned people everywhere, the biggest concern has been this ghettoization, this segregation, this isolation from the mainstream of the community. I do not think you can begin to attack that until you have a single-focus program for the able-bodied, as well as a single focus put on a great many differing parts, a specialized approach to the problems of the disabled.
There is a difference between those who have become disabled in adult life because of poor health and those who were born with a disability, such as the developmentally handicapped or indeed physically handicapped. There is a difference between the one who has suffered enormously from emotional illnesses and has to be brought back gradually into the community and someone who perhaps will never, except without massive support systems, be able to even live in the community. I think we have achieved that yardstick.
For years, the people who were disabled used to complain a little privately about why they had to go to the welfare office because they were sick, etc. I am sure you have had these conversations where medical practitioners who do decide in the end are wriggling the lines and doing the testing. These disabled ask: "Why do I have to go to the welfare office? I am really a pensioner. It is my health. If I could work, believe me, I would not care if I had to move to the Northwest Territories, I would work."
Every one of us has heard that. There is the widow who says, "It is really beyond my control; I am not in the welfare system." Okay, we are breaking that away by saying, "You are in the pension system." At least that is a morale incentive and a psychological thing. I think that will pay dividends.
As you know, we have done certain things to raise the rates and to end all the red tape. If a person is permanently unemployable and cannot work because of his health then he is disabled. It is not through medical diagnosis. It is not through all the things people have with that affliction. That is a terrible affliction at any time, but particularly in middle age. One has worked, has done a lot of things and then, suddenly, one's health goes and they say, "You cannot work any more but you are not disabled."
I knew about that stuff 10 or 12 years ago. I swore if I was ever the minister, I certainly would do it. I have urged every minister along the way to do it. We have done it and that is it. By October or November when the final step comes in there is one rate, one category and that is it.
There will be dialogue. I am quite sure there will be dialogue between you and me as we go into tests with municipalities. The tests we want to do are not pilot projects. They are tests to refine and to streamline, because the municipalities are enthusiastic about this. I think that is exciting because it means the community wants to come to grips with this problem.
There is a lot of cynicism around today that social assistance is a dead-end road, that it is not a popular thing and the public is fed up all the way up to the eyeballs with it. They have heard it all, backwards and forwards, for two decades. That is true. But I also think the public, that is, you, me and the people who put up all of the money, really want to get down to business and get at it.
They are saying: "Will you stop talking about it? Will you stop having philosophical arguments? Just get to it. You know the system is not what it should be. You have some brains. You have some talent. Will you please all get together and do it because, Lord knows, we have put enough of you in administrative offices." That is precisely what we are doing.
The honourable member talked briefly of some concerns about homes for the aged. I think today we have not a problem in the homes for the aged, either run municipally or by charitable foundations, but rather a challenge.
As the member knows, residential care for the aged has just about disappeared. There is literally no market for able-bodied people who want to live communally in a home for the aged in the vast bulk of the province that there was only a few years ago. What is happening now is the people who are looking for that type of care are coming in at a much later age and, in the vernacular, are frail. They have a health problem. If they do not qualify on the bureaucratic sheet they are really a nursing home case or extended care case.
I say to the members who are here tonight, when you check into your own homes for the aged in your own locales and you talk privately to the administrators or to the people you know there, regardless of whether it is a charitable institution or a municipal one, they will confirm what I have been saying. The people who are still there and are residential, fully ambulatory, are there only because they came in a few years ago. There is nobody coming in the front door.
8:20 p.m.
What is happening is that no matter how modern many of the homes are, and no matter how much they were built to the standards of the times, they were built as residential places. They were not built as extended care facilities. That is the challenge. Those places have to be converted.
When I talk about not being built for it, yes, the beds can be in the same place but, for instance, the washrooms have to be changed. My friend and colleague the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Mr. Bennett) and I were in Ottawa not too long ago at a home for the aged that was built in 1964 beyond any known government or private standards; a marvellous place, way beyond; and yet in 1982 it is obsolete inside.
Only one washroom door per floor will fit a wheelchair. Most of the patients now are nonambulatory. One can always bring food by tray, but for the washrooms and the bathing rooms and so forth, the vital things, the very basics of humanity, especially when somebody becomes frail, one has to have the facilities and one has to have the design.
What are we doing about it? In many of them, we are putting up the funds if they renovate. Somehow there is the mysterious thing, that we are doing something wrong if we are not building something new. The building is fine. Many of the buildings are fine. The interiors have to be changed to meet the modern case load.
With regard to Greenacres, the province has not been stingy. Greenacres was built as a residential home for the aged. It is only 25 years old. To many people it is incomprehensible as to how a structure only 25 years old cannot meet the need. In those 25 years, Greenacres has changed from a residential home for the aged -- sure, the bathrooms could be at the end of the floor; everybody was walking. In all but name it now is a psychogeriatric hospital. That is their entire clientele in that building. They are all psychogeriatric. Many of them are no longer ambulatory. Most of them are feeble.
I know you must wonder when reading that people literally have to be dragged to the bathroom. The bathrooms are at the end of the corridor. When people are walking and the distance is from here to the front door of this chamber, that is perfectly normal. But when people suddenly and forever are going to be nonambulatory or are feeble or confused or with dementia, in all the categories of the psychogeriatric patient, it is a tremendous burden on staff to take them that distance.
So that burden on staff becomes enormous and more staff has to be hired. Yet all of the standards -- I am not talking about the standards of rigidity; I am talking about just the normal standards. You can say, "For a place like that, you need only a staff of this size." If all of the clientele were ambulatory, as in the old days, yes, but the world has changed in there and the world is never going to change back.
We have to meet that challenge. I think we have to face up to it. As you noticed in the throne speech, in addition to the work we are doing, there is shortly to commence a joint study between the Ministry of Health, which has the extended care homes or the nursing homes, and ourselves, particularly to begin to rationalize the care of the elderly. They are really all coming into one category. They are extended care at the very least. There is very little residential.
To my critic from the Liberal Party, because of the logistics and so forth in his area it may not be as pronounced a trend there today as, for instance, in the city of Ottawa, but the difference is not very far behind and it will catch up. This is the challenge and this is what we have to work at. We have to change the places that fulfilled an honourable and a decent role, and have done it on an outstanding basis. The municipal homes for the aged and the charitable homes for the aged in this province were the very real pioneers of care for the aged and have done a marvellous job over the years. They are the pride and joy of the rural counties and municipalities in many cities and of the churches. All they have done is to be too successful and now they have to meet another challenge.
As a government we have to give them the resources to do so and have a standardized structure so we can put the resources into care without the worry of duplication of jurisdiction or how the capital is raised or whether it is on private tender and so forth.
In the meantime, in the particular case at Greenacres and at the other Metro homes which come under the most pressure -- there have been some in rural areas where there has not been the notoriety but they have been brought to my attention -- this minister and this government have not been stingy. We have been issuing the closest things to blank cheques humanly possible within government.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Oh now, now, now; the minister should not get carried away.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I look at the chairman of the public accounts committee and he will recall the former leader of the New Democratic Party saying, "What are you going to do about Greenacres?" I was at a dinner the night before with my friend the Metro chairman. I asked him if he would get the thing fixed up and send me the bill. That is what we did.
Mr. T. P. Reid: All right, but that is not across the board. That was for Greenacres. The minister indicated he was writing a blank cheque for everybody in Ontario.
Hon. Mr. Drea: It is not only Greenacres, it is Fudger House. I point that out because of the problem in Metro and the problem in some rural areas where they have anticipated the problem because of the experience in Metro. It could be done there in a much more orderly fashion than it is being done.
On the question of the Canada pension plan, I did not reject anything. The federal minister rebuffed me.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Nothing personal, I trust.
Hon. Mr. Drea: No. Actually we are very good friends. She does pay social calls upon me.
Mr. Roy: She does not go for the minister at all.
Hon. Mr. Drea: That is not what she said in my office. She is a very fine, distinguished minister and a credit to not only her sex but to all of the things that are fine in this country. Let us make no mistake about that. The federal minister has a very deep concern about the level of the CPP disability pension.
There are many CPP pensioners who, because they are no longer able to work at an earlier age or have not worked very long, have not built up very much credit. They are therefore very far away from the general average or the maximum shared average under social assistance for a disabled person from outside of the CPP of $501. The federal minister wants to do something about it. One of her proposals was to use the CPP itself to bring that level up to $500. That is her proposal. It is not the proposal of the government of Canada. It is not the proposal of the federal Minister of Finance.
The federal Minister of Finance and the 10 provincial ministers are now dealing with the Canada pension plan in its entirety. The proposal boiled down by Mme. Bégin was that provincial and federal social services ministers draw to the attention of the 11 ministers of finance, one of them being my good friend and colleague the member for Muskoka (Mr. F. S. Miller), that this should be considered in their deliberations over the future of the Canada pension plan.
8:30 p.m.
Mr. McClellan: But the Treasurer (Mr. F. S. Miller) already vetoed it, didn't he?
Hon. Mr. Drea: No. He didn't veto anything. She rebuffed me. I will now tell you how she rebuffed the Ontario plan -- it was not even a veto; she just said "no." I proposed that we use guaranteed income supplement money to bring the disability rate up to that $501 level right now, to use it as a bridge until future arrangements were made under one of two plans, either the Canada pension plan or the proposed -- I suppose "proposed" is the best word, because it is still a concept -- national disability insurance program, somewhat akin to --
Mr. McClellan: Your Treasurer will veto whichever is proposed.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Oh, be careful.
