The committee met at 8:34 a.m.

[N. Simons in the chair.]

Briefing on Acting Representative
for Children and Youth

N. Simons (Chair): Good morning, Members. Thank you for all being here. It’s a beautiful day.

Let’s start with a motion to go in camera to discuss the appointment of a new representative or acting Representative for Children and Youth.

So moved. Seconded by the deputy.

Motion approved.

The committee continued in camera from 8:34 a.m. to 8:46 a.m.

[N. Simons in the chair.]

N. Simons (Chair): We are back in regular session, so we are back on the air. Just as an explanation for those following along at home, when we discuss issues relating to personnel and human resources and the vacancy at the representative’s office, I think it’s important that we keep those discussions just between us for now.

I’m glad to be back. We’ll just have a recess for two minutes.

The committee recessed from 8:46 a.m. to 8:48 a.m.

[N. Simons in the chair.]

N. Simons (Chair): Welcome back, Members and guests. It’s a pleasure to welcome Bernard Richard and his team from the Representative for Children and Youth’s office to discuss the report Broken Promises.

With that, I welcome you, and you have the floor.

Consideration of Representative
for Children and Youth Reports

Broken Promises: Alex’s Story

B. Richard: Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. It’s always a pleasure to be here.

With me this morning is Alan Markwart. He’s the acting deputy representative, as I’m sure you know by now. Dawn Thomas-Wightman is seconded to the First Nations Leadership Council as a senior advisor on a host of issues.

Also with me is Carly Hyman, our chief investigator. Alysha Hardy is a senior investigator with our critical injury and death investigation unit, and somewhere in the room is Jeff Rud, our executive director of strategies and communications. Jeff is usually the one that paces behind me and worries about anything I might say off the cuff.

[8:50 a.m.]

I’m here to present on a really tough report, Broken Promises: Alex’s Story. If you pay close attention, you’ll see that Alex’s life in care touches upon a number of issues that are critical in our work that come up time and time again. In this case, many of those issues will be touched upon. I’ll just list them for now: residential care services, sexual exploitation, suicide, mental health, Indigenous cultural connections, moves while in care, least disruptive measures, substance use, to name but those.

It’s the first report I released as B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth. A lot of the investigation work and research was done long before I got here. I certainly had the chance to participate in the writing of the report and definitely in the building of the recommendations in that process.

The report chronicles the story of Alex, a Métis youth, who tragically is no longer with us. Alex was 18 when he committed suicide on September 18, 2015, by jumping through the window of his Abbotsford hotel room. Our investigation and the subsequent report, released in February 2017, sought to determine what led Alex to this obviously desperate act.

We wanted to find out what factors in his life in care contributed to his fate. We wanted to determine what improvements could be made to B.C.’s child welfare system to keep other children and youth in care from experiencing similar outcomes.

As this report says, Alex lived the life that none of us would wish for our own children or any child. He experienced repeated abuse while in the care of his biological parents, both of whom were dealing with significant mental illness. His subsequent journey through the child welfare system was marked by constant instability, a distinct lack of permanent connections, and trauma and the inability to get the help he needed.

Alex drifted through the care of MCFD, living in 17 different placements in 11 years and under the watch of a total of 23 different social workers and caregivers. Permanency is an important part of a healthy childhood. For Alex, however, permanency remained elusive. He spent most of this life in the hands of paid caregivers. MCFD’s own internal review after his death said that he had suffered: “profound instability and neglect.”

The tragic thing is that it didn’t have to be this way. Our investigators learned that Alex might well have found much-needed permanency had the ministry acted on opportunities for him to be placed permanently with his stepmother in B.C. or with an aunt and her family in Quebec. Both those family members showed a keen desire to raise Alex, and he expressed attachment to them.

These opportunities were not seized upon as they should have been. Instead, the de facto plan for Alex seemed to be that he would eventually age out of care at 19, with only paid caregivers as an inadequate substitute for family at a much greater cost, both financially and to him personally.

MCFD often cited Alex’s challenging behaviours as it continued to shuttle him through multiple placements and caregivers that only served to further traumatize him and escalate those very behaviours. He never received adequate support for his mental health needs either. Despite five separate referrals to child and youth mental health services while in care, he was never actually connected to appropriate services.

[8:55 a.m.]

Just as critical was the fact that the child welfare system failed to connect Alex to his Métis culture, despite MCFD identifying him as being Métis shortly after bringing him into care at age seven. The ministry, and later the delegated Aboriginal agency, failed to adhere to legislation and standards to connect him with his culture, often using the excuse that he wasn’t interested in learning about his heritage or embracing it. This quite simply wasn’t good enough.

I must say that, as representative, I find it troubling that legislation and standards to protect Indigenous cultural connections are in place but have too often been ignored or merely given lip service.

With a few small exceptions, Alex’s cultural identity was ignored by his eight social workers and 15 caregivers during the 11 years he was in the care of the provincial government. The protective factor that a strong connection to his Métis culture and community might have provided him was never realized. There is little wonder, then, that Alex, lacking permanent family connections and mental health support and cut off from his culture, also developed substance use issues and exhibited those extremely challenging behaviours in his teen years.

Our investigators also found that the quality of the care Alex received was questionable, particularly during the final seven years of his life, when he was in the care of the contracted residential agency, and during his final 49 days, when he was supposed to be cared for in a hotel by a privately contracted caregiver.

At various times, when under the care of the residential agency, Alex complained of being sexually assaulted — once by a female caregiver he said had first given him cocaine. He also complained about a lack of food in his residence and about not being provided enough money to buy clothing.

Other evidence collected by RCY investigators and the ministry, before it cancelled its contracts with the residential agency, pointed to a serious lack of supervision in the house and of workers being hired and retained despite dubious backgrounds and highly questionable conduct on the job.

At the very end, while staying in the hotel, Alex complained that his caregiver, contracted by the DAA for more than $8,000 a month to care for him, was misappropriating funds meant to ensure that Alex had sufficient food and clothing.

In the hours before his death, Alex was using cocaine heavily and stressing about what would happen to him once he aged out of care in just eight months. The B.C. Coroners Service ruled his death, caused by blunt force injuries, to be a suicide.

Our lead recommendation from this report called for the ministry to provide necessary support for children and youth in care who are unable to return to their birth families, to help them to achieve permanency with extended family or another adult with whom they have a positive connection.

These supports could include respite and child care to families, to help ensure the success of such placements. For instance, Alex might have been able to successfully remain in his stepmother’s care, had MCFD been willing to provide funding for child care services that would have accommodated her work schedule. MCFD would not provide her with that additional funding, yet the ministry paid much, much more to house Alex in his next placement.

Other supports that could have made a difference include mental health assessment and treatment, caregiver training, cultural competency training and support, and family counselling.

