Children and Youth — Issue No. 1 — Thursday, July 25, 2013 (HTML)

Present: Jane Thornthwaite, MLA (Chair); Carole James, MLA (Deputy Chair); Donna Barnett, MLA; Mike Bernier, MLA; Doug Donaldson, MLA; Maurine Karagianis, MLA; John Martin, MLA; Darryl Plecas, MLA; Jennifer Rice, MLA; Dr. Moira Stilwell, MLA

1. There not yet being a Chair elected to serve the Committee, the meeting was called to order at 12:06 p.m. by the Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees.

2. Resolved, that Jane Thornthwaite, MLA, be elected Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. (Mike Bernier, MLA)

3. Resolved, that Carole James, MLA, be elected Deputy Chair of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth. (Doug Donaldson, MLA)

4. Resolved, that the Sub-committee on Agenda and Procedure be comprised of the Chair and Deputy Chair. (Donna Barnett, MLA)

5. The Committee reviewed its terms of reference and the Deputy Clerk gave a brief overview of the previous work of the Committee.

The following electronic version is for informational purposes only.
The printed version remains the official version.

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH


CONTENTS
Page
Election of Chair and Deputy Chair	1
Election of Subcommittee on Agenda and Procedure	1
Committee Terms of Reference and Overview of Previous Work	1

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Deputy Clerk and Clerk of Committees): Good afternoon, everyone. As this is the first meeting of the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth for the first session of this parliament and as there is not yet a Chair elected to serve your committee, the first item of business is to open up nominations for the position of Chair.

Jane Thornthwaite has been nominated. Any further nominations? Any further nominations? Any further nominations?

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Now what we'll do is the election of the Deputy Chair. Can I hear nominations?

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Any other nominations? Hearing no other nominations, are we electing Carole James for the Deputy Chair?

Everybody should have their agenda in front of them. Now, first of all, I'd like to introduce Kate. Does everybody know Kate?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): My name is Kate Ryan-Lloyd. I think I do know everyone around the table. I've served as a Clerk to this committee since 2006.

We have Byron Plant from our committee research office also attending today. He has worked with this committee over the past number of years. Susan Sourial, a Committee Clerk from our office, is also present today.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Great. All right, so the third thing on our agenda is the election of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure. What this is, is an ability for the Chair and the vice-Chair to convene if the House isn't sitting or if the committee can't, in the whole, get together. It's an opportunity for us to convene and even talk to the representative, if need be.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I understood Ms. Barnett's motion to essentially be that you and the Deputy Chair serve as a subcommittee on behalf of the full committee. The motion recorded in the minutes for this meeting will reflect that intent.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): All right. The fourth item on the agenda is actually a review of the terms of reference and an overview of previous work of the committee. This will be Kate, who will give us an overview of the committee and what's happened in the past and moving forward, before we set another meeting.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with a brief overview of the work of this committee this afternoon. I wanted to start off by just congratulating you all on your appointment to this committee. I hope that you will enjoy the experience of working on this committee and will find it to be a productive and rewarding experience.

In providing you with a bit of context, I thought I would begin historically with the creation of this committee and its status as a permanent committee of the Legislative Assembly.

This committee was recommended by the hon. Ted Hughes in his 2006 report on the B.C. child welfare system. Many members may recall that the circumstances which led to Mr. Hughes's review were based upon a number of significant challenges within the provincial child welfare system at that time.

These challenges included a number of structural and organizational system changes in the ministry and the system in general. Concerns also were regarding the effectiveness of the system, particularly with respect to the review of child death files and the public reporting of and accountability for those reviews.
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The Hughes report made a number of significant recommendations, including those addressing the monitoring and public reporting of the government's performance in protecting children and youth and services to them. The Hughes report also made recommendations regarding advocacy for children and youth and the transfer of child welfare to delegated aboriginal agencies and, overall, made a number of recommendations to improve the system for review and public reporting of child deaths.