Mr. Martel: He wouldn't dare.
Hon. Mr. Drea: The proposed national disability insurance program, outside of CPP, would be somewhat akin to the program Saskatchewan is considering bringing in.
The reason Ontario advocated the use of the GIS was that there was a precedent for it with CPP. In the beginnings of CPP, with the survivors' benefits and disability benefits, GIS money was used until the CPP credits were built up. That particular bridge was devised by the person who is today the federal Minister of Finance, Mr. MacEachen. It worked well because the moment CPP, as a pension, became viable, the GIS money was disengaged and put back to its normal use. There was no clutter, no duplication, no red tape, no abolishing of programs, no mergers or anything. Once the bridge was completed, a clear-cut demarcation, there was a program that I think has operated relatively well ever since.
The problem facing us is that the future of the CPP is not going to be decided for a while; so why not use that GIS money --
Mr. Mackenzie: At least five years, according to your people.
Hon. Mr. Drea: That may be; or it may be 10. But why not use that GIS money on the disability as a bridge, which I say to the member for Hamilton East is exactly what the trade union movement, in its collective bargaining, does as well; it does something until the good solution is found. I was told -- not only told, I was shouted at -- "No, not a single penny of GIS. It would cost $240 million. Not a penny. You must be joking."
Along with some other provinces, I said the Ontario proposal was not a joke; it was a very realistic attempt to deal in a very realistic manner with a problem that is going to be here today and tomorrow until the CPP in its totality, as normal or conventional retirement benefits and survivors' benefits, as disability, or as a national insurance program, is straightened out. The great benefit was that we could disengage the moment that money was no longer needed and we would no longer have the duplication of plans etc.
The Minister of National Health and Welfare told me "no." She told me furthermore that the federal Minister of Finance would not look favourably upon it. I rather thought he would. I really do not know, because it has not been put to him. That was around 9:35 a.m. on February 24 or 25. She never unveiled her proposal about the CPP until the afternoon.
The Treasurer of this province stands falsely accused of not having done anything. The program I put forward there was backed by the Treasurer of Ontario. His parliamentary assistant was with me when it was presented, my parliamentary assistant was there, and we were told "no." That is where it stands as of this moment.
I will tell you something. I am willing to wager that within a year the federal government will start using GIS money: they may not do it exactly in the way that we suggest, but I am willing to wager that within a year they start using it.
Mr. Stokes: How much?
Hon. Mr. Drea: I tell you, I do not want any credit for it at all -- no credit at all -- but they will being using it because there is a need to use a clear and effective bridging mechanism out there and it cannot be found in the CPP.
Mr. Stokes: I'll take $50 on that.
Hon. Mr. Drea: The last time you took $50 on me, I had to travel all the way to the north to collect. Gasoline was only 49 cents a gallon in those days. There is no way I am coming to collect at $2.50 a gallon.
Mr. Boudria: That's because of the act valorem gas tax.
Hon. Mr. Drea: No, it is not because of the ad valorem gas tax. You were so considerate the other night that I will be benevolent tonight.
I hope that answers your questions and your concerns. These are going to be ongoing; perhaps you might like to discuss that on some future occasion. As I say, my parliamentary assistant was there during the negotiations, and the parliamentary assistant for the Treasurer was there, as was the Treasurer's staff. It was a full-fledged Ontario proposal, and it was rejected completely out of hand.
Mr. Chairman: Continuing with supplementary estimates, are we going to have a little discussion as to who is going to speak? Mr. Boudria, do you have further questions?
Mr. Boudria: I have one or two more points, Mr. Chairman, and then I will be finished, if that is okay.
If that happens with the GIS, I will be the first to give the credit to the minister.
Mr. Stokes: It is not his money; it's Ottawa's.
Mr. Boudria: I realize that, but it was his proposal and I have no way of knowing what went on at that meeting --
Hon. Mr. Drea: Oh, there is a tape. She taped it all.
Mr. Boudria: I see. Maybe somebody does not trust somebody else if the conversation was taped for future record.
I just want to make a few remarks. He is quite right when he says that there is not as much stigma attached to the Family Benefits Act as there is to the general welfare assistance, and we have seen a lot of evidence of that. People in my constituency do not exactly brag about the fact that they are on GWA. It is something they do not like to discuss even if they are ill and on assistance and, as I said, many of them are. However, those who are on FBA think of themselves as being pensioned, because they are no longer capable of working, and that is seen by everybody, themselves included, in a much different light.
I am glad to hear that the minister is attempting to have some rationalization of the situation in the homes for the aged. It is a very confusing issue. To most people in the general population, it is very difficult to understand the difference between a home for the aged, a home for special care in certain cases and a nursing home. In many cases, I would be the first to say there is none. There is, perhaps, a difference in the level of care but there is none in the composition of the clientele that they have. They seem to have customers who have almost identical needs, although their needs are not met at the same level. That seems to be a problem, and I am glad to hear the minister is addressing that.
In closing, I would be remiss if I did not point out the excellent service that we are getting from the FBA office in my own constituency under the leadership of the person in that area, whose name is Mr. Paul Blondin. He took over that office approximately a year ago. I did not consider the service to be all that great at the time that he took over. He had to make some major changes and he did them and the service has improved considerably. There are still improvements to be made, perhaps most of them because of the fact that there are so many cases lagging from before. Perhaps that is the reason. As a matter of fact, I am quite sure that is the main reason there are still improvements to be made.
I feel it was a good move on the part of the ministry to have people in those offices who are actually in charge, because before there was nobody in charge in those offices except a person located very remotely away. I think the person in Cornwall was somewhat responsible for the office in Hawkesbury, for instance.
It is very difficult to supervise an office from a distance of 50 miles. I am sure the northern member thinks 50 miles is close, but we think of it as being a very ineffective way of controlling something. The new method of having somebody directly in charge and with local decision-making power in that office has really enhanced the way that whole operation seems to work; it has increased the efficiency and the quality of service the constituents of my own riding have received.
8:40 p.m.
Mr. Stokes: Mr. Chairman, first of all, I want to explain to the minister and members of the House that our critic for the Ministry of Community and Social Services is ill tonight and will not be back; so he will not be able to participate in these estimates.
I want to start out by congratulating the minister on taking over the very onerous responsibilities that are attached to this ministry. I know that he has made his mark already, because in terms of the supplementary estimates he has got a fair chunk of the money that is required for the delivery of programs to complete the financial responsibilities during fiscal year 1981-82. Already he is making his mark.
More important than that, I happen to know that this minister had a very key and pivotal role to play in the setting up of a delivery system for mental health along the north shore of Lake Superior where for the first time ever in northern Ontario a psychiatrist will be stationed on the scene. That is a far cry from the situation that existed prior to his arrival, when many of the children with learning disabilities were waiting as long as a year just for an assessment. I know that is not the primary reason for setting up a resident psychiatrist in the north as a pilot project; but not only will he be a resident of the community of Terrace Bay, he will also travel to other communities such as Marathon, Heron Bay, Manitouwadge, Caramat, Geraldton, Longlac, Beardmore --
Hon. Mr. Drea: Schreiber.
Mr. Stokes: I will get to that. I am going around the horn -- Beardmore, Nipigon, Red Rock, Dorion, Hurkett and, last but not least, the fair community of Schreiber.
We have a steering committee set up that is charged with the responsibility of making recommendations for a board, somebody who will know the needs in those various communities and set up a regimen for this psychiatrist and his aides to deliver that much-needed service to that area.
The budget for this year is in the neighbourhood of $330,000, which is not an insignificant amount of money when one considers the need for this kind of thing throughout the province. It is my understanding that all of the money is not coming out of this ministry; it is a shared program between this ministry and the Ministry of Health. I would have to say, and with pleasure -- in fact, I would be remiss if I did not say so -- that the people in that area are extremely appreciative of the joint efforts being made by this minister and his colleague the Minister of Health (Mr. Grossman).
I was pleased to hear the minister say he found it dismaying that somebody could be permanently unemployable but not classified as disabled. I have found that just as disconcerting as the client group, and I was just as dismayed as the minister himself when I first came into this assembly and found that to be the case.
I welcome the assurance he gives that before many months have passed this will be a thing of the past and that if somebody is permanently unemployable, he will be considered to be disabled for all intents and purposes. All of us here have to deal with this client group on a regular basis, and we know this is nothing more than a play on words. I do not know how one differentiates between someone who is permanently unemployable and someone who is disabled. I am sure the minister has the total support of everybody in this assembly in making that change.
In going over the detailed items for this supplementary estimate of $43 million, we always wish it was more in times of austerity and constraint. I am sure the minister has done his level best to make an impression upon his cabinet colleagues for the things needed by the group that, for whatever reason, needs the temporary and sometimes permanent assistance of this ministry.
I wish to ask the minister something specific. I checked with my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine (Ms. Bryden), because I felt she might be much more knowledgeable in this field than I am. I want to hark back to a situation that occurred a few years ago in my riding where a person was a full-time employee of the Department of National Defence, working at a radar base in an unorganized community.