Placements such as this, with extended family rather than paid caregivers, are more complicated to seek out and arrange. In order for more of them to be successful, the ministry should also ensure that social workers have the time necessary to pursue such placements.

We also called upon MCFD to fulfil recommendations made by both the previous representative and Grand Chief Ed John to bring care plans into compliance with standards already called for in legislation and policy. Priority should be placed on ensuring that permanency is being actively pursued for every child or youth who is in continuing care, and that all Indigenous children and youth in care have a robust cultural plan connecting them to their Indigenous heritage.

[9:00 a.m.]

Because Alex received five referrals to child and youth mental health that resulted in no services, we also recommended that MCFD take immediate steps to ensure that children and youth in care, who have been identified with mental health needs, receive timely and uninterrupted mental health services — this is an issue that comes up time and time again — regardless of any changing circumstances in their lives, including changes in placements.

Finally, we recommended that the ministry significantly enhance the provision of quality assurance oversight and financial accountability for all contracted residential agencies. The highest priority should be given to the monitoring of service delivery quality and outcomes for children and youth receiving care from these agencies.

I understand that the Auditor General is currently examining the use of contracted services by MCFD, but in the meantime, we recommended that the ministry take some immediate action. Significant issues with residential care remain unaddressed.

Although Alex’s story is from three years ago, we’re seeing issues related to residential care — the quality of care, hiring, criminal background checks, very questionable practices in relationships between caregivers and youth in care homes. We’re seeing these as we speak. This is evidenced by the recent discovery of a residential care facility where criminal record checks were missing for nearly one-half of the 33 staff and where drug use by staff with youth in their care was widely reported.

That being said, I can report to the committee that there has been some progress on the recommendations since this report was issued. Most notable is the work that both MCFD and our office have initiated regarding the monitoring of planning for children in care. MCFD is now in the process of developing and piloting a new care plan audit program that will measure compliance to policy.

Our office is also piloting a program that will review the quality of care planning, including overall care planning, permanency planning, transition planning for youth aging out of care and Indigenous cultural planning. In fact, we requested and received an annual budget increase of $407,000 from the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, beginning this fiscal year, to conduct this work on a three-year time-limited basis.

We have also formed and are participating in a joint working group with MCFD on care planning to ensure collaboration and information-sharing and to avoid duplication. After all, we are all seeking the same thing — better planning and, most importantly, better outcomes for children and youth in care.

Other progress on our recommendations from this report includes an increase in the number of mental health practitioners for children and youth in B.C. Following a phased approach, MCFD is planning to hire up to 120 new CYMH practitioners over three years. As of September 2017, it had hired 29, according to budget estimates information. And the completion of a trauma-informed practice guide for practitioners who work with children, youth and families is now posted on the MCFD website.

Thank you. We’re happy to take any questions you might have.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you very much, Bernard. Thank you for that summary. This report was issued some time ago, but I guess the lessons from it need to be learned.

I have a question. Of course, all members are free to ask questions. My question relates to Alex’s final placement prior to being placed in a hotel. I wonder what the role of the representative’s office was in closing the home where he lived. Because that seems to me where…. He didn’t want to move. What were the circumstances around his move to the hotel?

B. Richard: That would predate me, so I’m going to ask for some help. It’s unusual for me to do that, but I need to do it.

A. Markwart: I believe what happened was that the ministry was aware of the problems with the resource. They conducted an investigation. In fact, the ministry had been aware for a few years.

[9:05 a.m.]

They had initially conducted an investigation. The referrals to the resource were informally suspended. The resource had made some changes. Referrals were re-established, but ultimately, some of those issues continued to emerge. Then the ministry, as a result of its own investigation, made a decision to eliminate the contract.

I believe there were 32 children and youth in the resource who had to be placed in other resources. But that was entirely a ministry decision. I don’t believe our office had any role in it.

As a result of the youth being moved and the resource being terminated, Alex was moved to his placement in the hotel with a contracted individual caregiver.

B. Richard: Now, the length of the stay in the hotel resulted in some joint work between our office and the ministry, leading to a new policy, with our oversight, that strongly limits the length of stay in hotels. Sometimes it’s unavoidable for a night or two or three or four. But in this case, 49 days in a hotel was clearly unhelpful to Alex and contributed to his issues.

I’m glad to say that, certainly, there has been some significant progress in that regard. The hotel stays are much shorter, and every effort is being made to avoid placing children in hotels if it can be avoided.

L. Throness: I want to thank you, Mr. Richard, for an extremely well-researched and authoritative and really devastating report. Of course, we’d all heard of it before, but I read through it again last night. Wow. Just a real tragedy.

I have a couple of questions. The first is that I was…. Just to comment on what you were saying before, I think the answer for the missteps of these organizations is not more bureaucracy. It’s more family. As you said in your prior appearance, the answer is in strengthening the family so that people are not put in an institution. I think that’s really important.

I wanted to ask about Bill 26, which is before the House right now, the Child, Family and Community Service Amendment Act. I was alarmed to see the role that a delegated Aboriginal agency played at the centre of this tragedy. It strikes me that although the amendments to the act propose a wide range of agreements with delegated Aboriginal agencies and other, more peripheral actors, they are not a panacea. It very much depends on the quality of the institution and so on.

I thought I would ask if you could give your opinion as to the amendments to the act and how we can avoid this happening again. Can we build something into the act that would help us do that?

B. Richard: A lot of the issues, really, were not related to the legislation but related to the practice — both MCFD and delegated Aboriginal agency practices. I mean, least disruptive measures are already in the legislation. They should always be applied when they’re available. In this case, they were available early on. They could have avoided Alex coming into care in the first place, or certainly for any length of time. Maintaining cultural connections is already in the legislation. The amendments won’t help in that regard.

Certainly, I have views on the legislation. I would be happy to elaborate in another session. But briefly, I think there are concerns. The fact that the legislation makes no mention of the TRC calls to action and makes no mention of UNDRIP despite the strong commitments in the government’s platform in that regard was, I think, a concern to me.

The legislation, by and large, I think is a result of insufficient consultation with Indigenous leadership groups — certainly insufficient consultation with our own office. We were presented with the changes and given, essentially, 24 hours to respond, which I think is, for significant amendments, clearly insufficient.

[9:10 a.m.]

There are issues where…. You’ll note most of the amend­ments refer to the director having the possibility of entering into agreements, of consulting with, of sharing information. The word “may” is used, rather than “shall,” so that the power remains with the director.

I think there are good things in the legislative changes proposed, but certainly, I’m of the view that they don’t go far enough and probably would not make a huge difference in a case like this one.

N. Simons (Chair): Laurie, do you want to follow up?

L. Throness: One more question, Chair.

The representative also made a report that was very similar to this one for Nick Lang, also devastating results and so on. The parents of Nick Lang are my constituents, so my question is for them.