Also, and most relevant to the work of your committee, were the recommendations in the Hughes report regarding a new plan for external oversight of the child welfare system. So in addition to the recommendation to create this committee, the Select Standing Committee on Children and Youth, the Hughes report also called for the establishment of the independent position of Representative for Children and Youth. In his report Mr. Hughes stressed that the relationship between the representative and this committee should be a collaborative one.

It was his hope that this committee would contribute to a greater understanding of the child welfare system amongst Members of the Legislative Assembly and the public generally. He also recognized and hoped that the committee would provide a forum for the government and the opposition to work together cooperatively to address the challenges in the welfare system.

Certainly, in my experience over the last six and seven years, this committee has been effective in this regard. Members have at times worked through some very difficult subject material together but have always done so in a collegial and cooperative manner.

In 2006 the government endorsed all of the recommendations in the Hughes report, and later that year the Representative for Children and Youth Act, which we've circulated this afternoon on your desks, was unanimously passed by the Legislative Assembly. The act established the authority for the appointment of a representative for children and youth, and it also established the close working relationship between the representative's office and your committee, a relationship which has always been very positive.

The first meeting of this committee occurred in July 2006. In total, 45 meetings have been held, and four reports to the Legislature from this committee have been presented. Typically, the reports will summarize the activities of the committee over the previous year.

In addition, this committee, in May 2012, presented to the Legislature a report reviewing the Representative for Children and Youth Act, a statutory review. The recommendations put forward by the committee at that time were implemented by legislation passed in the House in March 2013, so just earlier this year.

Now, I know that the Representative for Children and Youth and her senior staff are looking forward to working with you all in the coming term. I'm imagining that they will anticipate meeting you in the months ahead and providing you with a thorough overview of the work of their office.

Briefly I'll note, for your information, that the representative has a three-part mandate under her act, which includes advocacy for children and youth and their families, a monitoring function for the child-and-youth-serving system and also a mandate to undertake reviews, investigations and reports of critical injuries and deaths of children.

The position of Representative for Children and Youth is a five-year term, and it is an independent position. It is appointed upon unanimous recommendation of a parliamentary committee, a special committee of appointment, to the Legislature. The province's first Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, was appointed in November 2006 and was reappointed to a second term in November 2011.

I would now like to turn your attention, generally, to the responsibilities and powers of your committee. As you may know, all parliamentary committees have substantive powers, including the power to call witnesses and summon evidence to support their undertaking the performance of their duties on behalf of the Legislative Assembly.

In addition to these basic powers that are common to all parliamentary committees, this committee also has some unique and specific responsibilities which are outlined both in the act that circulated today and in the terms of reference, which is also on your desks. The statutory responsibilities are, in essence, mirrored on the four provisions within the terms of reference, so the numbered sections within your terms of reference.

The first element there refers to the annual service plan for the representative's office, which includes organizational goals and performance targets. With respect to the representative's service plan, I would note that over the last year the representative's office has been very successful in enhancing the performance measures that have been developed and implemented into their service plan.

That was partly the result of some collaborative work that they had undertaken with the former Chair, Joan McIntyre, and the former Deputy Chair, Claire Trevena. The new performance measures were incorporated into the representative's most recent service plan in 2013-2014.

Typically, the annual service plan must be released to the Speaker and to the Legislature around the end of September — September 30. The common practice is for this committee to meet in the fall to review the service plan and annual report, which are now combined into a single report.

I should also note that another parliamentary committee, the Select Standing Committee on Finance, also has a relationship with the representative. Like all the independent offices of the Legislature, the representative also appears before that committee once a year in contexts
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of her annual report, service plan and her budget proposal — the resources that her office requires for the forthcoming fiscal year. But primarily, the representative's working relationship is with your committee.

The second item on the terms of reference there notes that the representative reports to this committee, at minimum, on an annual basis, but in practice, of course, the working relationship is much more closely linked than just once a year.