This man and his wife had 10 children. He was employed for $310 a month, with which he had to keep the 12 of them together. This was a few years ago. The gentleman in question said: "I can't afford to keep working. I like my job. I enjoy what I do. I like the environment and everything else. But my family can't afford me. I know I could make more if I were on welfare."
I said: "Wait a minute. Don't quit your job. Let me check this out and see what you would get on welfare to satisfy at least the basic needs of you, your wife and your 10 children." I contacted John Yaremko, who was the Minister of Social and Family Services. I think that is what the ministry was called at that time.
I said: "He gets $310 a month and if he were on welfare he would be getting something like $478 a month, a difference of about $168. Obviously, he is doing his family an injustice by continuing to work, but he likes his job. Why don't you come up with a program that will supplement his regular wages and allow him to maintain his pride and dignity by continuing to work and yet not do his family an injustice?"
8:50 p.m.
My friend John said: "Let me talk about this to my officials." He came back about a week later and said: "I am sorry. My officials tell me we don't have such a program and there is nothing we can do."
I said: "John, the man is going to quit his job. In fact, I am going to suggest that he quit his job, because he is doing his family an injustice. I don't want that, he doesn't want that and I am sure you don't want it; so why don't you go back to your officials again and design a program rather than using a program that was designed by mandarins and bureaucrats down here in the ivory tower, who then went out to try to find a client group that it would fit. Get out in the community. Find out where people are hurting, where they need, as you say, a leg up or a hand up rather than a handout." That is all we were asking on behalf of this fellow, and he said, "No, there is absolutely nothing we can do."
I want to report to you, Mr. Chairman, and to the minister that fellow quit his job and for all practical purposes he has not done a gainful day's work in the interim, and you know how long ago it was.
Mr. Nixon: Do you mean the minister?
Mr. Stokes: No. I think you know what I am saying.
I am told by my colleague the member for Beaches-Woodbine that the government does have some kind of program of assistance to a limited degree, though perhaps not in monetary terms. It will pay their Ontario hospital insurance plan premiums and perhaps give them a fuel allowance or something of that nature, but no real dollars to supplement their earnings, which are meagre, far below the poverty line, and the difference between what they would get and what it takes them to maintain a family at a reasonable level.
I want to ask the minister, if he does have such a program, why is it as badly underfunded as my colleague suggested to me a little earlier? I must confess I have not had a large number of people asking me, but it has bothered me for lo these 12 years, since I first brought it to the minister's attention. I am unaware of it, but if there is such a program, I would like the minister to explain it to me in some detail.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Before getting into that, Mr. Chairman, I would like to discuss very briefly the matter of the pioneering effort in the provision of a psychiatrist in the children's mental health area, because it is a community one.
All the things the member has said about the program are accurate at this time. We see a great potential, particularly for areas like the north shore which will never be in a position to offer enough in one location for that very specialized type of practitioner to be able to locate permanently in such locations, not just on the basis of his or her earnings but also on the basis of getting enough clients in any one place to have a reasonable practice.
I am quite sure this will be the first of many, and it will not necessarily restricted to the psychiatric or psychological disciplines. There are other areas. The introduction of Bill 82 will almost make that mandatory. It is always nice to say something is mandatory when talking about downtown Toronto; there is one on every street corner. It is another thing when there are distances of locale, time, space, a rather sparse population and all those other things.
We are really looking forward to great things from that program. However, since the member brought it up, I want to put a little bit of an onus on him, because he knows intimately each and every one of those communities he named tonight, while I have only been in them.
Mr. Stokes: You've been around, Frank.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I am a minister who does not go out of the province, remember. You have to go somewhere.
The very fibre and core of that program is going to be the community board. I would appreciate it, because I am some 2,900 air miles away, as is my colleague the Minister of Health. We share the concern. We do not want that board to become an institutional board.
We understand the difficulties at this time of starting up. There has to be a bit of expertise. Many persons there may be a little bit shy about getting into it, and therefore you have to start with somebody. But I think it would be a fatal mistake if that became an institution-dominated board. It may be in the beginning, but as rapidly as possible it should embrace the entire community.
I say to the member for Lake Nipigon that I hope he will encourage the people in the community to participate. I know many of them may be shy. They may feel that this is an area for professional people, that maybe they will not be able to contribute as meaningfully at that level as at some other. But if that program is to do what is expected in that area and become the pioneer effort, not just for the more remote or less densely populated areas of the north but also for the rest of the country, then it is going to be because of the community response and participation on the board.
I certainly hope the people who read this will understand this is a very earnest and candid plea from myself and the Minister of Health. We are not disparaging anybody else, but this was to be set up as a community effort. If it is going to be a community effort, it has to be a community board or else the community will eventually feel just as isolated from it as they do about having to go and get services many miles away. I certainly hope they will respond.
In terms of the question asked by the honourable member about supplementing full-time wages, there is no formal program. What has been done by levels of government -- because one is into a difficulty about supplementing one man's wages because of family circumstances and yet not in other ones. In this case it is the number of children and the locale that puts particular stress upon the family and indeed makes social assistance enticing.
Social assistance has to be based upon the realities of so many mouths to feed. The allowances for the larger family have to be more than for the smaller family, whereas the paycheque is a single unit, whether you have no spouse and no dependants or whether you have a spouse and a number of dependants.
However, governments at various levels have tried to attack this problem through the tax credit system, through increasing the family allowance or the baby bonus, through premium assistance for OHIP and other ways. Frankly, it is not as much of a problem today as it was at the time the honourable member refers to, which was a dozen or so years ago. At that time it was a very real concern, because in many cases you did not have to have more than three or four children or a particular problem in the household, a particular problem of illness or something; quite frankly, social assistance was more attractive.
Inflation, the rise of wages in the country and so forth has diminished that appeal. We have also made changes now where, if a person is on social assistance, we encourage and allow for part-time work and a number of other things to get the person back in. These have also made assistance less attractive. However, I think the fundamental point the member makes, that social assistance should never be intended as a substitute for the wages that can come from gainful employment, is very significant.
9 p.m.
Social assistance for the able-bodied has to be a temporary measure. That may last a heck of a long time. It may take a long time to have that person back and entirely self-sufficient. Indeed, he may be with his maker before he is entirely self-sufficient. But I think we have to look at the system as a hand-up one, an endless series of hand-ups where, no matter how many failures there are or how many frustrations, as long as one is willing to try there is a hand-up.
One area where we are doing this is in the field of the handicapped. We have started the process in the case of a person who is physically handicapped where it does not relate to the retarded field where he insists upon the massive community support program for the developmentally handicapped person who lives outside of a facility.
In the case of the physically handicapped individual who does require attendant care, we have started the process where, in addition to one's monthly disability pension, we will provide an amount equal to what it would cost us to purchase attendant care in a small home or a residence. If one wants to live by oneself with one's attendant, one has one's monthly pension plus a fixed amount. We have four of those now in the province. In fact, we have had three requests since I have been the minister. All three have been granted.
It is so new it is not even recognized by Revenue Canada and I feel rather sheepish in saying, "I can give you your pension but I cannot give you this lump sum or you will have to pay income tax on it because there is no provision." We have to finesse a way through a charitable organization operating as a trustee so the person is not jeopardized by having to pay income tax on that amount, which he never receives anyway. It is turned over in terms of the attendant care.
California has been quite successful in this regard. I know everybody picks holes in its administrative system, criticizes it and everything else, but California has a very simple program for anyone who would ordinarily reside in an institution: "Here is how much it would cost to put you in that institution. If you choose to live independently, here is the money."
There are many critics of the program. They say it erodes standards. It does a lot of things. You are at the mercy of God knows what kind of a person you are going to meet up with who is going to be your attendant or your associate. You are at risk out there. How can a government do that? Quite often forgotten is the fact that person, notwithstanding he is handicapped, has every single right to live independently in the community. Nobody picks the standard by which you and I do. They may make suggestions. They may tell us the kind of medical or health care to get, but whether we obtain it or not, whether we are satisfied with something else either higher or lower, in the end is our own business.
I think that type of thing, which is somewhat akin to what you were saying because it would be subsidizing their pensions, wages or whatever, is the coming thing. It is not for all handicapped. I think we would make a terrible mistake if we said, "You are all going to have to do this," because many of them cannot or do not want to. I think there are some implications and some advantages in that direction.
The Deputy Chairman: The member for Rainy River. I am sorry, is this a follow-through immediately? The member for Windsor-Walkerville.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Chairman, I trust the answers will be as brief as the questions.
The Deputy Chairman: That was why I was tempted to listen to this gentleman. Please proceed.
Mr. Newman: Mr. Chairman, I want to bring to the minister's attention several items concerning this ministry that have disturbed me over the years. I was wondering why there was not some type of assistance given to families or individuals in the family who qualify for certain types of programs where the family would prefer to keep an individual at home, but to keep him or her at home would sometimes mean some structural changes to the home to accommodate the individual.
In my estimation, it would probably be a cheaper program than having people put into a nursing home, a rest home, you name it, or even a hospital in cases where a hospital situation is required. I thought there might be some type of financial assistance to the children to keep mom or dad, brother or sister right in the facility, which might mean adding an extra room, putting in a bathroom, or various structural changes to accommodate the individual who is going to stay at home with his friends, relatives or loved ones. Of three items that disturb me, that is one I would appreciate the minister replying to.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Could I answer them one at time?
