[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, May 28, 1996
.0904 
[English]
The Chairman: Order, please. We'll get things rolling this morning.
Our regular clerk is not with us, but we welcome Pierre Rodrigue. We welcome our witnesses for this morning. We have a fairly full agenda this morning, so we'd like to get started as near to the time as possible.
Welcome, Mark Genuis. Please tell us who's with you. We hope the clerk has explained to you that we'd like to have a brief opening statement to give us time to pose some questions to you.
Dr. Mark Genuis (Executive Director, National Foundation for Family Research and Education): Yes, sir.
The Chairman: Please proceed.
Dr. Genuis: Thank you.
With me today is Mr. Stéphane Robitaille,
[Translation]
who is a research assistant with the National Foundation for Family Research and Education and an MA student at Laval University.
.0905
[English]
Thank you for having me this morning and for accepting our brief. I will spend about five to ten minutes going over some information, and then we'd be happy to answer your questions.
I'll start off the presentation by discussing some trends in Canadian youth throughout Canada, and then I'll go into the specific question to be addressed and present some research from there.
Please note before I begin to set the tone that the information I'll present to you is entirely based on research. I have no intention of presenting any ideology to you or of presenting any particular philosophical perspective. The information I aim to share with you is strictly that of research findings from throughout the world.
In the area of trends in Canada, this being a health committee, it must be noted that the suicide rate in children in Canada since 1955 has risen not 10% or 20% but 1,101%, and this is after we factor out the increase in population. If we look at youths, the increase is 600%, and if we look at young adults, the increase is 338% since 1955.
When we look at violent youth crime, between 1986 and 1994 this increase has been 124%, and in drug-related crime between 1992 and 1995 it's gone up 83%. Many of these children are suffering terrible health problems.
Between 1990 and 1995 we had a steady rate of 45% recidivism in youth courts, but what's more is of these recidivists, 60% of them have had three or more prior convictions.
Lastly, with regard to emotional illness in our society for both youths and young adults, we have a measurable clinical rate of approximately 20% in our country.
The health committee has said it's focused on prevention. NFFRE applauds this direction and we agree with you, because prevention of these difficulties and others is absolutely vital to the strength of our country.
The question we will ask is, how does a child develop positive coping skills? You have identified positive coping skills in a document you have written called Strategies for Population Health, and we ask this question. I'll refer to two specific areas of research, the first one being child-parent bonding and the second one being specifically the issue of non-parental care.
Over the past forty years throughout the world, including Canada, the United States, Uganda, Germany and others, there have been numerous publications in the area of attachment. The results have been quite consistent. They've demonstrated that secure attachment in childhood is a determining factor or a tremendous influence in a child's life in developing into a healthy, productive, happy adolescent. Unfortunately there is not a lot of grey area, however, because insecure attachment to parents has been found consistently to demonstrate clinical levels of emotional difficulties and behavioural problems, including youth crime.
In 1994 I had the opportunity to conduct some research specifically in this area, looking at the long-term implications of childhood attachment. We assessed adolescents and cross-referenced the information with their parents. That was in 1994. Two years later, in 1996, there was a publication specifically meta-analysing this whole area of research, looking at attachment and looking at its implications in the long term, not just the short term. It asked ``Is this childhood attachment important as we grow?''
The findings of both studies were consistent and consistent with the rest of the research from all over the world over the past forty years. The results from the attachment research are that insecure childhood bonding is directly linked to emotional and behavioural problems in adolescents, including youth crime.
Conversely, however, in a very positive way, secure bonding in childhood is a direct link to very healthy, happy and productive development in children through adolescence. This tells us that childhood experiences are very important in children's lives and that as parents and as a society we have a tremendous opportunity to do wonderful things in our children's lives.
Another topic within this whole area is that of children's attachments to individual parents or to parental units. In 1991 a meta-analysis - an analysis of an analysis, which I'll explain in a moment - was done in this whole area, looking at children's attachments to each parent individually or both parents together. The researchers concluded from their findings and from their analysis of all the research to date that children are not only attached to both parents in the same manner, but in fact, they argued, children's attachment is dependent on their attachment to the other parent. So an insecure attachment to one parent significantly increases a likelihood of a child being insecurely attached to their other parent.
.0910
This is not from our findings, or from our report, but from a report referenced in the submission we presented today.
So this tells us that both parents are important in children's lives, that both parents can have an impact, that both parents can do substantial and positive things for their children - but they can also be of significant harm and concern to their children. So that's in the area of attachment and bonding.
In the interests of time, rather than reviewing, if it's all right with you, I'll go on here, and later be happy to respond to your questions.
In the area of non-parental care, we're very fortunate in this area to have had done at least three meta-analyses. What is a meta-analysis? It's a procedure that combines and standardizes the findings and the research in an area of study. So we'll take all of the information, all of the research studies in an area, combine them and standardize the findings and then re-analyse it.
A meta-analysis is a breakthrough beyond a literature review. A literature review is something where a person reads and writes their conclusions based on what they're reading. But this has now become somewhat passé. Meta-analysis, if you will, moves us beyond the review element, because it takes out the researcher bias, which is inherent. That's not to say the researcher means to be biased, but it's inherent, particularly in areas such as non-parental care, where it's so hotly debated - as I'm sure you'll find when Ms Friendly speaks.
Meta-analysis is a way of taking out that researcher bias to give us a statement of the current knowledge in the area of study. Three such have been conducted, one by Clarke-Stewart at the University of California, one by Lamb and colleagues at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and one by Violato and Russell at the University of Calgary.
These meta-analyses have demonstrated consistent results. These results, before I give them to you, should be considered in light of some shortcomings. Please note that no research is perfect, no science is perfect, and before we consider the results it's appropriate for us to look at some potential shortcomings and limitations of data. I'll identify four of them for you.
The first one is that a large percentage of the participants studied throughout the world, in this area of non-parental care, are generally in the mid-socio-economic range. All ranges have been studied, but the majority of them are in the mid range. So you should consider that.
Second, the majority of studies conducted to date have not specifically looked at this element of quality of non-parental care. It has been looked at. There have been a number of studies. But about 70% overall have not considered this element. So a minority of studies have looked at this specifically.
The third is something called the ``file drawer'' problem. It's commonly argued in academia that unless your study has really demonstrated some effects one way or the other, it's not likely to be published. In order to address this problem within meta-analysis, we have what we call a ``fail-safe end'', a procedure where we calculate a number to find out how many studies we would have to conduct to call our findings into question because of this file-drawer problem.
For example, in one of the meta-analyses this was conducted, and the number was found to be over 150. So more than 150 studies would have to be conducted in the area of non-parental care to go against the findings I'm reporting to you today. That's not 150 literature reviews or 150 statements based on ideology; it's 150 new studies coming up to directly contradict the findings.
The last one is a common criticism of meta-analyses, what we call an ``apples and oranges'' problem, where people say meta-analyses have real problems because you're using studies that draw conclusions from studies that have different methods, that use different instruments or that have different purposes for the research. But if you understand the procedure, this is actually one of the greatest strengths of meta-analysis.
You see, the way we determine a particular type of validity in research is to see if different methods of direction, focusing on the same end, converge. If they converge, your strength, power and validity have increased dramatically.