What exists for the families of children who go through this kind of a tragedy who are experiencing ongoing effects of distress and despair and other mental health issues? Is there anything in the system that will provide help for the families of children who are really victims of the system?

B. Richard: Certainly, there are similarities. There are significant differences as well. Nick Lang was not a child in care. That’s a pretty significant difference in that regard.

The stress of having children who are dealing with mental health or addictions issues is enormous. I couldn’t underline that point enough. Having the privilege of meeting with parents who are dealing with these issues, I can tell you they’re so focused on the challenge, the emotional toll that this challenge takes, that it’s hard for them to navigate the systems that are out there — inadequate as they may be — in terms of getting the help that their children need.

Just the last few weeks I’ve spent on the phone or exchanging emails with a mom of a 15-year-old trying to access treatment, actually using the court system. Judges are saying: “You will remain in custody until a treatment bed is found for you.” I think it’s one of the most critical issues that B.C. faces as a problem, because of the drug crisis that the province is dealing with.

Supporting parents in those situations is critical. There are no special programs available, as far as I know. There are the regular mental health programs. Waiting lists tend to be long, and accessing those programs is not easy. If you’re lucky enough to have insurance through your employment that covers access to mental health services, obviously that helps, but not everyone has that possibility.

I think it’s a significant issue. I’m glad you raise it, because the toll on families…. As we all know, most families are connected in some way to mental health and, sadly in B.C., to addiction issues. The toll is horrendous, and we need to not only look at the person affected. Obviously they’re the primary concern, but the toll on the extended family is also significant.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you, Bernard. I think that just underscores Laurie’s point about strengthening families.

R. Leonard: Thank you for walking through it again. It’s one thing to read it, but it’s another to have it spoken into the record, about Alex’s life.

One of the things that I noticed in reading the story was that on different occasions, Alex started to reach out for help, and then never followed through. One of them was to your office. The response was, “Have him call,” and then he wouldn’t call, or he was reaching out, “I need legal help,” and then not following through.

[9:15 a.m.]

It strikes me that there needs, perhaps, to be a proactive advocate on behalf of children who are already vulnerable, who may not be in a place to be self-advocates. No matter how much we say, “You should” — you know, you’ve got children’s help line, whatever — they’re not going to do that.

I’m wondering if you can comment on that aspect of how we can support vulnerable children to access the system.

B. Richard: I might ask someone to add to my response, but I would say one of the issues that does come up a fair bit is caseloads of social workers, their ability to actually connect and play the role of guardian. Guardianship social workers are essentially the parent on behalf of the minister and have personal contact with the children in care.

Caseloads. They often cite too many cases, the inability to follow through on things like care planning and making sure that kids succeed in school, that they have the help that they need to succeed in school, or that they have access to mental health services. These are the issues that come up time and time and time again, sadly.

Obviously, Alex’s story is an extreme story, but I have to say that every month, we’re dealing with all of the issues that I listed at the beginning of my presentation. They still continue to come up.

Maybe I’ll ask Alysha, who is one of our investigators in this case, to talk about some of the detailed issues you raised.

A. Hardy: As a partial response…. Obviously, it was too late to help Alex, but we do now have an internal process within the representative’s office. When the critical injuries and deaths team receives a report where we’re concerned about the youth and possibly about their rights being respected or a situation like Alex’s, internally, our team now refers that to the advocacy team.

There is a mechanism now in place within the advocate’s office where we can make those referrals for the youth who may not be able to reach out. As far as I know, that wasn’t in place at the time that this happened, or at least not as smoothly running as it is now.

B. Richard: In conducting investigations, we’re also…. If we identify issues of concern, we’ll raise them with MCFD, and we’ll ask for immediate response, which is a bit of a new practice, as well, in our office.

What Alysha is referring to is our mandate areas working more closely together. They tended to be quite isolated from one another. These are changes not directly related to Alex’s case but just to function as effectively as possible as an organization, and also to be able to react. It’s not enough for us to conduct an investigation like this.

Every month we receive close to 200 reportables of critical injury and death. About 85 of those are related to service or the absence of services. It’s not enough for us to simply screen those and determine which ones deserve a deeper dive and which ones may lead to an investigation.

If issues come up, we have a responsibility, as well, to make sure that we reach out — that could be through an advocate, another part of our mandate or directly to the ministry — and say: “We’re really concerned about this.” We do that regularly now in our screening meetings every month.

S. Furstenau: Sorry, Bernard, could you repeat that number? How many reports do you get?

B. Richard: On average, close to 200 per month — reportables of critical injury and death of children and youth in care or receiving reviewable services. About 85 of those, on average, are service related, either the result of…. It could be anything, but related to MCFD or DAA services or the absence of services.

N. Simons (Chair): Can I just, before you go, add: what are the other 115, approximately? If you say average 85….

B. Richard: It could be accidental, natural causes. You know, if someone falls off a bicycle and breaks his arm, we may get a reportable. There are many examples of those — natural illness. We do get the reports, but they’re not related to services.

N. Simons (Chair): So critical injury could be a broken arm.

[9:20 a.m.]

B. Richard: It could be. A critical injury, if they’re related to services…. I’ll give you our top three. Normally, they’re sexual abuse, drug overdoses and suicide attempts. We’ve had roughly 80 reports of suicide attempts in the last three months of the fiscal year.

Critical injuries are critical, but they could be emotional and psychological as well. We do have some of those cases. But the top three, I think, are those that I mentioned.

A. Hardy: One of the more common reports that we have that you would see in that 200, which isn’t what we would call screened in, is lost or missing.

MCFD does report to us when children in care are lost or missing from their placement. But unless there’s a very clear critical injury, that wouldn’t be included in that 85 number, just because for our mandate, we need to clearly be able to describe where that critical injury took place.

If the child or youth is simply not in their placement, we can’t really establish they were critically injured when they were missing. Those ones would form that greater number that doesn’t come into the 85. They’re still entered into our system to monitor, but they wouldn’t be reflected in that 85.

S. Furstenau: Sorry. Can I follow up on that now, the lost and missing? Do you have a sense of those numbers overall? How many of those reports are you getting a month?

B. Richard: We’re actually looking at that now, so we may be in a position, in a few weeks, to report on that because of some media reports out of Kamloops, where the mayor raised his concern about RCMP costs of looking for kids missing from MCFD or DAA resources, from group homes. It’s significant enough that he’s concerned about the RCMP costs of looking for those kids in the communities and around the community.

Now, Kamloops is kind of a centre. There are several resources situated in Kamloops, so there could be kids from other parts of the province that are there. The numbers I saw in the reports seem, to me, to be quite high, so I’ve asked for some work in that regard. We’re talking to the ministry.