Mr. Newman: All right then, if the chairman will allow me to ask the other two.
Hon. Mr. Drea: We have a rather ad hoc program at the moment. We can do that type of thing by order in council on a very specialized basis. But I think that is the wave of the future. We have to begin looking at adaptations of care packages. Not everybody needs to be cared for in a hospital, an institution, a facility, a nursing home or whatever. If the goal of social programs is to enhance and strengthen family life, then I think we have to go beyond the talking stage and start to do some things about it.
The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, for instance, has a program now for conversions that will help living for the handicapped -- a ramp or an extra bathroom or whatever. We are working on it. As the Minister of Health and I study the care package, where it should be, how flexible it should be, one of the spinoffs of that will be that we will be dealing with those who are not aged but who are just as frail as the aged and require care.
One man received a very special benefit from us -- I was talking about that a moment ago -- when he found out he had a very debilitating disease and he had about two or three years before that disease really took its toll and he would no longer be in control of himself. He consulted with the ministry and took all of his assets and converted his home into the type of home in which he would be able to live as a nonambulatory person with a very debilitating disease. We arranged that so that he could put his assets into a physical change for a new lifestyle and there would be no waiting period when it came time for his pension. Indeed, he has been able to remain in his own home. For many families, no question, that is not possible.
I do think where a family is concerned enough about a member of the family we should be coming in a very practical way to its assistance, even if it is much easier and more practical in the ways of the world to have that person institutionalized and the individual might get "better" care in the institution because at least there is a change of shifts. The member is quite right, in many cases it is a structure such as a bathroom, a ramp, or a lot of other things that are needed. These are the things we are looking at today, rather than the building of more and more beds in a central area. I hope that in the next 18 months or so we will begin to make some significant advances in having a really flexible care package.
9:10 p.m.
Mr. Newman: I appreciate the minister's comments. He does not realize it is almost 20 years since I brought that up in this House hoping that government would listen to exactly what we are talking about right now. I am pleased to see the minister is at least forward thinking when it comes to a situation like this. It is the right approach and I am pleased the minister's officials -- maybe they should have read Hansard back in the early days when I was around this place.
There are two other items, unless the minister wants to reply.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I would like to respond and say to someone who has advocated that type of program for more than two decades that I will give him a government guarantee. Notwithstanding who is the minister of this portfolio, there will be a real practical start on that type of program before the member says goodbye to this House. I would certainly hope there is some recognition across the province of someone who was a very real pioneer in this area. He fought at a time when he was told he was silly, that he should look at the marvellous institutions we had, that he was really very backward and so on.
I listened to it and I have seen some of the things that have come back at the member. I guarantee the member for Windsor-Walkerville, on behalf of this government, it will be there before he makes his swan song in this House. It may not be the best and it may not be doing all things, but it will be there.
Mr. Newman: I look for no recognition at all. My responsibilities here are to represent constituents in particular and the public in general. If I can make anything constructive in this House, I think I have a responsibility to do that. As far as any plaudits for it, I look for nothing of that sort at all.
The other item I would like to raise is concerning the social assistance appeal boards. Why does a municipality have to wait for three or four individuals to come into the city of Windsor on a certain date to hear appeals? Why not have three Windsor residents, selected by the ministry, who have just as much intelligence as any of those who are going to come into the community, hear the appeals as quickly as possible? Why punish those who need the assistance by making them wait for the period a tribunal comes into the community and decides that person or persons qualify for assistance? We are punishing the wrong people.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I was part of the beginning and remember there had been no interpretations; it was all a new thing some years ago. There would be regional interpretations and therefore the concern about regional boards was that in some areas of the province there would not be uniform administration. Windsor and Essex counties were not one of those.
I realize there have been difficulties, particularly with travel arrangements and so forth. But we have expanded the board now at the request of the new chairman, which should mean much faster appeals and more representation from regional areas. That should cut the backlog. Sometimes there is a reason for a bit of a backlog, either they fell under another municipality, or maybe required further investigation. One of the long backlogs, I say in fairness to the member, has been this medical question of permanently unemployable or disabled and that has gone forever.
I hope that will speed it up. If that does not work and the backlog is not cut, I will certainly consider regional boards, because I do not like those delays for two reasons. First, your colleague the member for Prescott-Russell mentioned that you can be on general welfare assistance a long time, because they are sifting through medical evidence and then they find out you should be on family benefits. But it does not do a heck of a lot of good because you were at the lower rate for a period of time and it is all being reviewed. That is one reason. There is an impact; the rates are different now.
Second, there is the burden upon the municipality if it should have been a family benefits case nine months ago. The municipality still, over those nine months, had to pay the 20 per cent and it needs all its resources.
We should have been studying it. I certainly am aware of his concerns about the delays. I am aware of his advocacy of regional boards which might be faster. I think improvements in the boards will accomplish that. If they do not, we will certainly take a real look -- because it has never really been looked at -- at the idea of regional boards. Today there are enough precedents that the decisions are pretty uniform. It is not like it was 12 years ago, seven years ago, five years ago or even two or three years ago.
Another thing that will happen is that there will be a diminishing return as we go on because all the appeals on children with learning disabilities will disappear with the full implementation of Bill 82. Right now those are long and involved cases and do tie up the board, but there is no other vehicle until the full implementation of the bill.
Mr. Newman: Mr. Chairman, if I may, again I raise the issue of the appeal tribunal, not only because there may be a long delay, but the minister is aware that my community, the city of Windsor, is probably the hardest hit community in Ontario when it comes to unemployment. Unemployment only leads to a series of other problems and because of that I would think there might be some exception given to the community as far as that is concerned.
Or when the number of appeals reaches a certain point, at that time get in the officials in a hurry to hear the appeals and resolve the problems for the time being. The minister is aware of the adverse effects unemployment has on everyone in the community. Mind you, Windsor will survive and come through its difficult days as a better community than it ever was before.
The other issue I want to raise is to thank the minister for finally resolving the problem of the permanently unemployed but not disabled. It really has been a headache to those of us who are confronted with the problem, as well as to the citizen who cannot understand and says, "Here I am permanently disabled but I am employable. How?" Who would hire that individual?
Mr. T. P. Reid: Are you going to reply?
Hon. Mr. Drea: I think it is pretty rhetorical. I think we have discussed it. I appreciate the member's comments.
The Deputy Chairman: The member for Beaches-Woodbine.
Mr. T. P. Reid: After all I've done for you!
The Deputy Chairman: I stayed with that party; I am moving over to the other one and then will come back. But I would like to alternate between sides, if I may. Your indulgence will be appreciated.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Ingratitude is the greatest of sins. Remember that.
Ms. Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I have a number of questions for the minister. My colleague the member for Lake Nipigon was talking about what I think is known as the work incentive program, which is geared to help some people who are perhaps considered to be the working poor. I would like to ask the minister if he can tell us how many people are on that program at present and how it compares with a year ago. Is that program growing in any way in order to keep people working rather than having them go on welfare where they can get a higher income?
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Chairman, I think it is not exactly as the member describes. The work incentive program is primarily designed to get mothers with dependent children off family benefits as much as possible. There are also work incentive programs in the area of vocational rehabilitation and the disabled. I would take it that the matter she is looking at in these particular estimates would be under the first vote, which dealt with the Family Benefits Act. If I cannot give the member the exact figures in a couple of minutes I will certainly provide them to her. As a rule of thumb, in answer to your question, yes, the numbers are increasing.
9:20 p.m.
That in itself does not indicate success, because we are concerned about the drop-out rate. The work incentive program has been designed as a real cushion and support to getting back into the work force and not losing all of the fringe benefits -- not losing the dental coverage or the OHIP or whatever. Before it was all or nothing. When they had children and they knew they were going to have medical expenses or something, it really was an all-or-nothing situation. No matter how much they wanted to go back they had to stay there.
It is not people dropping out for lack of work opportunity. We would not be so concerned with them dropping out if the jobs they were in were evaporating, but they are not. What we are concerned about is the growing number who are dropping out for what they call personal or family reasons. The job is still there, they could still be going to it, but they drop out and then a few months later re-enter at another job. The increasing numbers who are on it does not necessarily indicate total success. I think it is successful when they are attracted to work or they have the opportunity to work, but it is not a bottom-line situation.
By category in the work incentive programs, there are now nine persons in the aged category; 168 in the disabled and blind category; 1,505 in the sole-support mother category; 42 in the fathers with dependent children category as of February, 1982; 145 permanently unemployable, that is really disabled; and there is one person who has an unusual category called "other."
In comparison to February of 1981, there were four aged; 170 disabled and blind; 1,150 dependent mothers; 26 dependent fathers and 99 permanently unemployable. The total for February, 1982 -- or as close as we have it -- is 1,870 in such programs while there were 1,380 last year. When I say these are individuals, they are actually heads of families, so it represents more of the population than those numbers. Obviously, a mother or father represents more of the population. Disabled and blind may be a single individual or it may be a family but the benchmarks are 1,870 as of February 1982 and 1,380 as of February 1981.