That's what meta-analysis does, and that's why meta-analysis is more powerful than any individual study or any group of studies we can report. That's why I'm reporting that to you today.
What have they found? They found that regular non-parental care, prior to the age of five, of more than 20 hours per week has an unmistakably negative effect in three of four areas outlined these being social and emotional development, behavioural development of children, and bonding, which we discussed earlier, and we discussed the implications of insecure bonding.
.0915
There was a non-significant relationship in the cognitive developmental area. There didn't seem to be any difference there, but in the other three the non-parental care seemed to demonstrate a significant increase in risk for these children.
It should be noted and placed into some sort of understanding that still about 50% of children who went through regular non-parental care of more than 20 hours per week demonstrated a secure attachment to their parents, specifically 51%. At the same time, we must say that the increase in risk above parental care was actually 66% over the baseline. If we take a rather liberal baseline of about 30%, it goes up from 30% to 49% when we factor in the non-parental care. The increase in risk is dramatic. We still have many children who do not seem to suffer severe effects, but the increase in the number of children who do is quite substantial and it must be reported.
Frankly, parental care consistently and significantly outperformed non-parental care when we combine the research, when we look at many analyses, not just one or another.
The last area is that you may be well aware of a new study conducted by the National Institute of Health that has received a tremendous amount of attention.
One of the things out of this study that reporters have discussed is that non-maternal care is not a risk in children's trusting mothers. The study finds that trust is not hurt by child care. It's interesting that they note that the child care study contradicts past research, which indicates that past research is in fact going in a different direction, that it is a concern.
There's a finding that they don't report very strongly in the media. The researchers pointed out on page 11 of their report that for children with, as they classified them, less than sensitive mothers, in fact there was a significant risk of insecure attachment to their mothers, who were less secure, with 10 or more hours of non-parental care a week. That is much more conservative than what I'm reporting to you. It is a very strong finding that has not got attention, perhaps surprisingly so.
Aside from that, this new study has some terrible flaws of which you should be aware.
First, the research has included fathers as being equivalent to day care.
Second, the groupings of the children and the amounts of separation, the way they group the timing - if you have questions I'll clarify later - have absolutely no precedence in research and actually watered down the findings in the way they set it up. So they watered it down right from the beginning.
Third, the study used some instruments that had not been tested to ensure their accuracy. They made up some instruments and went ahead and used them, but they did not test their validity.
Fourth, the reliability of some of these same instruments was far less than acceptable.
So the study has some very concerning methods within it.
In summary, what we find is that regular non-parental care is a significant risk for insecure bonds as well as other things in relation to parents. I focus on the insecure bonding because there are some important long-term implications of the insecure bonds. These are findings that we can no longer afford to ignore.
We would ask the federal government to look at options. You know your area. I'm a researcher; I am not a politician. We would ask you to consider policies that would enable families to increase their range of options to make parental care more of an option for parents so they can make that choice - because, frankly, parental care outperforms. We are a democratic society and people should be able to choose. That's what we ask you to consider today.
I thank you for your time and your patience. I will be happy to answer any questions you have.
The Chairman: Mr. Szabo.
Mr. Szabo (Mississauga South): At our last hearing there was a reference to a study from the U.S., from Providence, Rhode Island. I have given to the clerk copies of a Globe and Mail article of April 22, 1996 that refers to it as the most far-reaching and comprehensive study to date. I thinkDr. Genuis is familiar with it.
.0920
Doctor, I want to share the time here. I understand that you are saying that a consistent, secure attachment to an adult has a very strong effect on the probabilities - and I stress the probabilities - of outcomes of children in the areas of socio-emotional behaviour and bonding. I refer to one paragraph of this study, which says:
- ...the likelihood of a troubled mother-child bond can be increased by child care that is of poor
quality, changes several times or extends more than 10 hours a week.
Dr. Genuis: First of all, the reports of the study talk about quality of care indirectly in that manner. When we meta-analyse the information that exists in the area of quality of care, specific elements of quality have been found to have non-significant effects on the outcome for children. That means that issues of quality such as licensing, profit and non-profit, number of toys - various elements of quality that are used in the literature - have not been found to have that significant an influence on the outcome. It appears that the information focuses back on who is taking care of the children. Is it the parents or not? If it's not the parents, there is that risk for the insecure bond.
How important is it? The importance really comes with the attachment element. The research is very consistent all over the world. In fact, at the end of 1994 I published a paper about clinical implications of this in the International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling. It can be argued now that a secure attachment to parents is a direct cause of health, productivity and happiness in adolescents, whereas insecure attachment to parents can be argued to be a direct cause of clinical levels of emotional and behavioural problems, including youth crime. There is some fairly recently published new work looking at suicide as well.
That's why I identified some of these trends. This bonding is an essential element and it's very important, sir.
The Chairman: I'll go to Mr. Dubé first.
[Translation]
Mr. Dubé (Lévis): I listened to your comments with a great deal of interest and further toMr. Szabo's questions, I would like to put forward several hypotheses. You maintain that to prevent delinquency, health and other types of problems, the ideal situation would be for both parents to be present, caring and sensitive so that children have some emotional security. However, because of labour market constraints, parents may not be present, although they may continue to provide this support to their children, either together or individually if they are separated, and to adopt sound preventative measures.
Conversely, some parents may not be as sensitive and responsible as they should be as fathers or mothers. The various levels of government have no control over this. They cannot guarantee in advance that parents will have everything it takes to be good parents.
Therefore, we must focus on ensuring that children receive the proper care from other sources. In situations that are less than ideal, can quality day care lower the risks children face? If so, what type of day care are we talking about?
Dr. Genuis: Thank you for your question.
.0925
[English]
Firstly, and I must keep to this point, it's not I who is saying that two parents who are sensitive and caring and who provide a secure environment for their children are optimal. I'm simply reporting the findings to you. This is what the findings from the research throughout the world indicate to us.
The researchers have not looked at overall higher-quality and lower-quality parents. This new study did, but the reliability of its instruments was so poor that you cannot pay that much respect to it, frankly. I apologize for saying that, but it's a fact.
What we can say from the information to date is that parents overall do a very good job. There is a whole variety. There are some parents who don't do a good job and provide a tremendously high risk, but the majority of parents in our society do a good job with their children. The majority of parents in our society responded to an Angus Reid poll in 1994 throughout Canada - and this will get to your labour market question; it's a very good one - and said that if they had the economic opportunity and stability, their first choice would be to leave the paid labour market and focus their work on the care and management of their family.
That is part of the reason I come before you today, to say that yes, as a government you can't control everything - well put. But if there are things the government can do to make this opportunity more available to people, then it would benefit Canada and Canadian children, and it would respect what parents across Canada have said they would like.
For the people who are the most extreme we have a couple of options. This study would tell us that parents who are less sensitive...separating their children is a real concern for even ten hours a week. I would be concerned about that. If parents are that poor with their children, then yes, maybe alternative care, but this is far and away the minority of parents. Most Canadian parents do a very good job with their children.
The Chairman: We have about five minutes for this witness and then we have to move on. Next on the list is Sharon.