That’s very recent, from a week ago. But in a few weeks, if you want to have us back, we’re happy to come back to talk about that.

S. Furstenau: My initial question was to ask you about whether it’s possible to extrapolate how many children in B.C. are currently experiencing the kinds of trauma and terrible life experiences that Alex was going through. In some way, these numbers you’ve given do go some way towards that. Is there a way to assess how many children right now are in this kind of danger?

I’ll add my second question right now. That’s the troubling reports that we’re hearing, quite consistently, about children being denied the ability to access you and your services — not being allowed to phone the Representative for Children and Youth, not being allowed to reach out.

I think that this is, particularly given when we see a story like this, something that’s actually causing me some significant concern right now — how many times we’re hearing kids are being told: “No, you’re not allowed to make a phone call. You’re not allowed to reach out to the advocate.”

B. Richard: That would be extremely concerning to me. I think the legislation is clear in that regard. The training of social workers should be explicitly clear in that regard. Any child or youth in care or their….

We encourage teachers, mental health workers, public health nurses — adults who tend to be where these kids tend to gravitate — to contact us if they have issues. I mean, it’s everyone’s responsibility. Primarily, MCFD or DAA workers should encourage children and youth to reach out to us.

That would be extremely concerning. I haven’t heard…. I don’t think I’ve heard of any similar reports, but that would be extremely concerning to me.

N. Simons (Chair): I’m wondering what the member…. Sonia, have you heard that because I haven’t heard that.

S. Furstenau: Where we’ve heard it from is from parents, coming in and speaking with us and telling us. If a child is in a foster home, that foster home is denying them access to being able to reach out. We’ve heard that more on…. I would say a handful of times in the last several months.

[9:25 a.m.]

N. Simons (Chair): Well, that has to be reported, as far as I’m concerned.

B. Richard: It should be reported. Certainly, our ongoing concern is that people don’t know about us. It may be surprising. We tend to think it’s a high-profile office, but I often meet people who say: “Oh, I didn’t know the office existed.” Fair enough.

Actually, next week we’ll be launching…. We’re calling it a “rights tour,” where some of our youth engagement folks will be going around the province meeting with youth and other organizations, service providers, talking about our office services. We can’t expect youth to know about us, but we certainly expect professionals, service providers throughout the province, to know about us.

It should be part of their training. They should know that we exist for a reason. They should have at least a rough idea of our legislation and the kinds of services we provide. So we’ll be doing our part in the next several months to promote our existence.

I’m troubled by your comment and certainly would want to have maybe an off-line conversation and more information.

S. Furstenau: I’d be pleased to do that. One specific example I can give is a mother going into a supervised meeting with her child and a social worker with an RCY pamphlet in her hand, and it was taken from her and not given to the child.

N. Simons (Chair): I suppose we could all come up with anecdotal stories that we have not investigated or fully sussed out. I think it’s fair not to necessarily conclude something from that kind of statement, because there are obviously many factors involved. If there’s a necessity to remind foster parents about the rights of children in care, that’s the responsibility of the guardianship social worker. I’m quite sure that, when they go through the rights of the child, they should include that. Obviously, if it’s not happening, it needs to.

B. Richard: The situation described by the member could happen, but certainly, I should point out, for the sake of balance, that we have social workers, employees of MCFD and DAAs, reaching out to our advocates and looking for solutions. It’s often a very collaborative relationship, and solutions are found, and sometimes the contact is initiated by social workers. So it could be a new social worker, it could be whatever the situation, but I would think it’s not the rule but the exception.

N. Simons (Chair): Bernard, do you get concerns raised by social workers about workload? Do they phone you or your office when there are practice issues that they’re unable to fulfil due to other restraints?

B. Richard: Of course, they complain about paperwork; they’d rather do social work. The requirements within the ministry are often onerous, but data is important. But certainly, they complain about the size of their caseloads, the inability to maintain significant and ongoing contact with the children they serve. I think it was particularly raised with us during our research for the DAA report, which we’ve already been to the committee on.

Close to two-thirds of the children in care are Indigenous, and DAAs serve a little over 40 percent of Indigenous children. It’s significant they raise it, particularly because, I think, culturally there is a real desire and history of working with family members — extended family members, supporting families — which delegated Aboriginal agencies and their directors tell me that they find nearly impossible to do given the limitations of resourcing.

Not all of that is a provincial issue. Some of it, of course, is a federal issue. Hopefully, it’s being resolved, but currently, it’s still the fact that social workers say they’re not able to provide the kinds of family supports that are needed to avoid children being taken into care, placed in foster homes or outside of their communities.

[9:30 a.m.]

R. Singh: When you were giving the report, you mentioned that there was a possibility of Alex staying with the family, with the stepmother, but there were funding issues.

We have heard, in recent months, a lot of research showing us that if the kids are placed with the families, it benefits them more. Is something being done within the ministry here, too, and with your office as well?

B. Richard: I’d like to say that there is a new focus on supporting families. You’ve heard, we’ve heard, everyone has heard that the outcomes are improved when children are able to stay with their families or extended family members.

I’ve talked at this committee about some initiatives in, for instance, the Cormorant Island First Nation community — K’wal’wa;at’si, I think, is the name — where they remove parents from the home and bring in extended family members to provide stability to the child, who stays in his same or her same bedroom — same toys, same friends, same school, same community. So there are some very interesting initiatives, and those are supported by MCFD. There are some very interesting initiatives and pilots going on as we speak.

I think there is a recognition that supporting families is the way to go. Currently I just don’t see the implementation of that on the ground. There are some initiatives, but certainly, we’re seeing the same kinds of issues.

I want to recognize that there is a constant drop in the number of children and youth in care in British Columbia. The drop has been fairly consistent, even after…. Some of that, a few years ago, was attributable to a data cleanup, where there were some duplications of files. That resulted in a significant drop, but there continues to be a constant reduction of the number of children and youth in care, particularly of non-Indigenous children and youth in care. The drop is not significant for Indigenous children.

I think there are some efforts being made, but clearly, much, much more work to be done.

T. Wat: First of all, thank you, Mr. Representative, for such a…. It is a very troubling report but very comprehensive. Thank you for your briefing.

Actually, my question is quite similar to Rachna’s, but I just want to emphasize once again that…. You mention in your briefing that permanency is extremely important, which I totally agree with. To shuffle any child in care from one social worker, one contractor, to another is not the way to solve the problem.

Just now in your answer to Rachna, you said there are some initiatives being made by MCFD on trying to get extended family or supporting family to look after any child in a problem, but you don’t see any implementation. I just wonder, is there any way your office can make sure that the ministry has protocol in place so that this kind of culture is instilled into, first of all, the senior management, and they have a protocol in place to ensure that the social workers will make sure that they spend enough time to explore the support of any extended family or even a permanent kind of family to help a child?

