Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Do we have the concurrence of the committee that the honourable Minister will bring in the witnesses?

Agreed.

---Agreed

Thank you. We are on page 15-10 of the main estimate activity summary. Social Services. For the record, Madam Minister, would you introduce the witnesses to the committee?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On my left is Ken Lovely, deputy minister of Social Services. On my right is John Doyle, director of finance.

I would like to remind Members that I will allow each Member to speak no more than ten minutes, which is a rule of the committee of the whole. I will try and recognize a Member who has not spoken. I will stop Members from speaking, if there are other Members who want to speak. This is a very important program. I think each Member is very anxious about getting to the discussion of this particular department. I hope we all try and comply with the ten minute time limit for each Member to say opening comments in the area of general comments. Mr. Ballantyne.

General Comments

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We will definitely try to keep our comments within the ten minute limit. I think we all recognize that this department has a very difficult task. The social problems in the Northwest Territories are immense. The number of responsibilities that the department has are very widespread. I think everyone has to recognize the challenge that the department faces in trying to carry out its duties. Since the last time the Legislative Assembly met, there have been improvements. I think the Minister and the deputy minister are making efforts to bring together the various elements of the department. I like the concept about the income support initiatives. We had a very good briefing by the deputy minister. I think the cooperation between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment and the Department of Social Services will be key to that. I made some comments today about some of the opportunities that are out there. I can only encourage the department to ensure that coordination with other departments is there, and that the department moves very aggressively in coming up with some new and innovative programs.

The area that I have the most concern within the department's approach and the government's approach is the area that was covered in the Standing Committee on Finance's report. It was on how we are actually, as a government and as a department, dealing with the social problems that face us. The one thing that we have tried to say as a Standing Committee on Finance is that we want to see, from the government, some basic philosophies put forward and government policies and decisions which are based on those philosophies. We have heard the Minister of Economic Development talk about where we can get a return on our dollar, and what businesses and industries to support so there is a good return on our dollar. It has always been my premise that you can look at the whole area of Social Services the same way. When we had the Department of Justice in front of us, I made the point to the Minister that, in a time of limited and diminishing resources, as a government and as departments, we have to priorize. That means some very tough decisions have to be made. To me, if we have a situation where we have to make those tough decisions, which we do, it is going to get worse. I don't think people of the Northwest Territories should delude themselves. There is not going to be more money forthcoming in the future. I am convinced we are going to have to do more with less. Then it comes down to a matter of choices.

I think, along the line, we, as politicians, have to have the courage to decide that we have to make choices, that we decide that youth is our priority. That is where our efforts should be. Any new dollars that are freed up, that is where it should go. That is where, I think, you can get your best return on your dollar. I am convinced that if you spend a couple of thousand dollars, $5,000 or $10,000 on counselling for a ten year old, you are going to save yourself $100,000 in corrections, court costs or whatever in the future. At some time, I would like to hear from the government and from the department that they are going to priorize and emphasize youth, that any extra money we have we are going to put into youth. That will mean that as far as adults -- and there is no doubt adults need lots of help and there are many people with drinking problems -- we are probably not going to have as much for the older generation to spend as we did. We probably won't be able to do as much for them as we have in the past. I think we have a responsibility to put our dollars where they are going to have the most impact. I am convinced they are going to have the most impact if you put those dollars with youth. Anything you could do in that area, I know I, for one, will support it.

The Standing Committee on Finance made the point that if the government -- and the government has -- comes forward with a policy about zero tolerance for violence, it raises expectations. Very shortly, if not already, the government is going to be asked to demonstrate what, in concrete terms, that means. It is nice to have flowery phrases that we all agree with, but when we read some of the statistics that are coming out, some of the most recent reports where the violence, sexual crimes and sexual violent crimes in the Northwest Territories are up to ten or 15 times more prevalent than they are in other jurisdictions, people are going to ask, what are you actually doing?