Mrs. Hayes (Port Moody - Coquitlam): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll try to be brief.
I know this particular topic does a heads-up for parents, in that those who use day care feel somewhat threatened by some of the things that are said. Even within this committee, I know that when we discuss things and people bring forward topics, those who have chosen different things might go on the defensive. I don't know if that's necessary and I'm sure it's not intended. What you're saying is something that perhaps needs to be aired and put forward anyway as public policy discussion material.
I review some of the background for this committee that we were given even as of January of this year. There have been reports and studies and everything. I have Achieving Health For All from 1986, Strategies for Population Health from 1994, the child development initiative of Brighter Futures, A Vision of Health for Children and Youth in Canada, The Health of Canada's Children. It goes on and on where the government has done projects on the health of children.
That material seems to indicate that right now the government is spending probably the equivalent of $15 billion a year on commitments to children's health. Yet I think you just mentioned that there was recently just one study looking at bonding.
I have a couple of questions. Do you have government funding for what you do, or is it separate from that? Could you comment on government priorities in looking at what you have discovered is probably a very important aspect? When we look at government involvement in research, it seems perhaps not to have been a priority of government at all to look at this area.
Dr. Genuis: On the first point, it must be noted that the National Foundation for Family Research and Education, of which I am the executive director and an employee responsible to the board, does not accept any government funding. We will do contracts of research but we accept no operational funding from the government. We receive no money from the government at all.
.0930
Second, there in fact have been many studies looking at bonding. This is the newest study. That is why I have the confidence to come before you today. When a researcher meta-analysed all of this information on bonding, the information was very clear, consistent and direct.
I apologize if anyone is defensive. This is not the intention. The intention is to educate and inform people so that the best decisions for Canada and Canadian children can be made.
What would I as a person suggest? I always get afraid of this, because sometimes people say I'm lobbying, but I will respond to your question.
The development of Canadian children has to be the first priority. If the information tells us that parental care consistently outperforms non-parental care, and that this attachment to parents, as it seems from all of the research all over the world, is a direct link to, and in fact can be argued as a cause of, health, and an insecure attachment can be argued as a cause of ill health in adolescents, then I would recommend that a top priority for the government would be to focus policies that would make parental care more available rather than to focus on other programs.
The majority of parents do a good job, and if we can make it more possible for these parents to take more care of their children, we would be much further ahead and would be able to prevent, as you said, Mr. Dubé.
It would also provide us an opportunity, frankly, for the minority of parents experiencing considerable difficulty.... The government would be able to focus more directly on specific programs to offer direct assistance and help to these people rather than try to set a safety net for all of the country. The net is too wide and many people are falling through. We can tighten that net for this area and provide opportunities for people to do the good work they are very capable of for the rest of the country.
I hope that answers your question.
The Chairman: I thank you.
Our time has run out. I realize a couple of people didn't get an opportunity to ask questions. Maybe you can slip outside the door and catch Mark out there, if you want.
Dr. Genuis: I would be happy to stay until break and answer any questions anyone has.
The Chairman: What break? The break was two minutes ago.
Dr. Genuis: Oh, I apologize.
The Chairman: To be able to accommodate a number of witnesses we have to keep moving. We've scheduled other witnesses this morning as well as an in camera meeting at 10:30 a.m.
Thank you very much, Mark, for coming, and we thank your colleagues as well. Your contribution was flawless.
Dr. Genuis: Thank you very kindly.
The Chairman: We now invite Martha Friendly to the table. She's from the Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto.
Welcome, Martha. It was nice of you to come. You can give as a brief opening statement but give us time to ask you some questions, if you will.
Ms Martha Friendly (Coordinator, Childcare Resource and Research Unit, Centre for Urban and Community Studies (University of Toronto)): Hello - and now for something completely different. It may not surprise you.
In a way, I would like to be on your committee, because I'd love to get into this discussion. But I'm not going to; I'm going to focus on a different direction. I'm going to focus today on early childhood education and its contribution to healthy child development. It takes the perspective that within the broad context of child health, high-quality child care and early childhood education can play a key role in preventing poor outcomes for children.
High-quality child care that provides developmentally appropriate learning is an enriching experience for all children, regardless of their parents' labour force or economic status. In most of the world - not in all of the world, but in a lot of the world - the nuclear family has had the primary responsibility for rearing children. Traditionally, the nuclear family has been supported in its child-rearing role by the larger or extended family as well as by the broader community. Although there have been important changes in family structure and organization and roles, this continues to be true today.
.0935
However, society at large benefits if children develop into competent, resilient, contributing members of the community, and from this perspective child caring is in part a collective responsibility because it yields collective benefits. In a developed, modern country like Canada, all of us benefit if children grow and develop well, and in this way child care has an important role to play in our future well-being and economic prosperity.
I want to talk a little bit about what child care is and how we define child care. Child care is usually defined as care and early childhood education for young children outside the immediate family and outside regular schooling. Child care can be, and in Canada usually is, provided outside regulated services and without the benefit of public funding.
In Canada child care services are those care arrangements that fall within public policy and funding schemes, which are usually provincial. These include centre-based care, nursery schools, regulated family day care, Head Start programs, the CAPC programs through Brighter Futures, child development centres, family resource centres, and a whole array of parenting programs.
In other nations, France and Italy for example, early childhood services under the jurisdiction of the education system form the basis for child care and early childhood education. However, in Canada kindergartens are for the most part not even coordinated with the core child care services.
A final complement to a comprehensive system of child care, which should be organized at the local level, would be adequate parental leave and other work family policies.
For the remainder of this brief I'm going to stop talking about child care and early childhood education, but that's what I mean. I'm just going to shorten it to child care.
It's become clear in the 1990s that child care as a human service has multiple purposes. In addition to enabling parents or women to participate in training and employment, thus helping alleviate poverty for some families and promoting healthy development, it is a tool that helps alleviate work and family stress and can help deliver family support services such as parenting programs.
Child care can be especially meaningful for some groups of children and families by celebrating diversity, maintaining indigenous people's culture and customs and providing opportunities for learning English or French as a second language. Finally, children with special physical and developmental needs gain from inclusion in typical child care settings that promote tolerance and understanding. In this way child care can promote the social cohesion that fosters good health and well-being for all of us.
I want to talk about the factors that encourage children to develop into healthy, competent adults. There are many factors: innate or genetic characteristics, prenatal conditions, the physical environment, nutrition, family attributes and interaction, economic factors and so on. These combine in complicated ways to produce children who are confident, content, competent and resilient, or, conversely, who lack these attributes.
Today research tells us that social and economic factors have a significant determining impact on physical and mental health and that children's health and development should be viewed holistically. So care experience outside the nuclear family is only one of these factors. Thus, from a public policy perspective, it is appropriate to view child care policy as but one of an array of issues that affect children and their families, and these include income security, health policy, housing, other family support programs and policies, employment and the physical environment.
There are two main reasons, however, that child care is a key area that affects children's development, and Mr. Dubé referred to the first of these. Today many young people spend considerable portions of their pre-school years in care arrangements outside their immediate families because one or both parents are in the labour force, in education or in training for a variety of reasons.