Like you mentioned, there was extended family in Quebec for Alex, but it wasn’t being connected. How are we going to ensure that this is being implemented?

B. Richard: I think you’re referring to practice measures implemented — training for on-the-ground, front-line social workers, where the organization, the ministry or the delegated Aboriginal agency emphasizes these kinds of responses and also provides the resources necessary to implement these kinds of responses when issues arise. They can’t apply to every case. Some children will be too much at risk to remain in the family. In those cases, much work has to be done to strengthen families and support families while the child is away.

[9:35 a.m.]

Sadly, some kids will end up in the care of the state, but in those cases, stability, permanency through adoption — we hope to report next month on adoption numbers until the end of the fiscal year — placement in extended families, when that is possible. Often it can be, if the right supports are in place. These are all very important issues. I think there’s no immediate solution.

Can I say it’s complicated by the fact that this is difficult work? It’s hard to recruit social workers to work in child protection because it’s very, very difficult work. It’s harder to recruit in isolated regions of the province, particularly in the north and other remote areas, where the kinds of supports that social workers rely on, parallel services, are often less available than they are in the Lower Mainland or in the lower south Island area.

I recognize that these things can’t change overnight, but having a firm commitment to support families and to avoid, when at all possible, taking children into care will reap results in the longer run. But it’s a complicated process; I want to recognize that.

We continually…. I’m meeting with the minister next Monday. We’ll be talking about a number of issues. Our role is to identify issues when they come up, to make the ministry aware and to recommend changes. The implementation has to come from the ministry, of course. We have a small office, but we have the independence that allows us to report openly on these types of cases, through you to the B.C. public, and to try to heighten the awareness and the desire to make change happen.

N. Simons (Chair): We have two more speakers and three more minutes.

R. Glumac: Mr. Chair, being on this committee is depressing.

N. Simons (Chair): No, we’re productive, and we’re….

R. Glumac: Are we?

N. Simons (Chair): Yeah, we are. This role is important. I know what you mean.

R. Glumac: I mean, it all feels hopeless. There’s just so much that’s broken about this whole system, structurally. When a child gets pulled away from the stepmother by police, obviously wanting to stay….

The lack of resources is obviously an issue. The relationships between the DAAs and MCFD are an issue. There’s so much that it just seems like it needs to be restructured. I don’t know. Is there any way we can get MCFD in here and talk to them directly?

N. Simons (Chair): We can talk about other projects that we’re doing, but one of the roles of this committee is to review reports to ensure that there’s public discussion around the findings of the representative’s work.

We do identify a lot of issues in this committee, and we do have a tendency to focus on reports, which are not born, usually, of positive events. By reporting out, for example, on workload issues, on funding issues or on difficulties with jurisdictional issues, I think we highlight — to the ministry and to other practitioners in the child welfare field — the concerns, and they are addressed, in many cases.

I said we’re productive; I think we’re constructive as well. We fill a need, I think, in our community to have these discussions openly. For those not from the social service sector, this must seem kind of heavy. But while we discuss these difficult cases, we learn more, and we adjust our practices. It’s not going to be a perfect resolution. We are dealing with real-life issues of struggle in families. I think that clearly, our role is not to fix everything but to highlight some areas that need particular attention.

R. Glumac: My background is in engineering, and I like to fix things. So it’s challenging.

[9:40 a.m.]

In terms of fixing things, the whole thing around how the stepmother got a very small amount of money, wasn’t able to access daycare for a while and had challenges with that…. Then, in the end, a huge amount of money was being spent on something that wasn’t, obviously, providing any real level of care at all. Is this fixed now?

I mean, the priority should be to keep the child with somebody, as has been stated, that is family. When more money is being spent in a situation that doesn’t provide a family-like environment, that seems to me to be completely broken. Has that been fixed?

B. Richard: Not entirely. I have to be real with you. I’m not an engineer, but there’s not a day that goes by that I would not want to fix the things I see in the system. It’s a large, unwieldy system. There are lots of complications around mental health issues and addictions issues, and there are no easy solutions. In this one, I think there were certainly — our report points out too — opportunities that are already covered in the legislation, things like applying least disruptive measures, things that don’t turn the child’s life upside down.

He knew the stepmom. He liked her. She liked him. She was willing to care for him. It would’ve taken a bit of discretion on the part of a local office to make that work, and he might be an engineer today, a productive member of society, right?

There are opportunities. It requires strong training, clear policies and resources to avoid these kinds of situations from coming up, but they still come up. I mean, certainly the fact that Alex had spent 49 days in a hotel room…. In the last two weeks, his caregiver, who was being paid $8,000 a month, was nowhere to be found. That would be unlikely to occur today because of new policy at the ministry. Hopefully, that’s one thing that’s been dealt with.

It is a ministry that has a constant need to recruit new employees to do the hardest work. We find the youngest, least experienced social workers doing the hardest part of the job. That is a concern and will remain a concern, unless social workers are allowed and facilitated to do more social work. It’s what they want to do. It’s what they’re trained to do. That means lower caseloads. That costs money. It’s an investment in resources.

My own view has always been that if the investments are made in the right time, there will be benefits in the longer term. There will be avoided costs in the criminal justice system, in the prison system, in the mental health system, in the physical health system. So there are actual benefits, even financially, to taxpayers. You can always make that argument. I think it’s an important one to make.

Numbers are going down, but the concerns remain relatively the same as they were when Ted Hughes did his report 11 or 12 years ago.

N. Simons (Chair): Except for one thing. There’s a Representative for Children and Youth now. I just think that we could launch into finding every single problem and figuring out a solution to every single problem. It’s not going to be helpful at this particular time.

We appreciate the question. It’s broad. We have a role to play in finding some of those solutions, and we have special projects that we’re going to be discussing at the end of this meeting. So if we want to dig down deeper into specific areas of the child welfare system, we have that ability.

I do think that many of the problems remain, but we continue to highlight them. We expect that…. We have a relatively new government, whether that makes a difference or not. We might have different spending priorities or different expectations of ministry workers. Who knows? But those are things that we’ll continue to pursue.

I’m trying to move things along a little bit, because we’re running out of time.

Rick, and we have two more speakers too.

[9:45 a.m.]

R. Glumac: Regarding funding, it’s more than that. It seems like there are some fundamental structural issues that are broken here, because it would’ve been cheaper for him to stay with his stepmother, right?

Clearly, there are funding issues, for sure. But I think, in concert with that, there has to be some way to maybe set a higher priority on keeping kids with families somehow. I don’t know what’s being done to do that. I don’t understand.

B. Richard: That’s a fair comment. Bringing in the ministry and asking those questions I think is an option that may be available to the committee. I don’t know. I’d leave that to the Chair.