Ms. Bryden: Probably one of the reasons there are still only 1,500 sole-support mothers on this is that either they cannot find day care for their children when they do wish to go out to work or they cannot find jobs that are anything but minimum wage or dead-end jobs, where they really would be better off to stay on welfare.
I think the important thing is if we are going to encourage people to leave welfare and to get into the work force we have to make it possible for them to be better off and to have their children adequately looked after. Simply to carry their OHIP and their other benefits for a few months is not going to result in any sort of permanent move into the work force.
I also think we still have to recognize there should be a choice in this matter. I do not think we should be forcing sole-support parents out into the work force if they feel they can be more effective in raising their families by providing what is in effect day care in the home, and that is a very valuable form of day care, as are day care facilities outside the home. I think we have to have that as a matter of choice.
I would like to ask the minister when he is going to give single fathers that choice by right, as presumably single mothers have had that right of choice, although there appears to be a move afoot, particularly in the general welfare assistance categories, to push sole-support mothers out into the work force, whether or not they wish to go, by various devices such as giving them lower allowances or not moving them on to family benefits and leaving them on general welfare.
Is the minister prepared to end that discrimination against single fathers and to give single sole-support parents of either sex the opportunity to have an adequate income and to stay at home to look after their children when they are under 12 or under 16, which is the age at which the child becomes an adult under the welfare system?
Hon. Mr. Drea: The question of an automatic entitlement for a single-parent, male-headed family has been under review for some time and is still under review. There are some implications in it. I cannot in all honesty give a date as to when a change will be made. I can give you a commitment that a change will be made, but I cannot give you a date.
Ms. Bryden: Do you accept it as discriminatory?
Hon. Mr. Drea: Of course I accept it as discriminatory.
Mr. Mackenzie: Are we going to see the change in your term?
Hon. Mr. Drea: You may not.
Ms. Bryden: While we are defending the rights of single males -- usually I am defending the rights of women in my portfolio in this House -- I have had a very interesting person come in to see me who is a single male. He was an orderly in a hospital and developed a heart condition that required him to have a bypass operation. This meant he could no longer be an orderly. He had this operation, which we were able to give to him through our medicare system, and he virtually had what could be called a new lease on life.
At the age of 53, that man really wishes that he had not been given his new lease on life because he has not been able to find any sort of employment. He cannot do heavy work, he cannot walk up and down stairs delivering handbills; but he can walk five miles on level ground, whereas before his operation he could perhaps walk 100 feet. He has been restored to reasonably good health with certain limitations as to the kind of work he can do.
He is being asked to live on the GWA rate for a single male. I think it is under $300 a month, and he just cannot find any sort of satisfaction in life on the very low figure that he is being given. Of course, he did not get any increase last fall when other people got increases, so that as the cost of living goes up his standard of living goes down.
9:30 p.m.
He is not able to find any work to supplement his meagre rate and he cannot find accommodation at a reasonable rate so a good deal of it goes to his household costs. He feels life is not worth living. Are we going to condemn people who cannot find work to that kind of life below the poverty line?
Hon. Mr. Drea: I would appreciate it if the honourable member would give me that person's name and address privately. I want to have some people talk to him. First of all, if all else fails, he should not be on general welfare assistance. He should be up in another category. I said, "If all else fails."
Ms. Bryden: He has been trying to change his category for six months to a year.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I will get the name. I said, "If all else fails." Secondly, I would be particularly interested in having our vocational rehabilitation people look at him because obviously, while he is not physically as strong as he once was, he does have certain capabilities. I would like to explore this through them and through Canada Manpower because he is going to be with everybody for a while; I think you said he was 55.
If you would give me his name and so forth privately, we will begin to work on it because I do not like situations like that. We have a system in which that is not supposed to occur. He may be unusual; he may be just a little different. I am very appreciative you would bring up such a matter on behalf of an individual. We will get on to it right away and report back to you.
Ms. Bryden: I thank the minister. I will try that route. I think a year or two ago he did try phoning Premier Davis' office. A couple of things happened but his problem is still not solved. Perhaps the minister will be able to do it this time.
Another area I wanted to talk about is the increase in welfare cases. I do not know whether the supplementary estimate is based on a realistic estimate of what is happening to our welfare load, although I suppose this is just to carry us to March 31. Presumably, we know what the liability is now. Some of what has been happening with this increase in welfare cases resulting from layoffs, from unemployment insurance running out and from the lack of action on job creation by this government, is creating a real crisis in welfare. It also seems to be resulting in a cutback in welfare services in kind rather than in actual dollars.
For example, I have learned that in one of the Metro Toronto welfare districts, the caseload on the social workers between November 1981 and December 1981 increased by 10 per cent which meant that seven workers who were carrying 634 cases in November were carrying 699 cases in December 1981.
In the fall, those workers were handling perhaps one or two emergency cases a day. In January 1982, they were handling up to four which meant less time for their regular caseload and under that kind of pressure the case workers are in danger of burning out. They are unable to give the same kind of service to the other people. One gets constant reports of people trying to phone a caseworker even during the limited hours when they know the caseworker is supposed to be in the office and they just cannot get through.
This is causing not only frustration, but a great many delays in assistance for people who need emergency help or who have run into some kind of emergency situation. The whole caseload situation usually peaks in January, I understand, and the figures I have only went up to December. I would like to ask the minister if he is looking into an increase in the allotments to municipalities to enable them to meet this increase in caseload without burning out the workers.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes, we have been very concerned about the administration costs. As the general welfare assistance numbers go up because of unemployment, they are in for 20 per cent of the physical check, but there is also an administration cost of doing a check, taking the application and so forth. In the shelter subsidy last year for the Family Benefits Act cases, we removed the administrative costs entirely from the municipality and I am very grateful for that. We just mailed out our own cheques directly instead of having them do it.
As we have looked at budgets this year for municipal administration purposes, we have improved in many areas. Whatever increase they asked for in terms of contract workers because of the sudden increase in caseload -- indeed in Metro, we did approve an increase based upon the increased caseload. So perhaps as the year goes on you will see those totals diminish. Metro did request an increase in approvals for the number of workers to handle those cases and we approved it.
Ms. Bryden: One of the main roadblocks in increasing the service is that the municipality still has to pay 20 per cent of the cost which does inhibit some municipalities from putting on sufficient staff. Am I correct that we are the only province that requires municipalities to pay 20 per cent?
Hon. Mr. Drea: No.
Ms. Bryden: There is maybe one other.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Are you advocating that the province take over all welfare? I do not think I have heard that from your party. There are pretty severe implications in that one. It has not worked anywhere.
Ms. Bryden: Yes, that is our party policy, that services to people of this sort should be covered through progressive taxes which the province has access to and not through property taxes.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I do not quarrel with that. I just did not want to get the impression that there had been a switch and you were talking about no contribution by the municipality. If there was no contribution by the municipality, we would de facto be running the whole service and I do not think anybody is advocating that at all. They might quarrel over the amounts or some of the costs, but if it is only the method by which the funding is arranged, then obviously that has been consistent with your policy all along. I am sorry, I misunderstood.
Ms. Bryden: We would still like decentralization of administration, but the 20 per cent for things like welfare should come from more progressive taxes than the property tax. That is our position. Other provinces still have municipally administered welfare services but they do not require the 20 per cent and they do not have this roadblock to the municipalities giving a proper standard of service or proper salaries to their workers.
I just have one other area I wanted to mention to the minister which did cause me considerable concern. I am told that under GWA, a mother with a new infant, who may have difficulty in breast feeding, used to get a special allowance for formula to supplement breast feeding or to take its place in some cases. The provincial nutritionist is supposed to have told Metro that they should cut out this extra amount, which ranged from $11 to $23 a month for formula, because as soon as the child was born an amount was added to the monthly income to provide for the child's food and therefore supplements were not necessary.
9:40 p.m.
I am told a single mother and infant would receive a maximum of $411 a month for food and rent in Metro Toronto, which is just under $5,000 a year and is certainly well below the poverty line. In many cases those sole-support parents are having to dip into their allotments intended for food in order to pay rent above the amount that is allowed. The adequate nutrition of the child is not necessarily guaranteed by the $411 a month. I think the social workers found it rather helpful to be able to offer this extra $1 to $23 a month for formula for those mothers who needed it.
I understand that has now been cut out completely for two of the major formulas that are used, Similac and Enfalac. The allowance for the carbohydrate-free formula, which was $23, has been cut down to $9 a month, which means that some is still going to have to come out of the rent if the mothers need this.
This seems to be a sort of penny-pinching that is really very serious because children with malnutrition do learn more slowly and it can have an effect on their future growth, their future mental development and so on. If it is true that the provincial nutritionist advocated to Metro that they could save money by cutting out this particular allowance, it seems to me they ought to take another look at it. I wonder if the minister could comment on that.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Mr. Chairman, it is my understanding the special diets are still available. Obviously, the member has some concern. I will start some discussions to find out exactly what is going on. We may need some information on the particulars of the case.
You were talking about two different types of formula plus a third compound. It is my understanding that is in the area of special diets. As a principle they are still available. If you could give us some more details privately we would be very glad to look at it and to get back to you. I am very interested. I may be a grandfather two times over but I can still remember the cost of those products which were quite expensive some quarter of a century ago when I was a little bit younger and the prices were all a little smaller. We will get back to you almost immediately.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Mr. Chairman, I will be very brief since when you ask this particular minister what time it is, he builds you a clock. My question is relatively simple and straightforward.