A second reason child care is considered important is associated with its influence on children's development and learning in the early years, before compulsory school age. This is usually the later pre-school years, not infancy, and this is whether or not the mother is in the paid labour force.
Two themes emerge from the child development literature in this regard. First, supervised experience with a group of other children in the pre-school years is valuable, particularly for the development of a child's ability to have peer relationships and in classroom and language skills.
.0940
Second, it is clear that the quality of the child care experience is pivotal in determining what impact it will have. High-quality child care is likely to have a positive impact; poor-quality child care may have a negative experience. High-quality child care is that which goes beyond simply protecting the child's health and safety to also supporting and assisting the child's physical, emotional, social and cognitive development.
For an elaboration on these points, I've tabled for the committee a literature review. I don't want to debate literature review or meta-analysis at this point, but this is a good literature review of controlled studies that follow the children for at least the years into elementary school.
I'm not going to talk about what high-quality child care is - you'll be able to read about it in your brief - unless anybody wants me to talk about this, but there are certain characteristics that are known. There is a lot of literature on what produces high-quality child care outside of the family, characteristics of the programs and services, and this would include family day care programs.
I just would like to raise a couple of concerns about the current direction of child care across Canada. These fall into a couple of categories. The first concern I have has to do with the state of provincial child care programs in much of Canada, with several provincial exceptions.
You know, child care services exist in what is really an embryonic form in all regions of Canada. There's no coordination among services and there's no coordination among funding programs the federal and provincial governments are providing. This creates enormous difficulties and lack of continuity for families and for children, and it doesn't seem to be moving in the direction of becoming more coherent.
I have a second concern with regard to the federal government. This has to do with the end of the Canada Assistance Plan. I know this is the health committee, but child care services have been supported since the development of the Canada Assistance Plan in the mid-1960s. That has been what has supported regulated child care services, in large part. The Canada Assistance Plan doesn't exist any more. As of yet, there's nothing on the go in the Canada health and social transfer to ensure or even promote child care services or the development of quality child care services.
So this, together with the direction of many of the provinces, has left families and children in most of Canada.... I would just like to digress to say that I was at a meeting last week with child care people from all across Canada. I think there were people from every province and territory. In most places in Canada child care is really disintegrating right in front of our eyes. I really want to flag this. At the same time, the commitment in the Liberal red book to expanding child care services appears to be off the agenda. So there are some policy directions all around that do not bode well for child care.
I just want to talk about proposals for child care policy. For some people, the term ``national child care policy'' may convey the image of a monolithic system of institutional programs. On the contrary, if we had an effective national child care policy it could ensure that all regions of Canada offer a range of flexible child care services under provincial jurisdiction, planned at the local level and complemented by improved parental leave. It takes the right policy.
These services would and should include centre-based and family day care, nursery schools, family resource centres and other services tailored to the community and complemented by improved parental leave. They wouldn't be intended for targeted groups - children with mothers in the paid labour force or children who are in poverty or children who are at risk - but it would be a comprehensive system of services that would vary with the local community.
It would require substantial public funding to bring the costs of child care within an affordable price range for ordinary families, to pay decent wages to early childhood educators, and to provide high-quality programs that not only ensure basic health and safety but that also promote healthy development.
From the perspective of a strategy to promote healthy development for children, high-quality child care is a necessity, not a frill. Today Canada is one of only a few western industrialized nations without a child care policy. Other countries recognize that healthy societies are not achieved unless the development of children is safeguarded, and they spend significant sums to ensure that there is high-quality child care. A comprehensive system of high-quality child care is a prudent investment in the future. It's time for Canada to take the steps to make this a reality.
Thank you. I'll take questions.
.0945
The Chairman: I am just going to hear briefly from two people I couldn't accommodate in the previous round, if they want to be heard.
Okay, not Andy.
Joe, briefly, and then Pauline at the regular round.
Mr. Volpe (Eglinton - Lawrence): Thank you, Madam, for your presentation.
I have three very brief observations. I hope you don't think they're inimical.
Ms Friendly: No.
Mr. Volpe: Number one, I'm concerned about the fact that you wouldn't want to engage in a discussion about the relative merits of research, whether it's literature review or meta-analysis.
Ms Friendly: I would.
Mr. Volpe: Secondly, the replacement program for the CAP has a floor, and I think, rather than get into partisan discussion, a substantial amount of money still flows to the provinces. So, as they would say in Atlantic Canada, that's probably a red herring.
The third observation is of greater concern to me. You tweaked a nerve. I would like you to react to this, if you could.
It appears to me, a humble member of Parliament, that the industry of this most recent 10 to 15 years in child care, and in other like programs, is spearheaded by people in my age group who are the product of a society that didn't have child care as we hear it today, and that the products of those child care programs are the ones we've heard about in this committee and in other committees. They're the ones who require greater attention, who are the subject of a lot of discussions about dysfunctional social behaviour.
I'm just wondering, when one talks about the millions, if not billions, of dollars one has to put in such a program, whether the outcome is as productive as we would expect it to be.
Ms Friendly: Let me answer your questions in order.
I'm quite happy to engage in discussion about that. I said I wasn't going to present about it.
What was the second question?
Anyway, let me answer the third question. Are you talking about the presentation you just heard or others?
Mr. Volpe: I'm talking about your presentation, because I heard a lot of language, a lot of words, and I was looking for some specific indications, directions, perhaps prescriptions for what might be worth while for a member of Parliament, where one would go. All I heard were words, and I heard them from someone who's in my age group who has probably profited from a social organization, if I can use that term loosely, that didn't have the kinds of things she's presenting. I'm just wondering whether the outcomes -
Ms Friendly: Wait a minute.
Mr. Volpe: Just a second. Were you a product of some child care programs?
Ms Friendly: I went to nursery school when I was a child.
Mr. Volpe: Bully for you. So did I.
Ms Friendly: So there we go.
Mr. Volpe: If we want to get into this kind of a discussion, I think we can go back to why school systems were set up in the first place, which was to eliminate child labour and to provide for a much larger social awareness of what would go on.
What would that indicate?
Do you come from a small town?
Ms Friendly: No, I come from the suburbs. I grew up in the suburbs. Do you want to know my whole history? Are you concerned because -
Mr. Volpe: I'm just wondering about the legitimacy of some of the observations, that's all.
Ms Friendly: I told you that I went to nursery school and I grew up in the suburbs.
Are you asking me about the people who have benefited from the industry, like me - we could debate that - or are you asking me about the negative effects of child care on the children who have been in it in our children's generation?
Mr. Volpe: I guess both, really, quite frankly.
My observation from what I hear you and others tell me is that most of the people who argue in favour of what you're suggesting are people who came from a different system and who are now engaged in the industry, but that the products of those systems aren't necessarily the ones who would be coming before us and saying, ``This has been a great thing for us and for society as a whole''.
The Chairman: Please give a brief response. We have to move on.
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Ms Friendly: Is that germane to what we're talking about?
Mr. Volpe: I don't know. That's what you came here to talk to us about.
Ms Friendly: I'm not sure how germane that is to what we're talking about. If you'd like to know my response to the second part of your question, I will give it to you.