When we look at your budget this year, what I don't see is extra resources for sexually abused children, family violence or family counselling, for instance. What is always going to happen is that this department, as all departments when they are competing for scarce resources, is going to have to make some hard choices. They are going to have to make the point. I think it is an obvious point that if you don't deal, for instance, with the whole issue of child sexual abuse, -- where, I believe, we have just seen the tip of the iceberg now and if you don't deal with that very aggressively, it is a compounding problem, generation to generation. The statistics are horrendous about the number of children who are abused who become abusers, and about the number of people in the community who are affected when a child is abused. The fact is that you have multiple victims of abusers.

I have seen some very positive trends in the last five years where we have made it easier and we are more supportive of the reporting of these types of crimes. But what that means, though, at the same time as we have become more aware of it, we have a responsibility to put more resources to deal with the problem. I would hope that between now and the next year, in the fall supplementary estimates, we will see some significant increases in funding in the areas of family violence and child sexual abuse. I think it can be justified. I think the government now has even a greater responsibility to do that since they have come out very strongly in support of zero tolerance against violence.

So I want to conclude my remarks. The chairman is looking at me. I can see that my time is coming to an end. But I want to leave you with what is, for me, a very strong message, and that is that I very strongly believe that, as a government, we have to deal with these areas, we have to deal with them very aggressively. It's going to take more money and I, for one, am going to be looking very closely at this department in the fall session and I hope to see some supplementary estimates coming forward so the department can deal with these very serious issues. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Ballantyne's comments are very appreciated by me and by my deputy, and I am aware of the stats that we have with violence in the NWT and the child sexual abuse.

The awareness was made public back in the middle of the 1980s. It is quite acceptable now to openly talk about sexual abuse. So there has been a snowballing effect as a result of public awareness that it is not acceptable to sexually abuse a child or, for that matter, sexually abuse an adult.

I don't have the numbers to back me up but, hopefully -- I am being optimistic about this -- in the years to come, as a result of public awareness on family violence, which includes sexual abuse, we are going to start to see some changes in behaviour within our population in our communities. Up until such time as the behaviour changes, I think we will continue to have problems on our hands.

Mr. Ballantyne encouraged the department and I to work closely with the Minister of Justice, and we have begun our talks on how to grapple with the violence that a lot of people face in our northern communities. So, something is being done.

Also, I am being optimistic about this because of the reorganization of the department and better utilizing our resources within the communities and providing more support and training to the community mental health workers and counsellors. I think that slowly we will be able to deal with a lot of the problems that we face today. Thank you.

Agreed.

---Agreed

Line By Line

Directorate

Yes, in the directorate, and this has to do with the regional superintendents and their support staff and the social workers located in communities. I just wanted to say that my experience with the social workers in my constituency is very good. They are good front line people, but they always seem to be complaining about being overworked and underpaid.

It seems that there are some unfunded positions, and they need to have some more permanent positions there. I say this because as of June 1994 the highway to Wrigley will be open. The community of Wrigley has talked to me a number of times and said that they have a concern that once you open a road into a remote community like that, there is easy access for all kinds of goods and services as well as problems.

So they are anticipating that they are going to be getting into some problems and they would like to be ready for any anticipated problems as a result of the opening of the road. They foresee social problems accelerating or increasing as a result of more contact with the outside world with the road being readily available.

So they want to sit down with the department and try to come to some understanding on how to best deal with their upcoming connection to the outside world. So this is one area where they have requested that they have an additional social worker in that community to try to deal with the upcoming social problems.

I just wanted to make these comments so that the Minister and the senior staff will know that I am aware of the situation in my constituency. I always do my homework, I talk to everybody, so I am aware of the situation. I am not trying to be negative about this and I know that they are trying to do their job, but there are a lot of problems coming up more and more, and they seem to be understaffed.

At the same time there is no real permanent position there. They seem to be functioning on a borrowed type of positions, and if some of these unfunded positions become permanent it will at least provide some security there.

As for the position in Liard, there is one position you have in that community of 300 or 400, and there, again, are accelerating social problems.

You have good staff in the region, in the communities, but I am afraid with the sustained level of work that they are doing, at this rate, you are going to have some burn-outs. The department should look at that possibility. It is coming too close to that. The signals are there, and I just wanted to emphasize to the department that they have to look at that situation as well in the communities.