The third item in your terms of reference relates to the referral of child deaths and critical injuries, and it notes that the committee may "refer to the representative for investigation the critical injury or death" of any child in British Columbia.

Specific cases have been referred by the committee to the representative only occasionally, because previously, committee members very much held the view that the primary responsibility for identifying cases that needed further review would most appropriately rest with the representative herself.

In the past what commonly would happen is that the representative would meet and brief the Chair and the Deputy Chair in private, and then, based on the results of those discussions, the full committee would then consider the circumstances of those referrals.

By way of a formal request from this committee, a total of 22 cases have been referred to the representative's office to date. All of those involve the deaths or critical injuries of children which occurred before June 2007, which is the date when the representative's independent powers of investigation were brought into force. These are all historic cases based on the time period prior to 2007 when the entire system for reviewing child deaths was strengthened.

The status of all reviews and investigations of critical injuries and deaths is tracked regularly in update reports from the representative's office, and this committee may receive them from time to time.

Finally, I'll note the fourth area of responsibility in your terms of reference. It's noted there to "receive and consider all reports and plans" of the representative's office. Really, that's the committee's primary focus throughout the year — essentially, to provide a public forum for discussion of the reports. The representative will regularly appear before your committee and provide updates to you of her ongoing work and the results of her reports and investigations.

The committee has also had a very good working relationship with the Ministry of Children and Family Development. The senior officials from that department have also regularly appeared before your committee to answer questions and provide updates on their work.

I'll also note that in addition to the provisions that are listed there, items 1 through 4, the act does include two provisions for statutory reviews of the legislation from time to time. The next review by this committee will be of the representative's monitoring function, which is described in section 6 of the act. The act requires this committee to complete that review by April 1, 2015, so it's still a ways away. I would anticipate the committee may turn its mind to that task in the year ahead.

The committee will also undertake a comprehensive review of the entire act or portions of it before April 1, 2017 — so just before, I would guess, the next election date. I would anticipate the committee would undertake a process as it undertook in 2012.

That concludes sort of a brief overview of the work of this committee over the past few years. I'll note that there are some members who have served on this committee previously, and I would welcome any additions or comments or questions from them or from any of you.

There was one point that I wanted to ask you about, because myself and the Deputy Chair had talked about this. The previous Chair, Joan McIntyre, and I believe it was Claire — was it Claire? — had arranged for a separate project on poverty, and that was quite successful. There was an additional project they did do.

The Deputy Chair and myself have talked briefly that we might want to consider doing that in this committee as well. Nothing has been discussed or planned, or anything.

C. James (Deputy Chair): To add to that, the opportunity to be able to add to what's already in the criteria, in the terms of reference, which is to build the knowledge around the issues facing children in the province…. I think there are opportunities. I certainly saw it from the poverty review that was done by this committee before — the opportunity to take on a special project to raise that awareness, not to do the work that would happen in the Legislature or in the estimates or with the ministry.

To raise awareness on a particular issue that would be of benefit to children in the province I think is an additional piece that would certainly be worth our time having a discussion about. Whether the members who would be interested in this committee and taking that on….

The examples we talked about were things like mental health issues, where there's a huge stigma out there. We might provide some benefit as a committee in raising awareness around the stigma of mental health issues for children and youth in this province. That would be an example where it wouldn't be seen as an issue where you're taking something on that is a ministry issue, but it could be an issue where we could provide some benefit to children and families facing mental health issues
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around this province.

That's the kind of discussion that the Chair and I were having that we think would be worth a discussion for the committee to be able to have.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): I'll add that I'm actually meeting with the former Chair, Joan McIntyre, in the near future, just to kind of pick her brains and see what sorts of ideas she might have.

We're pretty much open to any suggestions that any of the committee members might have. I think we kind of tentatively thought that we would meet as a committee anyways, at some point, maybe one or two times in the fall, in September. We could put that item on the agenda to further talk about.