There is very good evidence that good-quality child care and early childhood programs are positive for children. The research began in about 1970 and has gotten better over the years. There's a large body of it. I have tabled one literature review; there are others. If you want to get into a discussion of whether a meta-analysis is better than a literature review, we can debate about relative forms of data analysis and research, but I don't think that's exactly why we're here.
Leaving the first part of your question aside, I'm surprised at where you are. I don't know what reading material the committee has had, but a lot of literature from Europe and mostly the United States demonstrates that good-quality child care and early childhood programs are positive for children in a variety of ways.
When we were children I don't believe we had those things. I don't know whether we did or not. All I can remember is.... My nursery school probably wasn't very good by modern standards. It was like school. Pre-school was like school.
I'm sure I'm older than you, by the way.
The Chairman: No way.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms Friendly: Back in the 1940s, when I went to nursery school, it was like school.
I'm surprised that's really where you are. We could discuss literature. I could provide you with literature on the benefits of early childhood education.
I just want to say parenthetically that what I'm really puzzled about in Canada is the resistance of the population, or some parts of the population, to the idea that learning in a social sense occurs amongst pre-school children. In European countries there's no question of this. There isn't even a notion that it's negative. People wouldn't even consider that they shouldn't send their child to the école maternelle or to the pre-school programs they have throughout Italy.
In fact most French, Italian and Belgian children go to those programs whether or not their mother is in the labour force, and they go to them because it's considered positive. There is some research from those countries, though not a lot, because they don't do a lot of research.
I don't know what to say in answer to the second part of your question. I'm surprised that's what you think. It just isn't so. There's a lot of material that demonstrates it is good for children to be in good-quality early childhood programs.
The Chairman: Martha, you undersell yourself. You're both younger and brighter than he is.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The Chairman: Thank you.
Pauline and then Sharon, please.
[Translation]
Ms Picard (Drummond): Could Ms Friendly provide the committee with a copy of her analysis?
You stated in your presentation that there are currently a variety of uncoordinated programs and services around. I believe you did your study in Toronto, Ontario. Have you ever looked at the programs available in your province and at those provided by the federal government? If so, I would be interested in your research findings. If you haven't done this kind of research, would it not be appropriate to recommend to the committee that it work to prevent waste? I'm talking about programs that overlap and are no longer efficient.
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Earlier on, you mentioned the Canada Assistance Plan. Some cuts have been made in this area, but if we look at what's happening in each province and at the federal level, if we managed to eliminate duplication and overlap, we could develop even more efficient programs and eliminate the problems that our children are currently experiencing. Would you care to comment on this?
[English]
Ms Friendly: There are several things. Every several years I have done a report on the provincial and territorial child care programs. I'm just doing the current one. In each province and territory there's a whole assortment of services.
What I meant about the federal government is that from a financial perspective, it had the Canada Assistance Plan, which provided money to child care services. It has the child care expense deduction. It has something called the dependant care allowance, which provides child care allowances for people in federal training programs. It now has the CAPC programs under Brighter Futures, which are a variety of child care programs. It has a new aboriginal child care program that comes through HRD. It has the aboriginal Head Start program in the Department of Health. I think that's about it from the federal perspective.
In each province there is kindergarten in the ministry of education and then many child care services that are not coordinated. Many people in the child care policy field have said for years that we need to have coordination so we can eliminate waste, have accountability, and so that families can get better services. This would apply to families in the paid labour force and not in the paid labour force.
This has not really occurred in any province, although there are little pieces of it. I know that in Quebec there has just been an education report looking at the issue of early childhood education, and to some extent its intersection with garderies. In Ontario there was a proposal that was eliminated by the Harris government to provide what was called a seamless day for four- and five-year-old children. It would have taken day care services and kindergartens and put them together with overlapping teachers in a public school setting and run them as not coordinated but integrated programs. But it was scrapped.
Across Canada there is under-resourcing, and what money there is is not integrated. I think that would be a very good idea. I wish this committee would recommend that. The child care community has been recommending for years that we use the available resources much better and not waste them.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: You mentioned the fact that Quebec had implemented an early childhood strategy. Were you able to do a study and compare Quebec's efforts with those of other provinces?
[English]
Ms Friendly: They've only just recommended this in Quebec.
Yes, I've compared provinces. But in different features, different provinces look high and low, and then in other features they look different. So you can compare them on supply, cost, salaries of people working in the field and so on. But that strategy hasn't developed yet.
The Chairman: Okay, Sharon.
Mrs. Hayes: The mindset was interesting as you came to be a witness, and I thank you for coming. The comment from the government side was that now we'll get something positive, indicating that what the previous witness had said was somehow negative. I take offence at that. It's not your fault as a witness, but for the record I think that needs to be said. If there's a mindset that good research and good parental care in our society are negative, then that needs to be taken note of. I would challenge those on the government side who seemed to indicate that, by the way.
My first question -
Mrs. Gaffney (Nepean): I'm sorry, I lost what you just said.
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Mrs. Hayes: When this witness came to the committee, a comment was made that now we will get something positive. I take offence at the insinuation that someone talking about good parenting - our previous witness - was somehow negative.
Ms Friendly: Did I say that?
Mrs. Hayes: No, you didn't. I said that someone on the government side said that.
Mrs. Gaffney: Who said it?
Mrs. Hayes: Actually, Beryl, it was you.
Mrs. Gaffney: It was me? I didn't say a thing today.
Mrs. Hayes: Well, not on the microphone, but you did mention it as this witness came to the table.
Mrs. Gaffney: I haven't said a thing. Come on, Sharon, let's get with it.
Mrs. Hayes: You did. Anyway, I think there's a mindset there and I take offence at that.
I know you're from the University of Toronto. Does your organization get direct government funding for your research?
Ms Friendly: I knew that was the question you would ask me. Yes.
Mrs. Hayes: It's a question I ask very many witnesses actually, and it is fair. I asked the previous witness.
Ms Friendly: Can I make a comment about this?
Mrs. Hayes: Certainly.
Ms Friendly: Do you consider tax breaks or tax favours to be government funding?
Mrs. Hayes: No, it's simply a quick question as to whether you get government funding. I won't even ask how much.
The other question I have for you, and I know my time is very limited -
Ms Friendly: I want to ask you a question about this.
Mrs. Hayes: I'm sorry, but you're the witness and I'm the questioner.
Do you think 70,000 unionized civil servants are better child care-givers than parents or community or private enterprise - say, a local person with a day care certificate who sets up a day care program outside a publicly funded system? Do you think a publicly funded system is by definition better than a localized system?
Ms Friendly: First of all, I think you're confusing publicly funded and publicly operated. To be very clear, I would suggest that you cannot run good quality child care at prices that ordinary parents can afford unless there's public funding in it, and I could demonstrate that to you.
Whether or not it should be publicly operated is another question. In Canada people generally favour community-based programs. I think you're mixing in regulated and unregulated, and I'm not sure whether you're also mixing in community-based non-profit and for-profit -
Mrs. Hayes: I'm talking about civil servants compared with private enterprise.
Ms Friendly: Well, that's not the only comparison. Civil servants -
Mrs. Hayes: It's not the only comparison, but it's the comparison I was asking you about.