M. Stilwell (Deputy Chair): I think we’ve talked about a wide range of things, and I’ve already had many of my questions sort of answered, but I think it’s important, too, to acknowledge that there are good things that are done in the ministry, and there are success stories. We have permanency, and we have children who are succeeding and who are finding those spaces.

What we hear in this committee is we get these reports. We get the awful stories, the heartbreaking stories that we wish we could have done more. These are our opportunities to learn and try and make those changes, and that’s exactly what the Chair is saying. That’s our opportunity here at the committee — to have the special projects, to delve deeper into the issues that are out there.

I would say one of the issues that I see, from my experience in various roles, is the importance that we’ve already talked about — strengthening the families and the supports. So many of these families, when we’re trying to keep children who already start out….

If you look at Alex, he started out kind of behind the eight ball. He had two parents who had mental health issues. He went through various assessments, and they always said he had behavioural issues. But was there more? Was there a bigger diagnosis that he needed? Were there supports provided to him, and were the people who were caring for him trained in ABA or FASD or ASD or whatever they needed in order to benefit him in the best way they could?

I think if we’re not training the trainer properly and training the foster parents…. It’s not just about putting a roof over the head of these children. They have to go into homes with foster parents who understand the behaviours and how to deal with behaviours and how to relate to these children and give them the tools for their toolbox so that they can be successful. I think that’s where some of our focus needs to maybe be, to ensure that they’re getting the best support possible when they are placed in care.

B. Richard: I certainly agree with that — that when it’s possible to replicate the family as much as possible, those are the best. I have a psychologist friend in New Brunswick who would say that we have it backwards. We tend to spend more money on solutions that work least well — group homes, for instance — and less money on foster families that replicate the natural family. We’ll spend less money there, but we’ll agree to pay more money in a group home setting where kids who are all traumatized, have some kind of experience with trauma — many have issues — live together.

You can really question whether we’re spending the same money in the right way, and that really doesn’t call, necessarily, for more investment. Certainly there’s some research that paying for more expertise, specialized foster families to deal with the more complex cases, would reap as well benefits in the longer term — so identifying but really compensating people who have perhaps social work degrees, psychology degrees and some experience and training to deal with kids with very high needs before they end up costing $8,000 a month in a hotel room or in a hospital or an institution where the costs are similarly extremely high.

[9:50 a.m.]

I couldn’t agree more with your comment. Certainly, our work tends to be depressing. There’s no doubt about that. But we get picked up by the success stories. I could talk to you about Kate, Katrine, Ruby, Rachel, Dylan and so many other kids from care who are now leaders in British Columbia. They’re very strong advocates for improvements. They’ve succeeded. Some have university degrees, and they’re engaged in non-profit organizations. They pick me up every time I meet with them.

There are success stories. They’ve survived through very difficult and challenging times, without a doubt. But the potential of these children is no different than the potential of other children. They need the extra support that we can provide. So I agree with your comment.

Sorry, Chair, for taking too long.

J. Isaacs: Last comment. Thank you so much for the report and all the work that you all do helping educate us on these issues and helping us to understand these issues, as unpleasant as they are. It’s very helpful to get your feedback and your real-life experience with the cases that you have, just so that we understand, in depth, what you are going through and what children and families are going through.

You’ve also pointed out some opportunities to not necessarily fix everything all at once but opportunities to work with and strengthen families. We’ve heard this over and over a few times now, that this is really the key to changing and shifting some of our outcomes.

I’m just kind of supporting what Teresa was saying. We have identified some of the issues, we have identified some of the concerns, and we have identified some opportunities. How do we now provide a standard? How do we get to that point where the protocols are in place so that the social workers and the whole ministry are able now to implement and get to that opportunity where we are strengthening families?

B. Richard: I appreciate the comment. The overall theme has been families strengthening families, family support. Not only is it good policy; I think it may be a matter of necessity. I see the challenges of recruiting new foster families — the percentage of foster families where the age of the foster parents is over 60, for instance. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to recruit foster families.

That will require significant change and, perhaps, oblige us to look to more opportunities to support troubled families to begin with.

N. Simons (Chair): I think it probably bears mentioning that the foster parents’ compensation for the care they provide has not changed for something like 15 years.

Very important words. Thank you very much, Monsieur Bernard Richard, and thanks to the staff for being here. We do have some exciting opportunities to delve into areas that may help direct some of the direction of the ministry. I look forward to doing that with the advice of the representative’s office.

With that, I thank you for being here, and we’ll go the next section of our agenda.

Foster Care Project

N. Simons (Chair): We have a very short period of time partly to discuss the special projects, which include a review of the foster care system. The scope has been presented to you as a draft for discussion. As you know, my preference would be to be focusing on some more structural issues, but we’ve agreed to review foster care and examine the current state of foster care. We have before you a proposal for a workplan, and we can discuss that workplan.

Laurie, if you want to provide the first comment, as this was mostly your idea.

L. Throness: Sure. I really appreciate what you have done here, Chair. I think it’s great. I don’t have any suggestions for changes to make. I think we should just plunge ahead and go for it. Can I comment a bit on future ideas?

N. Simons (Chair): Sure, yes.

L. Throness: Yesterday I was in estimates questioning the Minister of Children and Family Development. I said: “You know, your main job is adoption and fostering.” She came back and said: “No, my main job is to strengthen families so the children don’t have to come into care.” I had to admit: “Yes, you are right.”

We’ve caught it from the representative today. We’ve caught it from the minister yesterday. I think you’ve been catching the tenor on this side that we, in the opposition, would like to view future studies through the lens of strengthening families.

[9:55 a.m.]

All of these things that have been suggested here have some value, but some of them are less directly relevant to the idea of strengthening families. We might like to come back with some suggestions, and we’d like to consult with a representative and ask how he could help us focus on areas that we could best focus on to help strengthen families and to suggest some future studies. I wonder how that would sit with the committee.

N. Simons (Chair): Thanks, Laurie. Any comments?

We can discuss other projects. I think, really, the decision as to where to delve deep should come from us, informed by the representative for sure, but we might have a slightly different perspective.

I, for one, have been interested in looking at the act, in general. It has not been reviewed. It’s an idea — that we could review the effectiveness of the act in meeting the needs of our province. That would be a large study, obviously, and it’s just one idea.

Maybe we need to have more time to discuss options than we’ve been left. If people are okay with the initial review of foster care systems, I’m happy with that.

R. Glumac: My preference would be, through you as the Chair, working, getting some guidance from the representative. Given all of the stuff we’ve talked about in these last few meetings, about what might be some areas that we could delve into a little bit deeper, as you alluded to earlier…. You said that we could maybe dive into some of this stuff a little bit.