In 1980, the deputy minister of your ministry, who is no longer with you, indicated that there would be legislation to consolidate all the acts dealing with home support services, homes for the elderly, disabled and so on. There was going to be a consolidation of all these acts under one act so people would have something in one act they would know how to deal with in terms of municipalities and so on, and presumably also the resources to back up the new act.
If I recall correctly you, or the minister of the time, indicated in the estimates last fall that this act would be brought in. Can you indicate to us now when the act will be brought in and what resources there will be and will there be any money in the supplementary estimates to assist in that?
Hon. Mr. Drea: Just so I understand you, is this about the home support?
Mr. T. P. Reid: Yes.
Hon. Mr. Drea: First, the de facto jurisdiction for the homemaker and the home support has been given to the Ministry of Health. They will be delivering the program. Some time this spring I will bring in a technical piece of legislation which will delegate authority to deliver the service to the Ministry of Health because, as long as it operates under my name, I get 50 per cent funding under the Canada assistance program and the Ministry of Health is not eligible for any funding. In effect, it becomes our agent.
I understand the actual delivery and implementation at the municipal stage is somewhat behind schedule, but my ministry has not been involved in this. It is now a matter between the Ministry of Health and the municipalities, but I will find out exactly what stage it is at and convey that to you. The development and delivery will be under the Ministry of Health although it will be the agent of the Ministry of Community and Social Services because of the funding mechanism. That will put it into place far faster.
Mr. T. P. Reid: As a technical point, I want to ask this question. Apparently this has been promised for some time, but are you going to transfer funds from your ministry to the Ministry of Health to pay for the services after you get your 50 per cent from the federal government?
Hon. Mr. Drea: No, that is why the delegation; it is really a paper transaction. We put the bill into Ottawa as to what has been spent. It flows back to us to our delegated agent so that for every dollar it spends, it will get back the 50 cents without all the impediments --
Mr. T. P. Reid: Will this be done before we adjourn in June?
Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes, it is a minor bill. It just authorizes the Minister of Health to deliver the service which has been scheduled and approved under the Canada assistance program. It is really an auditor's bill for the benefit of the federal and provincial auditors.
Mr. T. P. Reid: There seems to be some concern in the municipalities about it.
Hon. Mr. Drea I think the concern of the honourable member is that it took five years to produce the arrangement. In fairness, it took five months of earnest discussions between myself and Mr. Timbrell when he was the minister. Then we had to send out to the municipalities. They had some and we had some. We had to say they were all going to end and this was going to be it.
Some of the municipalities had a concern this would wipe out their entire programs because, after all, they had one through my ministry but they were not sure they were getting this one. Those concerns are unfounded. There will be a program right across. It will be phased in in conjunction with the chronic home care program as it goes across the province and we will be right out of it, because we would only bring in duplication.
Mr. T. P. Reid: Does this include the disabled, homes for the disabled?
Hon. Mr. Drea: Yes. It will be phased in right across. One cannot have one without the other because they all phase in to each other.
Mr. Mackenzie: Mr. Chairman, I want to take a few minutes to deal with what may still be a bit of an inadequacy in the funding the minister has arranged in his estimates. I know there may be some preliminary moves in this matter but it has to do with the question of abused and battered women in our communities.
Before I start on that, while there are a number of things that could be covered this evening under this topic, I want to underline one comment of my colleague the member for Lake Nipigon.
The Deputy Chairman: I want to make sure of this: Does this pertain to the estimates we are dealing with under items 4 and 5?
Mr. Mackenzie: Yes, it does pertain to the estimates. I think it comes under residential, home support and counselling services.
The Deputy Chairman: That does not fall on page 21, income maintenance or adult social services.
Mr. Mackenzie: Income maintenance is certainly an area it falls under, Mr. Chairman.
First, I want to underline a comment that was made by my colleague, the member for Lake Nipigon. That was the question of permanently unemployables. If I understood you correctly, you were taking a look at that so that they would be classified as disabled or on disability.
Hon. Mr. Drea: May I just interrupt? In October last year we announced that the two systems were over and that the financial gap between the two, which is significant, would be eliminated in two stages, with one increase in October 1981 and the final one in November of this year. From then on, there would only be one category. We have not given it a name yet. It may be "disabled," it may be "unemployable," but there is no differential any more. The test is, "Can you work?" If you cannot work, that is it.
9:50 p.m.
Mr. Mackenzie: I thank the minister for that. I just want to be clear and sure of it because it has been an area that has caused a fair amount of concern in many of our constituency offices. I wrote to the then Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Norton) back in February 1981 and raised with him the question of one of the newer facilities in my riding. Actually it is just outside my constituency, the Hope Haven Homes on Montclair Avenue in Hamilton.
The issues I raised were a result of touring the facility, which is a refuge for abused women and their children. We went over the kind of budget they were operating on and the work they were doing. We were really thrown by the fact in this facility were some nine beds. They were mostly volunteer workers. The budget they were trying to raise -- and were not sure they would -- in 1981, for example, was $85,000. We found the per diem payments they were receiving from the municipality for contracted work and service were certainly a problem.
But what prompted me to write the letter to the Minister of Community and Social Services at that time was the fact that there was a considerable need for the facility, and that in one weekend, apart from taking in the maximum number of women and their children that they could handle from a late hour on Friday night until the early hours of Monday morning, they had turned away no fewer than 23 women in that facility. That was in one weekend alone.
I did not receive a response from the previous minister to the letter I sent in February and I wrote to you on June 23, 1981, and enclosed a copy of the original letter. You did get back to me on August 4, so your response -- and I appreciate it -- was much quicker than that of the previous minister. You told me you had sent a letter to Mac Carson, the commissioner of social services in the Hamilton area.
In his letter to me of September 28, 1981, Mr. Carson said simply, "The Honourable Frank Drea has asked me to investigate your concerns about Hope Haven and the number of women and children who cannot be housed at this facility." It goes on to say: "There does appear to be a shortage of this type of crisis bed in our region. Mission services have recently added nine beds to the community complement and this has relieved the situation somewhat. More beds are likely going to be needed however." It also said there were no definite plans for expansion at that time at Hope Haven, but they did wish to develop another home. They had been asked to seek regional assistance via an application for a regional grant.
I had written as well to the then Provincial Secretary for Justice (Mr. Walker) because I wondered, inasmuch as this particular haven dealt with any women who had been abused and their children but concentrated on those cases that were a result of alcoholic abuse, whether there was some possibility of additional funding as well through his ministry.
He wrote back to me on December 18 last: "I am writing to you in regard to your question about funding sources for homes for victims of alcohol-related family violence. I am not aware of any provincial government funding sources in addition to the per diem funding for hostels under general welfare assistance which the province cost-shares with the municipality. I understand, however, that the Ministry of Community and Social Services is conducting a review of policy with respect to residential facilities for adults. Homes for battered wives and their children are included in this review." He goes on to discuss some sources I might look at for assistance and the particular concerns they have.
I also note that the federal health, welfare and social affairs committee has been examining the issue of wife battering in our communities. It is obvious from the information they have been obtaining that we have got a very serious problem. It is also obvious that we simply do not have adequate facilities available.
Today I had the privilege of attending the opening of an addition to Inasmuch House on Emerald Avenue South in Hamilton. It is one of only three facilities in our community that really deals with this problem. It is encouraging to see the work they are doing and the expansion there. I think that is a good move. I know the Native Women's Centre deals with these kinds of cases as well.
I also know the situation at Hope Haven Homes has not improved. As a matter of fact, it is probably worse. I raised it with the minister, and in the letter I initially wrote a year ago, in that one weekend they had to turn away 23 women. In talking to the people at Hope Haven, I found out that weekend has been bettered. in one particular weekend they had to turn away 37 women from the home in the east end of Hamilton. It is obvious we have a serious problem and that seems to be coming up with most of the social agencies in our communities as well.
In the federal committee that has been dealing with this matter, almost all witnesses who testified before the committee lamented over the fact there are not enough transition houses and those which do exist are chronically underfunded. I suspect some people will find they probably have not got a transition house in their riding. Certainly for the volume we are now starting to run into in the city of Hamilton, the facilities for the three, at least on certain occasions, are not adequate for the problems that are surfacing.
In talking to some of the social workers in our community I also know they see and expect to see a rise in this kind of problem as the economic situation gets tougher. It is one of the areas that is of real concern and one where there is an inadequacy in terms of available facilities.
The seriousness of the problem and what is going on should be put on the record here. The minister should be encouraged. I have no reason to believe he is not somewhat sympathetic to the issue I am raising and the needs in this area. We should be well aware that in every part of this country women of all ages, occupations and economic circumstances are being beaten by either their husbands or their common law partners. Wife battering knows no general, geographical, economic or cultural boundaries. Almost anybody in our communities can be in this position.
I want to deal with a couple of the myths that have been exploded in a very good study by the Social Planning and Research Council in Hamilton. It goes back to November 1980 but they have since done some additional backup work to that study. When we find out, as the federal committee has found out, that 500,000 Canada women, or one in 10 of those married or living common law, were battered by the partners they lived with, we get some idea of the magnitude of the problem we are facing.