Ms Friendly: I don't know because I've never experienced it. I haven't seen any research that shows that civil servants.... Do you mean civil servants, like people who are policy analysts and people like that?
Mrs. Hayes: No, I mean publicly funded child care experts, people who are paid by government, whether it be provincial or federal. I mean civil servants as compared with private enterprise child care.
Ms Friendly: I think the research shows that private enterprise child care is generally not as good quality as community-based child care. But I think that in this question a number of things are confused. That's not all there is to it.
Publicly funded child care generally...for example, in Quebec a lot of the money in child care programs actually is government funding. It's the province that has the most government funding in its child care. But the people who work in child care in Quebec are not civil servants. Most of the child care in Quebec is community-based programs with parent boards. A parent board is required by the legislation. They are not civil servants, but they're the big chunk of public funding.
Yes, I think that to run good quality child care you need to have public funding, because otherwise it's only for rich people. That's all. Does that answer your question? I'm not talking about civil servants.
Mrs. Hayes: Sort of. Do you feel that the actual people who take care of the children should be public servants?
Ms Friendly: I don't have an opinion on that one way or the other. I prefer community-based child care. That's what I've been involved in. I think there's a lot of value in having child care that is owned by the community, the parents. I've had a lot of personal experience in that, and I think most people who have been involved in child care have had that experience. I think it's a really good model.
Mrs. Hayes: That could very well be outside a public system, then.
Ms Friendly: Yes.
Mrs. Hayes: I was involved in a co-op pre-school myself -
Ms Friendly: That's what we're talking about; that's right.
Mrs. Hayes: - which had nothing to do with government funding nor was a government program.
Ms Friendly: No, but you can have government funding and have it be community operated. I would bet you.... Was that in B.C.?
Mrs. Hayes: It was in B.C. and it had no government funding.
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Ms Friendly: At that time it wouldn't have had government funding, but in many places it would have.
Mrs. Hayes: But it worked great.
Ms Friendly: It may have worked great, but if you want to provide good-quality child care across the economic spectrum you have to have public funding. It doesn't have to be all public funding, but you have to have a reasonable amount for public funding.
Mrs. Hayes: Perhaps targeted public funding to those who need it? Public funding for everyone means public funding for the rich, too.
Ms Friendly: I'll tell you how I would do it, if you really want to know. I would fund the programs and charge the parents according to their ability.
[Translation]
Mr. Dubé: I can see that we're having some problems communicating this morning, but I will nevertheless venture a brief question. Basically, you want to see some evidence of cooperation and coordination so that the quality of the different family day care services is enhanced. In Quebec, a day care services bureau oversees this area, with the exception of school-based day care. Where a province has a specialized bureau to oversee day care services, is it so important for you to have a national policy in place?
[English]
Ms Friendly: With Quebec, it's an interesting question. I feel quite comfortable with Quebec and child care. I always have. I feel less comfortable with some other provinces, and it has to do partly with the fact that some provinces have no resources.
If you talk to people in the Atlantic provinces, there are no resources for child care. There are no resources for social programs unless there is equalization. That's one aspect of it. The second aspect is that as the resources are being withdrawn, the political environment has become one of cutting back in most provinces - and I would except Quebec from that, along with British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
So when we say a national program, we don't mean a monolithic program. We mean one under provincial jurisdiction. I know this is a very important constitutional issue. I think it's useful to have two levels of government involved. I'm sorry, but I really think it would work better. Child care is a classic example of a program that has been at the provincial level, and it doesn't work in most of Canada. So for that reason it would be very good to have a national federal policy framework.
I don't think we need to get into a debate about this at this point, but it doesn't work the way it is. It doesn't work at all the way it is.
Thank you.
The Chairman: Just before we let this witness go, you had a question for Sharon.
Ms Friendly: Yes.
If an organization has charitable status, it's my understanding that this is a form of public funding. I'm asking you what your opinion is on that.
The Chairman: Well, my answer is yes.
Second, before the witness goes I just want to clarify something. In addition to being the chair, I'm a member of the big, bad government side.
I just want to say to Sharon that I really object to being tarred with that kind of brush. If you heard something in an undercurrent from one individual - which she denies, by the way - I don't think it's fair to target the whole side on the basis of a whisper. I don't share the view implicit in your allegation - I don't share it at all - and I don't appreciate being painted in that kind of corner.
At Boston University I used to have a very wise professor who often said, ``All Indians walk in single file - at least the one I saw did.'' So I don't like the generalization.
Thank you, witness.
Ms Friendly: Thank you very much.
The Chairman: We now welcome Betty MacPhee to the table. She's from the YWCA Crabtree Corner in Vancouver.
Welcome. We're glad you came. Please give us a brief statement and give us some time to ask you lots of questions.
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Ms Betty MacPhee (Manager, YWCA Crabtree Corner (Vancouver)): I see it's 10:10, which doesn't give me very much time.
The Chairman: You have almost half an hour.
Ms MacPhee: Okay. I have a statement that will take about ten minutes.
First of all, thank you very much for the opportunity to make a presentation to the Standing Committee on Health for the healthy children study. My perspective is from an inner city community-based focus. The issue is child poverty.
My name is Betty MacPhee. I'm a registered social worker and the manager of YWCA Crabtree Corner in Vancouver. I'd like to briefly describe Crabtree to offer a context for my remarks. In so doing, I will provide a profile of the children and their families who attend Crabtree on a daily basis.
Crabtree is an emergency licensed child care and family centre located in Vancouver's inner city, the downtown east side. It's actually located in 2,800 square feet of a corner of a city parking lot.
According to Stats Canada, in 1991 the downtown east side had the lowest per capita income in Canada. Approximately 115 individual children, aged from six weeks to their sixth birthday, use our day care monthly. In 1995, 502 children used our day care. Some of the children use it on an ongoing basis.
One-third of the children have special needs due to the impact of poverty and maternal use of alcohol and other drugs during pregnancy. We have seven child care staff and one special needs child care staff.
We also provide a variety of culturally sensitive programs for the mostly single moms who use our centre. These programs include Health Canada's Nobody's Perfect, a fetal alcohol syndrome prevention project, and most recently Women and Tobacco, a participatory research project. This project involves the community women focusing on prenatal smoking and second-hand smoke. We also have Health Canada's community action program for children.
All the children who come to Crabtree live in poverty; 95% of the children are on social assistance. The children come from a multicultural background, as do our staff; 80% of the children are first nations. Many parents are illiterate.
The families live in hotel rooms, rooming houses or shared space with several families in one- or two-bedroom suites, all substandard housing. Often the houses do not have fridges, stoves, running water and heat. Cockroaches, mice and other pests are standard, as are needles and condoms in the halls. The rents are very high. High rent means less money for food. A lack of money, cooking and refrigeration means poor nutrition. During the third week of each welfare cheque month, Crabtree has a long waiting list as mothers try to get their children into the day care so the children will be fed.
Hungry children do not learn well. Poor children have poor health. They are more susceptible to infection and disease. Many of the children are born with low birthweight. So-called high-risk families do not use existing health care services for a variety of reasons, including mistrust and/or a lack of understanding of medical services. This is due in part to a lack of health providers' cultural understanding and respect.