I would like to see some options for that, rather than just jump into this one.

N. Simons (Chair): We did vote as a committee to pursue this.

R. Glumac: Well, my recollection at the last meeting was that we were going to come back with a variety of different options for special projects and see how this fits into the context of that.

S. Furstenau: This feels a bit Groundhog Day, I guess, to me as well. We keep coming back to a discussion around whether this is the best way to spend our time or whether we want to actually work out, as a committee, based on all of the information that we’ve gotten over the last eight, nine months….

As you point out, Laurie, supporting families and seeing the pathway to fewer children going into care really seems like a far better use of our time and energy on this committee.

For me, eight weeks on, this is not touching on the root causes. It’s not touching on the realities that certainly I’m seeing in my office every single week. Nobody is coming into my office and saying: “I really want you to look into foster care.” People are coming into my office and saying: “I really want you to work on….” Exactly the kinds of fixes that we keep talking about in here that aren’t moving forward. That is: how do we support families? We’re spending $8,000 a month for a child that’s getting no support whatsoever, whereas their family gets nothing.

We are spending…. The ratio of money on protection versus prevention in this province is astonishing. For me, the work that we do here…. We should be mindful of our time and our energy.

We keep coming back to this. We’ve voted on this, but I don’t think that this is the right approach. The entire committee wasn’t here. We have new members on the committee, and we have an enormous amount of information that we’ve gotten since that time. We’ve also had several conversations about looking at different projects to embark on.

L. Throness: The committee has decided on this. We held a vote before Christmas, and the Chair has responded, I think, in a really admirable way. Foster care is family care, and fostering often turns into permanency. Foster parents adopt kids. So this is about strengthening families.

[10:00 a.m.]

I would suggest…. This is only an eight-week study. We’ve got three years left in this parliament. We’ve got lots of time to do other projects. But I don’t think we should turn back from this, having embarked on it already.

R. Leonard: I’ll try to be quick. I appreciate that in the full continuum of what we’re dealing with in this committee, it’s kind of down the spectrum. It’s one of the fires that we seem to have. I know the representative talked in the Finance Committee about there actually being a problem right now with adoption, that the permanency is falling off. This is obviously, as Laurie just mentioned, one of the steps that leads to permanency is foster care.

I started my working career in trying to keep families together. I worked with families at risk, trying to get into the prevention part of it, going into their homes to support families. So I absolutely believe that that’s the beginning of it all and that we’ve got to catch them when the problem is new, when it’s young.

I don’t think it’s wrong work for us to do this. I think it will help mature us in our understanding of what some of the issues are. As has been said, some work has already been done in putting it together. It’s a short timeline. We will benefit from it — end of story.

N. Simons (Chair): Rick, did you want to add something?

R. Glumac: Yes, I’d like to make a motion: “That this special project on foster care be deferred until other options for special projects are presented under the guidance of the Chair and the representative.”

S. Furstenau: I second it.

N. Simons (Chair): Michelle, do you want to discuss it?

M. Stilwell (Deputy Chair): Well, I just feel like we’ve already done this. We’ve voted on it, and we started the work on it. It’s an eight-week project, while we’re getting ready to do the other projects that you say you want to do. We have a list here of other ideas that we’re going to discuss at a later date.

I don’t understand why we would put a pause on something that’s already going down the road and that is going to help benefit us in some way. Like Ronna-Rae said, it will benefit us, and it’s not preventing us from doing the other work. We will still look at the other things that we want to engage in to help support the work that this committee does.

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you, Deputy Chair.

Any further comments?

R. Singh: My thought was that we have heard so much from the representative, and there are so many other issues that are coming up. I understand that this can be done, but I think this can be deferred. We can look at more important issues, like keeping, strengthening…. We are talking so much about strengthening of families, but when we talk to the representative, we see that there’s not much…. There’s more talk rather than the implementation. I think we should be looking into those things.

I don’t remember — maybe I missed that meeting — voting for this one, so maybe I’m out of the loop on that one. But I feel that there are more important issues to be tackled and finding results from.

N. Simons (Chair): My perspective. I agree that this would not be at the top of my priority list in terms of urgency, so to speak. It’s not irrelevant, and we do want to get a good picture of the entire system.

I think that we don’t have to think of these projects all as consecutive projects. We can do projects concurrently. We can look at the foster care system while we’re also beginning discussions on what, in the act, we would like to discuss. I’m saying that it’s not necessary to say, “This over that,” but: “This as well as that.” I really would like to…. In part, my role is to recognize that we are a duly constituted committee. We did have a vote. I wasn’t in favour at that time. There were issues around the discussion, obviously. I expressed myself.

[10:05 a.m.]

I also recognize that the representative talked today about his concerns about the recruitment. As a former social worker, foster parents are an essential part of the system. They’re the place where the social worker sits in the driveway after dropping off a child and wonders how things are going to be. It’s a crucial part of a child’s life if, in their most disrupted moment, they’re placed in a place where they will be nurtured and cared for. So it is not irrelevant.

It is not prevention, I agree. It isn’t about preventing children from coming into care, obviously, but they do play a role in helping a child go back to their home as well. There are a lot of functions of foster parents that are beyond just having the child there. They could create new relationships. They could create a new system of strengthening. For that reason, I’m not entirely sure….

Oh, we have Alayna. Maybe we need to have some clarification from Alayna.

A. van Leeuwen: No, no clarification. I don’t want to disrupt the momentum of your discussion here. This is an important decision, and it’s the committee’s decision.

I just want to provide assurance to the committee that whatever you do decide, we can marshal the resources necessary to carry out what you want to do. You have tremendous flexibility there. You have a lot of flexibility in your terms of reference, and we have prior examples of special projects that have been done. You have choice as to how they’re reported out on, whether your findings are incorporated into your annual summary of activities or a stand-alone report, whether they include recommendations or no recommendations.

You also have a big toolkit, too, as a committee — for anyone who hasn’t experienced it yet — in terms of how you scale and carry out your work: anything from a couple of targeted briefings with expert witnesses identified to the committee, to marshalling written submissions through our consultation portal, to travel.

I just want to provide assurance to the committee that we do have a lot of capacity internally to support you in what you do decide to do.

N. Simons (Chair): Further discussions?

Thank you very much, Alayna.

L. Throness: I just wanted to say, Chair, that we’ve had a motion. It’s been seconded. We’ve had some discussion. Could we put it to a vote so that we could get on to our next meeting that we’re all supposed to be in?

N. Simons (Chair): Rick, did you just have one more?

R. Glumac: Yeah, I would like to know what was the motion that we passed, exactly — the exact wording of that motion.

N. Simons (Chair): I don’t believe I have it. It’s in Hansard. I’m sure of it.

R. Glumac: I think there’s been some discussion about: “Oh, we passed a motion.” I just think it’s very important to know exactly what motion we passed before we conclude this debate.