This type of social work is very demanding and very stressful. When you have educated people in the field providing the service, the department has to take a look at it and see where they can help in all ways. That's just a comment, Mr. Chairman. I would appreciate a response from the Minister to my comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, we could look into the community that the Member for Nahendeh is talking about. I realize that our workers, especially social workers, do enormous work. They deal with the most unpleasant situations in the communities. When it comes to apprehending children, that alone is stressful. They also deal with child sexual abuse. So, I understand that the work-load of our workers is really heavy in some cases and that they do need help.

Like I said earlier, new additional staff will be put in the regions, and will be available to train community-based mental health and counselling workers. I think most of the problems at the community level, at the grassroots level, will be able to be handled quite well by each community that is willing to take on that kind of task. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In our SCOF report, we mentioned the Arctic College social services program. During the SCOF review, we asked about the training that is taking place in Arctic College. It started 13 years ago and we asked the Minister and her staff about the curriculum of that program, and whether the curriculum had changed. I know this is an Education-type of question, but my concern here is that the Department of Social Services hire a lot of people who graduate from the social services program from Arctic College. We have people in our communities with two years training from Arctic College.

I asked the Minister and her staff whether the curriculum has changed within the last 13 years. The reply we received was they did not know whether the curriculum had changed, or whether they are still teaching the same curriculum they started off with 13 years ago. Nowadays there are new and innovative ways for dealing with human social problems. I wanted to know if Arctic College is providing the latest training for people taking courses there, so that when they go into the communities and start facing these social problems they know how to deal with them in a very humane way?

We did not get a very satisfactory reply at that time. We have dedicated people in the communities who have taken these programs. It took them two years to take it and now they are in the community, dealing with day-to-day social problems. I'm wondering if the type of training they are receiving in Arctic College is adequate enough for them to deal with the problems.

Furthermore, I would like to ask the Minister whether the people who are presently working for the Department of Social Services -- after completing this two year training course at Arctic College and after being in the field for a number of years -- can go back and get further training, with the experience they have and with the desire to continue in that field? Is that opportunity available to them? If it is, where is this opportunity? And if it is not there, will the department look into this area to see if they can work with the Department of Education to develop further training for the social workers who are out in the communities who desire to go back for more training? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member's concerns that he is bringing to our attention. Social Services has a seat on the advisory committee of Arctic College for this program. There is a bit of room to do some assessment. I feel that the two year training program in Arctic College is adequate. But if the social worker would like to get further training in specialized areas, I think the department can provide them with time off, whenever there is a request for improving skills. I will get my deputy minister to respond to some of the concerns you raised, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The development of our staff is really important to us because we know that we have a lot of workers who haven't been able to go beyond the diploma program at the college. One of the things that will be a priority for us over the coming year in the development of our human resource plan, is to assess the social services worker program at the college to see whether there does have to be changes made to it.

There have been changes made over the years to keep up with the professional needs of social workers, but the program provides our workers with a base to start at the community level. What we want to do is work with the college to bring in some field-based courses for the people who only have a diploma and who want to go on and get their undergraduate degrees or specialized training that can be provided by the college in some of the regional centres, rather than having to send people to universities in southern Canada.

It's especially difficult for workers who have large families and who can't really leave either their region or their home communities. We're looking at ways and means to bring those courses closer to home so there can be some ongoing professional development of the workers, rather than simply dead-ending them at the diploma level. We have a variety of ways of doing that. One is we can send people out on the education leave program, but we haven't made good use of that over the years. There are many flexibilities in the collective agreement that allow us to give people leave with pay for shorter periods of time, up to six months. It should give them the opportunity to complete courses or parts of a program that would improve their academic standing. That is on the books for the coming year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is good to hear that there is an opportunity for people in the social work field who have been out in the communities for a number of years. The program started 13 years ago, so I am assuming that, after two years, there are some people out there who have been working for about ten or 11 years with a two year diploma program from Fort Smith, Arctic College, that there are people in the communities with that type of experience. If they have an opportunity to go back with experience under their belts and with a desire to continue in the social services field, the department will support them to go back to school if they desire to further their training and education in that field. That is what I am hearing. I think that is the direction to go because we have many people who are dedicated in this field. After a number of years, there is a desire for them to take further education. That opportunity should be available for them to do that. Thank you.