This is based also on the reality that many babies are taken into care at birth due to a suspected maternal use of alcohol and other drugs. A high percentage of these infants are first nations. Grief counselling is rarely offered, and the mothers will often be pregnant again within the year to replace the lost child.
Mistrust of health providers is also the reason emergency rooms are an overused and expensive health service for poor, sick children. Women living in the inner cities receive very little prenatal care, accessing the medical system twice, once for the confirmation of their pregnancy and then at the time of their delivery. The women are often released with their low-weight babies two days after delivery with no supports in place.
Low birthweight is a factor in about two-thirds of the deaths of the newborns in Canada. Infants with low birthweight also face greater risks of developmental disabilities and chronic physical, mental and emotional health problems throughout their childhood. These children and their mothers may have fetal alcohol syndrome as well. Sudden infant death syndrome is not uncommon.
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The overall health of the families is poor. The mother's health is impacted by lifestyle factors, including multiple partners, injection drug use and alcohol abuse. This puts these women at a high risk for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, STDs, TB, and a variety of other health problems. HIV/AIDS is increasing dramatically among women and children. The first nations communities are hardest hit.
The families who attend Crabtree have experienced multiple traumas, including multiple family deaths, systemic racism, sexism, classism, and physical, sexual and emotional abuse. One-third of abused children grow up to be abusers themselves. Violence directed at the children's mothers is witnessed by the children and can be acted out in later life.
Nonetheless, many of the fathers of the children, fathers who are batterers, are granted custody and access to their children. The battering continues in a new form. Up to 30% of all visits to hospital emergencies are battered women. The financial cost of violence against women is $4 billion per year according to the Centre for Research on Violence Against Women. The multi-generational costs of family violence are incalculable.
I would like to discuss very briefly some of the strategies we have adopted to overcome some of the problems. We have a very active children's coalition/parent action group, thanks to Health Canada's community action program for children. This funding has provided us with the opportunity to enhance and support the parent-driven programs at Crabtree. A food and nutrition coordinator provides a healthy breakfast for the moms and kids. She also provides a community kitchen to assist the moms in learning where to find inexpensive food and how to cook nutritious meals. All programs ensure accessibility by providing child care, food, bus tickets, food vouchers, and honoraria for the volunteers and parents who attend our programs.
Our very active parent action group parents choose the issues they wish to tackle and organize the workshops and speakers. To date, these include a first aid series focusing on childhood injury prevention; utilizing the skills of our community health nurse; Christmas in July; poverty workshops; media training; and a series on street safety for the children and their moms.
Needless to say, the downtown east side is a very dangerous area, which you'll know if you've read The Globe and Mail recently. A parent advocacy group and a mothers' pampering day, supported by the community businesses, were also a huge success. We have a single dads group, a cultural heritage week, and a newsletter describing our activities.
Over the years I've asked the women what would make their lives and their children's lives easier. Many of the following suggestions are theirs: adequate levels of income security for families with children, whatever the source of the income; an increase in social assistance and the minimum wage to reflect the basic costs of daily living; an end to blaming the poor for their poverty; involve the parents in all service and program design, delivery, and evaluation; return housing co-ops that provided safe, affordable, mixed-income housing for families; training and employment programs and job opportunities for single mothers that are meaningful and provide child care and the necessary supports for the family; policies that minimize the impact on children who witness abuse, which includes funding for custody and access programs that support the battered mother and her children, because keeping the moms safe keeps the children safe; implement a national comprehensive quality child care system that respects the right of the child to a safe, supportive environment - and we're talking about choice here, so that there is choice; direct aboriginal funding directly to aboriginal family services instead of to support a huge non-aboriginal bureaucracy; provide ongoing cross-cultural training for all social and health providers, with affirmative action hiring practices; better access to mental health services for children where children - for example, in Vancouver schools - who have English as a second language outnumber those who have English as a first language; fund early childhood prevention programs that support families and innovative community-based initiatives, of which Health Canada's CAPC is a good funding initiative; fund health promotion and children's injury/injury prevention; focus on prevention of FAS, the leading cause of mental retardation in Canada; and provide respite care for parents and children with special needs, including FAS. Needless to say, this list is limited due to my time constraints.
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Stats Canada recently studied the causes of the federal government debt and found that the two main reasons for the rise in the size of the debt were high interest rates and foregone tax revenue, while government program spending accounted for less than 6% of the debt growth.
Lowering interest rates and collecting previously foregone tax revenues can contribute to balanced budgets, not cutting much-needed social and health services. Eliminating cash transfers to the provincial government is downloading the problems onto the province and increasing the likelihood of unequal access to health and social services for all Canadians.
I urge this committee to use their influence to advocate on behalf of the children. The children are our future, and they must be first on every political agenda. One out of five children living in poverty is a national disgrace. Prevention of damaged children makes sense, both morally and financially. We pay now or we pay later. The children need your voices.
Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you, Betty.
Pauline.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: I understand and I think the committee understands as well all of the problems that you have just listed that are experienced by native communities. Last year, we carried out a rather comprehensive study and we were made aware of all the problems that native people can experience in some communities.
You also mentioned that some services are provided. I know that the federal government spends thousands, if not millions, of dollars on health care services. How is it that given the vast array of federal government services and programs available in native communities, the situation never seems to improve? What's going on? Do the communities actually benefit from these programs? Is the problem a lack of resources?
[English]
Ms MacPhee: First of all, the YWCA is a 92-year-old organization in Vancouver. We receive no aboriginal funding. We are not an aboriginal service. We simply are in an area where there's a large urban first nations population.
So I would not want to comment on that. I think it's up to the aboriginal community to talk about that.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: The focus of your presentation was poverty in your community. I understood you to say that there was a sizeable native population in this urban community. Therefore, when you talk about health care for children, you're automatically talking about the problems associated with children and their economic circumstances within the community.
[English]
Ms MacPhee: Yes.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: That's where I see a connection. There are many programs around designed to assist these communities. The federal government spends millions of dollars on health and daycare services to eradicate the problems associated with alcohol and to help mothers take better care of their children. Surely you know that these programs exist. Even though your centre is not funded by the government, you have to know that there are programs available to assist these families.
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[English]
Ms MacPhee: Because we're not funded in any way through aboriginal dollars, I am not very clear on what the aboriginal dollars to the community are. I think that is a question the aboriginal community must answer. I'm sorry I don't have that information.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: I don't think we're on the same wavelength. I'm not talking to you about figures necessarily, but about programs. There must be programs in your community to ensure that native people receive health care. I'm not talking about figures. I simply want to know if you are aware that programs do exist. Has your centre ever looked at the programs that already exist to help people in your community?
[English]
Ms MacPhee: No. Politically, quite frankly, it would be suicide for a non-aboriginal organization to look at aboriginal programs and how the money is spent. We would certainly be accused of being very patronizing to advise on that. So I'd have to say no to that.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: You're not familiar with the prenatal program? Earlier on, you mentioned women with low birth weight babies.
[English]
Ms MacPhee: I know nothing about it, though, Madame.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: What kind of assistance do you provide to these women?
[English]
Ms MacPhee: We have a fetal alcohol syndrome prevention coordinator, who is funded by the provincial government. She meets with the mothers and discusses with them their pregnancies. She acts as a liaison to services.