M. Karagianis: It might be worthwhile for us to find out what the representative's plans are for reports in the fall. I know anecdotally…. I think they have a couple of reports coming out, probably fairly significant ones. That might certainly help establish an agenda around when the best time to meet with her on those would be. I think there are a couple of them scheduled to come out at different times in the fall.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Yeah, and there are some outstanding reports, as well, that have not come to the attention of the committee officially. Have we passed those on to the committee members yet?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I'd be happy to. I believe — I'm not sure if Byron has the list handy — there are a number of reports that the Office of the Representative has released since the committee had last convened. There are five reports. We have print copies in our office. If members would like to review them in advance, please don't hesitate to let us know.

What we would typically do in conjunction with assisting you with your agenda is send you links to those reports once the meeting date is set. Print copies will always be available at the committee meeting. Some of these are substantive reports, so if you want to read it on line rather than printing it out and finding a print copy here, let us know. We can provide it to you in advance.

There are five reports, and we will be in touch with the representative's office on your behalf to get a sense with respect to plans for the fall.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): We anticipate, then, that the first meeting would then have the representative join us. She can give an overview from her perspective but also initiate some discussion on at least one of the reports.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I wanted to also advise members, just as an information item, that there's an excellent book outlining the history of the development of the provincial child welfare system. It may be familiar to some of you. It's called People, Politics and Child Welfare in British Columbia. It does give a very good explanation of the historical evolution of the work that is now in the hands of the ministry and associated agencies.

I know that some members have already requested a copy. We'd be pleased to provide any interested members with this book. It is very well indexed as well, so you don't have to read it cover to cover. If you have an interest in this, please let me know.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): This book actually did come highly recommended by our colleague Gordie Hogg, probably because he's in it.

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): I believe the two authors of the book, Les Foster and Brian Wharf, were both very experienced civil servants working in this policy area for many years.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Are there any other questions, concerns, comments that you'd like us to look into before we move on to the next agenda item, which is actually No. 5, any other business?

Shall we leave it, then, for the next meeting? Or should Carole and I get together?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Yes, I would suggest that you and the Deputy Chair might want to meet, perhaps now, with a view to setting a date in September. Once we have some direction from you both, then we will consult with the representative's office to see when they're best available to meet with you, provide you a briefing on their work and perhaps bring forward some reports for your consideration.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): Are we to assume, then, that unless otherwise told, all the meetings would be here?

K. Ryan-Lloyd (Clerk of Committees): Correct. Most of the time this committee has been a Victoria-based committee. The special seminar on child poverty, which the Chair referenced earlier, was actually held in Vancouver. But with that exception, I believe all committee meetings were held here in Victoria.

J. Thornthwaite (Chair): All right. Hearing no other comments, we'll get back to you as far as the next meeting in September.

Thank you, everyone, for agreeing to be part of this committee. I know it's a very, very important committee.
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I definitely am really, really looking forward to it, in the vein of working together for all British Columbians but for children and youth in particular.

I very much appreciate the opportunity to Chair and to work with Carole as vice-Chair.

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Chair:	* Jane Thornthwaite (North Vancouver–Seymour BC Liberal)
Deputy Chair:	* Carole James (Victoria–Beacon Hill NDP)
Members:	* Donna Barnett (Cariboo-Chilcotin BC Liberal)
	* Mike Bernier (Peace River South BC Liberal)
	* Doug Donaldson (Stikine NDP)
	* Maurine Karagianis (Esquimalt–Royal Roads NDP)
	* John Martin (Chilliwack BC Liberal)
	* Darryl Plecas (Abbotsford South BC Liberal)
	* Jennifer Rice (North Coast NDP)
	* Dr. Moira Stilwell (Vancouver-Langara BC Liberal)
	* denotes member present
Clerks:	Kate Ryan-Lloyd
	Susan Sourial
Committee Staff:	Byron Plant (Committee Research Analyst)

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS (Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN AND YOUTH

REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS
(Hansard)

SELECT STANDING COMMITTEE ON
CHILDREN AND YOUTH