Wife battering frequently results in serious injury or miscarriage or permanent disability or death. Although we cannot tie it in directly, 20 per cent of all Canadian homicides are the result of one spouse killing the other and almost all of these in our communities were wives murdered by their husbands. Wife beating is rarely a one-time occurrence. One third of the women surveyed in a federal study were beaten weekly or daily. Forty per cent of the wife assaults, according to their study, were during the time of the woman's first pregnancy. Beatings can be precipitated by anything, whether it be financial worries, pregnancy or a phone call from a friend. Almost any situation could trigger a beating.
The most common report given by battered wives following a beating is that their husbands are trying to exercise complete control over their lives.
Another thing we have to consider when we are looking at the adequacy of the facilities is the effect on children. Children who witness wife beating are, in some cases, scarred forever.
According to the federal study, some 40 to 60 per cent of men who assaulted their wives witnessed assaults in their families of origin; either they were the victims of child abuse or they witnessed their fathers beating their mothers.
According to another study, 60 per cent of the women who saw physical abuse between their parents became battered wives themselves. They grew up to see violence as normal behaviour and did not protest.
I think one of our problems is in failing, up until now, to really come to grips with the kind of problem that is there and looking at the things that might be done.
10 p.m.
Why is the crime so pervasive, as the studies ask? The severity of the crime is frequently obscured by comments that allow us to ignore it, that indicate family violence or domestic disputes are things we really do not want to get involved in or that it is a problem that is not necessarily to be taken too seriously. But I think that it has to be recognized for what it is: abuse of women.
Because the family is seen as a private institution, many outsiders and indeed, as some of the studies show, many of the service organizations for a long while were really reluctant to get involved in this area of concern.
The institutions that deal with wife battering -- legal, medical and the social services -- are still largely bound up in the image of the traditional family -- breadwinner father, homemaker mother and their children -- even though only 20 per cent of Canadian families conform to this mould. Consequently, the primary goal is all too often reconciliation of the couple, we do not deny the importance of that, rather than the protection of the woman from a violent spouse.
Many police jurisdictions, and I noticed it on one of the slide shows they were showing today at Inasmuch House, have implicit or explicit policies to screen out domestic occurrences when they are investigating them. Fewer than half of the reported wife assault calls get a police response. This policy really denies a fundamental function of the law: to protect the safety of the person who may be involved.
When the police do arrive on the scene, and there was a good slide presentation on this as well today at Inasmuch House, they usually attempt to cool things down and then leave the situation. According to the workers I have talked to, this has a tendency to tell the woman that her physical safety is not necessarily the primary concern.
Compounded by this inaction is the fact that in 100,000 cases of assaults against Canadian women, only 1.8 per cent of the men were convicted. This suggests that the criminal justice system will not do anything about the problem.
Mr. Roy: He is out of order.
Mr. Mackenzie: I don't think I am out of order. I am dealing with a very important area that does come under the minister's jurisdiction.
The question is asked, and it is asked by workers in the minister's own ministry, as to why the women do not leave. Battered wives in most cases have no place to go, no protection from their husbands, no money to live on and little access to professional help.
I have talked to some of them in my own community, and I have talked to some of them when I visited the transition houses. Some of the questions they raised were: "Well, who can we talk to? We have come here finally because there is a service available here." In some cases they really need somebody to talk to. "Who do we go to? Who is going to give us help? If we walk out or if we leave, or if we run from a violent person, what can we expect? What are we going to do with our kids? Where are we going to stay? What kind of help is there for us?"
In January 1980, the federal study showed that 45 per cent of the Canadian population lived in areas without access to a transition house or a shelter that would accept battered women. We have three of them, as I said, in the Hamilton area but there are days when we cannot begin to cope with the kind of demand placed on them.
As the federal study also showed, where houses do exist they are frequently overcrowded. That is a point I have made; on some weekends, not all, in our area they must turn away more women and children than they can accept. I do not know how many weekends they have kept records for, but the two that I mentioned -- 23 women on the one weekend a year ago, and some 37 women on one weekend more recently -- indicate the potential for a real tragedy in that so many women were turned away from that particular transition house.
To rent an apartment, a woman must have money for a deposit. To apply for welfare, assuming that she is eligible, she must have an independent address. In addition to being homeless, the battered woman who leaves her husband or partner generally finds herself, as I said, in really serious financial straits.
I do not know what can be done. There are a number of recommendations that I am not going to go into here this evening. There are a number of what I thought were good recommendations in the report that was done by the social planning and research council support services network for battered women in the Hamilton area. I am sure your ministry has seen this. They made about eight or nine specific recommendations that are probably useful. I do not doubt that your ministry has looked at them.
I guess my real concern in this matter is that we have the potential for some real tragedy. I think we have seen it in some cases. We have a growing problem. We have an inadequacy of facilities and we are relatively new in terms of the art of deciding how we are going to deal with this problem and what are the best answers.
We are breaking down some of the myths that have existed for a long while about whether to really get involved in family disputes like this. I think it is an area of enough concern that it should be one of the priorities in your ministry.
I hope, in looking at the supplementary estimates, that you are going to be able to give us some assurance that this is an area where you are going to put additional funding and staff and that you are going to try to come up with some positive recommendations for dealing with the specific problem so we can deal with it in a major way in the very near future.
I am asking for some major attention to this problem, rather than it being something that we study and make small adjustments to along the way as the problem becomes severe. I do not think we can wait that long. I think it is one area that is of some concern. There is not enough service available. That should be one of the priorities of your ministry, and I would be appreciative of your comments on it or if you could tell me what plans you might have in this field.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Very succinctly, there is no question that there is a shortfall of service capability. Indeed, the shortfall is not necessarily only in terms of physical accommodation but also even in terms of program development, very real counselling and so forth, because while there may be a shelter for battered wives they cannot remain indefinitely in a shelter.
There has to be a program either by referral or purchase of service or perhaps even by transfer, because that person has to be given the opportunity of freedom of choice of whether she wants to go back to her spouse. I do not think we should be telling her whether she should go back to her spouse. That is her own decision, as is setting up terms and conditions as to whether she goes back to her spouse.
Having been married for a while, I do not think I would like to give any conditions on that, but --
Mr. Mackenzie: Court orders also mean nothing in many cases.
Hon. Mr. Drea: Well, I am not so sure. I think we have to look at things in terms of human nature. I have been around, and I am as outraged as you at certain things in terms of the personal relationships. I think we have to look at that. But that may be beyond all of us. It has been beyond all of us since the very beginning. However, once the freedom of choice has been made that the victim of the spouse wants to be in conventional society without that victimization, then obviously there has to be a re-entry program and what have you.
I agree with you that it is a priority. It is under review both from the hostel or residential stage as well as from the program stage. I think we will have the review of the mechanical funding of the hostel or residential component completed first. The program one will take a little bit longer. I want them both completed this year, because we are either going to begin attacking the priority in this area and making a real dent in the problem or, quite frankly, we had better start all over again with another program.
Maybe these types of houses are not really the answer, but I think that we can blend in with what is there now. As I say, I have insisted all along that it must be a priority. While it does not represent a large number of people, it does represent the most vulnerable people in our society and, therefore, in social services. It is not a notorious or flamboyant type of program.
10:10 p.m.
Maybe I live in a different world -- I have never been able to understand it -- but there is still a bit of a stigma about the woman who leaves her partner, that somehow, even if she was assaulted and pummelled and even seriously injured, she must have contributed a part to it. I have never understood why somebody who is very badly assaulted and who did nothing should be blamed for the fact that the person who did the assault chose her. I have never really been able to understand that, but it is quite true that it is there.
There is a start of a form of transition house, although not under that name, in my own riding. I have had to assist them in getting rezoning. Many of these things have come up.
I do want to emphasize to the honourable member I am impressed with the remarks he made tonight. I do appreciate he took the time to prepare them and to read them into the record. I certainly hope he might get somebody in Ottawa to ask a very penetrating question on that federal report because, if they have looked at it, why do they not come in for some sharing on the nonresidential portion? Bearing in mind what the federal minister told me -- not on this, but on everything in general -- there is not one new red cent, not one new program, not one dollar for anything new under the Canada assistance plan. We hope she might change her mind.
In any event, we will be tabling those reports and I would appreciate any further dialogue, either verbal, in my longer estimates, or in writing on this subject. I think you are to be commended for bringing it up in such a forthright, fair, honest and candid manner at this time.
Mr. Mackenzie: If I can just make one very brief response, I do appreciate the minister's comments because I think this is an area in which we cannot be involved in politics or play games. That includes, as well, the question of pointing out -- and I agree, and I am as angry as the minister is -- that the defence cannot be what the feds are or are not doing.
I may just have taken the minister's remarks a little bit out of context. I think it may be more of a major problem than he thinks. He mentioned the small number of people who are really involved. If the federal study is accurate and there are half a million, or one in 10 Canadian women who have suffered, obviously there are degrees to which they have suffered the beatings, but it would seem to me that it is a major problem. It is because of that, the connection with kids and the fact that you are dealing with some of the traditional "don't talk about it" perceptions in terms of family relationships, that I think it takes on a major concern.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I am not trying to diminish it, but I am not talking about the numbers and the dimension of the program; what I am talking about is those who actually have to take refuge in terms of a general welfare assistance count or family benefits, the disabled and so forth. It is not a major one. But in saying that, I wanted to point out to you that, notwithstanding the numbers, it is a priority.