We also have a pediatrician who comes to Crabtree once a week for a couple of hours. She also is a liaison to services. We use the community health nurse. So we access as many of the local services as possible.
[Translation]
Ms Picard: Thank you very much.
[English]
The Chairman: Sharon.
Mrs. Hayes: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Being from that approximate area - I live maybe twenty miles from where you're talking about - I certainly know the area you speak of. There are very real challenges in that area, and I commend you for working as you do with the compassion you obviously have for these people, who are caught in very difficult life situations.
As an aside, my own daughter worked Friday nights for a long time in that area, so I visited it regularly. So I'm aware of some of the situations there.
What can you say? The children need care; they need food. The parents need help in very many ways.
Maybe I could ask some specific questions. Are the people who work at the Y volunteers or employees? What kinds of hours are demanded in this kind of situation? Is it any hour of any day or is there a set routine for this?
I see the needs as being so huge for this population. How does a child care facility work that actually addresses the needs there?
Ms MacPhee: We're an integrated service, and by that I mean we have child care but we also have support staff. Many of the staff are first nations.
We're a 9 to 5 operation, although we have a Saturday program and evening programs as well. For example, the Red Road Warriors native AA uses our facility in the evenings twice a week and has for ten years.
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Some of the staff have degrees. Some have a lot of street smarts. Some of the women have been clean and sober for seven or eight years. They're role models, and I really want to emphasize the importance of role models in a community-based program.
Those are some of the things we do.
Mrs. Hayes: How many people work in the facility?
Ms MacPhee: At Crabtree, including part-time contract workers, we have 15, but some of those only have a few hours.
They're all very caring, compassionate women. They're very innovative, the programs are very flexible, and we respond to the needs of the parents. It's amazing that although we have women who are totally illiterate, who have no written language at all, they are quite articulate if given the opportunity to talk about their needs.
Mrs. Hayes: I have another small question. You mentioned that one-third tend to....
Ms MacPhee: Are special needs.
Mrs. Hayes: Okay, maybe that's the number. What about the numbers that repeat the cycle of lifestyle that they've come from? Maybe that was another number. I'd written down one-third. Is there some definitive...? This would be the population most at risk for long-term success.
Ms MacPhee: Yes.
Mrs. Hayes: What determines success in this group? Is there one thing that seems to give them the best chance?
Ms MacPhee: That's an excellent question. We heard a lot this morning about bonding. One of the things that can happen and does happen is that the children bond with the child care staff. Again, members of the child care staff act as role models. Some of them are first nations women who have had thirteen children themselves. If a mother who has been in fifteen or twenty foster homes sees a child care worker actually hold the baby and not pick it up by the arm - and I'm not exaggerating here - and models that, it is a real beginning. The children then have somebody in their lives who they know thinks they're wonderful.
I've heard in the literature that this is referred to as a cookie person, somebody on your block who says hello to the child or gives the child a cookie, or somebody like a day care worker who is special. That one person can build a lot of resiliency into a child's ability to cope.
We're talking about children who've experienced a woman's boyfriend blowing his head off with a shotgun. We have had children who have been sexually abused to the point where surgery has been necessary. These children are very, very traumatized. I think that having really special child care people and staff who think they're wonderful makes a difference.
The Chairman: We're really out of time, so I would ask my two colleagues to be short and to the point. We have two or three items of business and there's another committee here at 11 a.m., so we're up against the clock.
Mr. Szabo: I'll leave out the preamble then.
Approximately 5% of birth defects, 400 to 500 children a year, are affected by FAS. By the facts I'm aware of, it costs Canada $2.7 billion a year for FAS special needs, and in the lifetime of a child about $1.5 million if they have FAS.
You have obviously seen this situation with children. Although I understand there's a high proportion of aboriginals, I'm assuming that this high proportion is off reserve. We're not talking about a reserve situation. So they are exposed to the messages that ordinary Canadians would be. My question to you, and this is extremely important, is this: of the people you know who have FAS kids, could you give us an idea of what percentage or how many were aware that even moderate consumption of alcohol could affect their child?
Ms MacPhee: Amongst the population I work with, very few have that message. Furthermore, to complicate it, many of them are fetal alcohol affected themselves, which means their ability to learn has really been impacted. So we have a generational issue there.
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As well, I want to mention that many of the women have been battered, and that has really affected their ability to learn as well.
Mr. Szabo: I have one last, quick question. As a Canadian, do you feel the educational and awareness levels of Canadians regarding alcohol tragedies should be a part of preventative strategies to promote good health of children?
Ms MacPhee: Yes, I certainly do. FAS is increasing and people need to know about it. We need multiple strategies - education, warning labels, helping women in their prenatal time, etc.
About two years ago a study was done by Health Canada of 750 prenatal programs across Canada. They looked at what worked well and made some recommendations. I would recommend this committee get a hold of that study. It's really quite good, and certainly FAS was right up there.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Beryl.
Mrs. Gaffney: Ms MacPhee, you answered part of my question.
First of all, I want to congratulate you on what you're doing at Crabtree Corner. If I can use the word ``positive'', it's a very positive thing you are doing in Vancouver. Congratulations.
Ms MacPhee: Thank you.
Mrs. Gaffney: The bonding issue is what I was going to mention, because we did hear a lot this morning about the importance of bonding. You say you are working with that and the parents are becoming educated as to how important it is to bond with that child. Do you involve the parents within the centre as part of the administering of the child care activities? In other words, do they work with you?
Second, do you have any analysis or have you done any research on whether the proof is in the pudding as to what you're doing with these children? Do you have something on that?
Third, other speakers have said disintegration of child care centres right across the country is happening before their eyes. Do you find that within your centre in terms of financing, I would suppose?
We are a health committee, so we have to look at it as healthy parents through healthy children.
I don't know whether I've given you enough to think about there, but since I know our chair is pressed for time, could you quickly respond to that, please?
Ms MacPhee: First of all, I wish there was money for longitudinal studies. I have seen children now who are coming back at age fifteen and sixteen, and some of them are doing very well.
That has been a regret of mine. We are underfunded and under-resourced. If we didn't have the YWCA, which has a hotel and a fitness centre that raise some money, we would have closed down a long time ago, because we always have a huge deficit each year, and every year they have to consider whether they will continue to fund us.
I'm sorry; what was your first question?
Mrs. Gaffney: It was on bonding. Do you bring the parents in so they are taught?
Ms MacPhee: It depends on where the parent's at. Often the parent is in a lot of crisis and it's ongoing, but the parents do spend some time with us. We really encourage them to volunteer, and that's a way for them indirectly to start to learn about their children. We don't tell them ``You have to sit here and look at how your kid interacts with people'', but that's one way. And the role modelling is so important.
Mrs. Gaffney: Okay. Congratulations.
Ms MacPhee: Thank you. That's very nice of you.
Is that a wrap? Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Thanks very much for coming. I'm sure we'll be in touch with you again before the study is over.
This is where we clear the room of all undesirables. We're going in camera now, folks, so if you're not sure if you should be here, you probably shouldn't be.
[Proceedings continue in camera]