N. Simons (Chair): I’m wondering if….

Joan, would you like to add…?

J. Isaacs: Not about the motion. Whenever Rick is finished…. I was just going to say we can do more than one project at a time. This is a short-term project. But we can do more than one project at a time. I don’t see an issue with that.

N. Simons (Chair): I think it might satisfy some members if we, in fact, committed to another project, a concurrent project. I don’t see them…. I see it as making our efforts…. We’re conserving our efforts by not doing things twice. We will hold hearings, and we can hold hearings on different subjects, even.

I understand the concern, obviously. We’re looking for the motion.

R. Glumac: I do think, though, that our resources are not limitless. We do have some constraints on what we’re able to do. I’m looking forward to hearing the motion, because my recollection was that we put together, I think it was, a draft or something to do this.

I think it’s within the purview of the committee at any time to defer or to reprioritize work that has been voted on for the committee. All I’m asking for is that we have a fulsome set of choices in terms of where we prioritize our resources, because it isn’t limitless.

[10:10 a.m.]

While I agree with the Chair that it’s probably worthwhile to do this, I am concerned that if we had a little bit of time to have some other options to consider, doing this may delay some more important work that we could be doing. I don’t know what the rush is to do this one in particular.

Is the motion available?

A. van Leeuwen: Yes. Referring to the Hansard transcript, I can read in the motion as read by MLA Throness at the December 7, 2017, meeting:

“That this committee, due to the precipitous recent decline in foster parents under age 65 and the retirement of those above age 65, immediately undertake a study of foster care in B.C. — including the current state of foster care, the numbers and distribution of foster homes throughout the province, the reasons for the rapid decline of foster homes, the remuneration of foster parents, the recruitment efforts undertaken by the ministry to find new foster parents and any other related issue the committee shall decide — and furnish a report with recommendations to the House no later than April 30, 2018.”

Obviously, that deadline has passed now — maybe I should defer to the Clerk on this, but a committee motion adopted prior to the expiry of a session is not necessarily binding — but I think you’ve heard the Chair say that he’s kind of carried this forward, in a spirit of collaboration.

With regard to the way the project is noted in the draft special project options note that committee staff prepared for you, you’d see that we have reframed the foster care project a little bit just to make sure we make explicit reference to the role that delegated Aboriginal agencies play and also to reflect some of the discussion at the last committee meeting where the idea of actually trying to have input from foster parents, in addition to foster parent associations, was raised.

That project was laid out on page 1 of your special project options note. Then you’ll see on page 2 some other very general and high-level ideas that we put there for committee response and reaction. That would constitute larger projects that are a little bit more future-looking and probably larger in scope than the foster care project.

R. Glumac: Just for clarity, you mentioned that when a motion is made and then the committee dissolves after session, the motion is no longer in play. What happens if a study is undertaken prior to the dissolving of the committee? I mean, it would still continue with the next committee, wouldn’t it?

A. van Leeuwen: Yes. I think that’s fair to say. Maybe the example of a statutory review that the committee was undertaking is somewhat comparative in that the review had actually been started in the prior parliament, but because the act required the committee to do it, they continued through. Each time the terms of reference were renewed for each of the subsequent sessions, that project was carried forward.

R. Glumac: So because the actual study wasn’t initiated, it’s not binding that that motion was passed in the last session.

A. van Leeuwen: I think, from a technical perspective, it’s somewhat like when a bill dies on the order paper.

R. Glumac: Right.

S. Furstenau: I just want to point out where we left off in the last meeting.

Rick said: “For clarity, would it be appropriate at this time to bring forward a motion to table this special project until such time that the committee has had a broader discussion on the goals and visions going forward?”

Mr. Chair, you said: “We can talk about it more. We can talk about it when we have the full context of other possible options.”

Rick says: “Okay. But nothing further is going to happen with this for now.”

Mr. Chair: “I think that’s fair to say. But I think that it’s definitely part of the discussions about what our focus…. I don’t want to shove it aside or anything, but we won’t be starting on it at this point without that fuller discussion. Is that fair?”

Kate says: “Perhaps, if it’s helpful, we will refine some of the preliminary draft ideas that have already been under consideration.”

That’s where we left the last meeting. I am surprised to find, from that point to this point, that what was agreed to at the end of the last meeting, which is that we would have discussion about projects and vision going forward, has not happened. I agree with Rick. There has been a significant amount of confusion.

As we know, the motion, when the session ended, as you point out, expired. I think it’s important that the committee have the opportunity to actually decide how we’re going to spend our time as a committee at this point.

[10:15 a.m.]

N. Simons (Chair): Thank you for that, Sonia. That’s well said. I can’t argue with that.

Part of my job is to try and make sure that we are a func­tioning committee that is single-minded in our effort to improve a system. That requires some goodwill and some generosity of spirit, which I think I tried to display, knowing that we had no requirement to adhere to a motion that was passed in the last session.

That being said, I recognize that as a component of a very large and complex system, it deserved some review. But as the member, Sonia, as you point out, I guess I did say we would have a fuller discussion about what we wanted to start with. It does render the motion that Rick proposed a little bit moot, because we don’t have a formal requirement to undertake this foster home study.

R. Glumac: Well, if I could, at the end of that last meeting, I wanted to make a motion like this, and it was stated, essentially: “Oh no, don’t worry. We’re going to look at other options.” I expected, as Sonia pointed out, that today we would be having some other options to look at.

Now I’d like to formalize that in a motion so that when we come back next time, we will have other options on the table. If we decide to go forward with the foster option, then let’s do it. But I think we should have that formalized.

N. Simons (Chair): Okay. Thank you. I think that I’d like to hear from….

L. Throness: A motion is on the floor, Chair. Why don’t we vote on it?

N. Simons (Chair): We have a motion.

Can we repeat the words of your motion, Rick?

R. Glumac: Was it recorded?

N. Simons (Chair): Possibly forever.

R. Glumac: My recollection is that the special project on foster care be deferred until other options for special projects be presented, with input from the Chair and the representative.

N. Simons (Chair): You’ve heard the question. All those in favour say aye.

Some Voices: Aye.

N. Simons (Chair): All those opposed say nay.

Some Voices: Nay.

A Voice: It’s up to you, Chair.

N. Simons (Chair): It’s difficult, obviously, knowing that I have to cast a deciding vote in this. I think that my principle is to side in favour of having a further discussion about our priorities and what we wish to pursue as a group, understanding that it’s not going to be satisfactory to all. Because of that, I vote in the affirmative.

Motion approved on division.

N. Simons (Chair): With that, I move adjournment of the committee.

Motion approved.

The committee adjourned at 10:19 a.m.