Ms. Bryden: Mr. Chairman, I have been very interested in this discussion that has been going on in the last few minutes or so on the question of battered spouses. I do appreciate the minister's compassion for the victims as well as his knowledge of the seriousness of the problem and his recognition that it does require a whole series of programs, that you do not just provide an interval house and then hope the situation will solve itself.
You need a whole battery of additional services: counselling, relocation, rehabilitation; and even programs such as were written up in today's Globe and Mail where the batterer, that is the person who is doing the battering, is given assistance to change his ways, shall we say. The story in the Globe and Mail indicated that there are a considerable number of men who are not proud they batter their wives, but it is a difficult thing to overcome in some situations. They need counselling.
The seriousness of the problem is indicated by the fact that interval or transition houses are springing up in every municipality -- in fact, in almost every riding. I think most of us are aware groups of women have banded together to provide this shelter for battered wives and are having problems with funding.
I think the rate provided under the hostel grants is $17 a day, which is really inadequate in big cities and probably even in smaller ones because to run an interval house is a highly labour intensive activity. This is another case where we run into the 20 per cent municipal barrier because many municipalities do not want to put up the 20 per cent to have a hostel or interval house. I am afraid the educational process of the need for such interval houses is slow in the smaller municipalities.
This might be an area where the ministry could consider 100 per cent funding up to a certain per diem rate to encourage the establishment of interval houses. I am sure the minister is aware the federal government has a standing committee studying the whole question of spouse battering and the programs that are needed.
Certainly, there are many areas under provincial jurisdiction in dealing with this problem. Perhaps we should consider an all-party committee of this House to go into the problem in depth and get ideas for the kind of new programs the minister was forecasting as being needed, rather than just have the studies done within his ministry.
I do not know whether the minister is aware I have put on the Order Paper a resolution calling for such an all-party committee to study ways of dealing with violence in the family. In particular, my resolution calls for the study of "(1) preventive educational programs; (2) the establishment and funding of transitional houses; (3) the adequacy of health, welfare and counselling services available to the victims of family violence; and (4) the need for revised legislation and for changes in police and court procedures to protect battered spouses."
I would like to ask the minister if he has given any consideration to urging the government to set up a select committee or to refer this matter to a standing committee for some public hearings on the question before we finalize the programs we are going to have to put in place to deal with this problem.
Hon. Mr. Drea: I think it would be premature to have an opinion on that until those two reviews are in. We want to see what the problem is. If there is a clearly defined problem that can be remedied within the existing structure, fine. I do not think you would need what you are asking for. I think that would be an impediment, even a delay. On the other hand, if there are certain long-range concerns that the present system in any way, shape or form is not adequate, then I think there can be consideration given to a much further and broader study.
I have some feelings; there is no question about it. I thank you for your comments but I think the jury is still out and before I commit myself I would like to see where we are.
Ms. Bryden: I have a question in another area. At the present time, the legislation for elderly persons' centres provides for a maximum grant, I believe, of $15,000.
The Deputy Chairman: I want to make sure the honourable member is tying this in to the supplementary estimates we are considering tonight.
Ms. Bryden: I think it comes under adult social services: transfer payments, senior citizens, operating. The elderly persons' centres are community facilities which provide recreational and stimulating programs --
The Deputy Chairman: The member may not be aware that they are not included in the estimates we are discussing tonight.
10:20 p.m.
Ms. Bryden: I will have to bring that up when the regular estimates come forward.
The Deputy Chairman: Is there any other point you had to raise with regard to the supplementary estimates?
Ms. Bryden: Are homemaker services included in this?
The Deputy Chairman: No, homemaker services are not applicable.
Vote 2902 agreed to.
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF TREASURY AND ECONOMICS (CONCLUDED)
On vote 904, economic policy program; item 2, regional economic development:
Hon. F. S. Miller: Mr. Chairman, I thought we were almost finished the other night except for a technical point. There may be other speakers, but I am not aware of it.
Vote 904 agreed to.
SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION AND COMMUNICATIONS
On vote 2604, provincial roads program; item 2, design; item 3, capital and construction; item 4, maintenance:
Mr. Stokes: Mr. Chairman, I would like at least a brief explanation of why this ministry needs $14.6 million. I can tell the minister where he can spend four or five times that much, but obviously his priorities might not be in line with mine. I would just like some idea of what it is for.
Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Chairman, I do not think the member's priorities would be very much different from mine. We think alike on a lot of things when we get down to building roads. The $14.6 million we are asking the Legislature to approve for the ministry as supplementary estimates this year is needed in three areas.
A year ago, under the Board of Industrial Leadership and Development program, my ministry was given an additional $25 million to advance certain construction projects. That money was for the actual construction work and did not include money for design or for property. Approximately half of this $14.6 million is for advancing the design work and property acquisition so the ministry will have the design completed and the property acquired to carry out the auxiliary program under BILD.
The other $7.5 million this year is for additional winter maintenance. We have been running our maintenance budget on the provincial roads program very close and this winter with the heavy snowstorms an additional amount of overtime on our snow-ploughing crews that we had not experienced for the last two or three years has caused our winter maintenance budget to be over this amount of $7.5 million. That is what that is for, strictly dealing with the elements we have had to deal with.
Mr. Stokes: Thank you for that explanation and thank you for your indulgence, Mr. Chairman. Now that I know what it is, I can talk about it.
The amount of money the ministry is spending for design obviously will include some of the projects that went to tender last fall, early this spring and one the minister is announcing today. It deals specifically with the design for that section of Highway 11 from the junction of Highway 584 over towards Longlac. That has been long awaited. I want to say on behalf of all of the users in the Geraldton-Longlac area and those who travel Highway 11 on a regular basis that they are certainly appreciative of the fact the minister is moving on that section.
Part of the design money being asked for in vote 2604, item 2, is for the design of a contract on Highway 584 from Geraldton up to Nakina. That has been a turkey trail for far too long. We have had many broken automobiles as a result of that; broken suspensions, broken mufflers and everything else. The minister, in co-operation with the Ministry of Northern Affairs, is finally addressing himself to that. I hope by this time next year we will have a road we can all be proud of.
The other one I want to mention is the design on what used to be called tertiary road 800. It is now a numbered highway. I believe it is Highway 827. It used to be called the Spruce River road from Thunder Bay up to Armstrong. I travelled on that road just last Wednesday. I spent my March break travelling on some of those things we call highways up there. It is in terrible shape. I know you have just let a contract for upgrading the most dangerous section of that road and the bridge. All of the truckers, all of the jobbers and all of the people from Gull Bay and Armstrong are appreciative of the work you are doing there.
One final comment: I hope part of this design money will go to look at the possibilities of -- I know it is much too expensive to expect to have the kind of roads they have in Manitoba with double lanes, but if you will look at this -- widening and paving the shoulders so people who move at the posted rate of speed can get by heavy vehicles and slow moving recreational vehicles. I know your regional director is of one mind with me in that any time we do any additional construction the widening and paving of the shoulders should be included so they can act in place of and be installed much cheaper in many cases than passing lanes.
Those are the things we would like to see done. I hope some of this design money will be dedicated for those purposes.
The Deputy Chairman: I am trying to get a feel for the number who are going to be raising questions, because we might be able to have a vote on this.
Mr. McGuigan: Mr. Chairman, I would like to mention some matters about design. I would like to bring to the attention of the minister a design matter on Highway 3 that passes through my riding, and especially the old railway bridge just west of Blenheim. I guess this bridge goes back to the old Pere Marquette Railway, which had a line from Chatham down to Erieau and the line was largely at grade level or perhaps slightly below grade level.
Hon. Mr. Snow: Mr. Chairman, that is included in the 1982 program. It is not in the 1981, but I can assure the honourable member it is included in the 1982 program.
Mr. McGuigan: I am very glad to hear that, but I am questioning the design of it. I am very glad to hear it is in the program. We have been waiting for it for a long time.
Hon. Mr. Snow: It was designed in 1980.
Mr. McGuigan: I would like you to give consideration to redesigning it, although I would not like to see the project delayed in any way.
Hon. Mr. Snow: That will delay it until 1985.
Mr. McGuigan: With the experts you have at your command and with the good programs you have, I am sure you have the ability to do this. I have very few complaints about the highways that pass through my riding. They are kept in very good shape, so I know you have the ability to do this rather quickly if you so decided.
At the westerly entrance to Blenheim, there is an incline going up quite a bit above grade in order to pass over the underpass. Many farm tractors use that incline. They come up there, usually with enough speed to gain the top of the crest and then they find themselves declining, going down a slide into the town of Blenheim.
It does present a certain safety problem because, if you know those vehicles, while they often have what is considered adequate braking power on them, they do not have the braking power of a truck or a semi-trailer. There is a bit of a problem there. It is a concern to some of the residents because they and their children use that bridge as a walkway since there are very poor sidewalks in the area. We would appreciate your people taking a look at the design but, of course, we would not like to see you delay that application.
On motion by Hon. Mr. Wells, the committee of supply reported certain resolutions.
The House adjourned at 10:32 p.m.