Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 17 - Evidence - Morning meeting
FREDERICTON, Tuesday, June 14, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 9:10 a.m. to examine and report upon Canada's international obligations in regards to the rights and freedoms of children.
Senator A. Raynell Andreychuk (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Welcome to the Senate Standing Committee on Human Rights. We are very pleased to be in Fredericton, particularly myself. Traversing this country to get here is not easy. I thought the bad weather was in the winter, but apparently it is in June in Toronto, not here, I assure you.
We are very pleased that we were able to come to the Atlantic Region to examine and report on Canada's international obligations in regard to the rights and freedoms of children. We have today the ombudsman, M. Bernard Richard, and we are pleased to have him for an hour and a half, so that should give us a lot of time to ask him questions on the Convention on the Rights of the Child and, I hope, human rights on a more general basis.
Now, you have some staff with you. I would ask you to introduce them and present your opening statement. Welcome.
[Translation]
Bernard Richard, Ombudsman for New Brunswick: Welcome to New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province in Canada.
I am pleased to meet you, and I would like to thank you for inviting me to address the issue of children's rights and, in particular, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, of which Canada is a signatory.
[English]
I am accompanied by four students this morning who help us do our work during the summer months, and two of them are with me at the table: David Kuttner, who is a Laval law student; Cynthia Kirkby, who is a UNB law student. Sitting in the gallery are Katherine Jardine, who is a law student here at UNB; and Kerry Ross, who is a business student at UNB here in Fredericton. I thank them for accompanying me.
I should point out early in my presentation that I will be speaking for about 10 minutes or so. I should warn you on that, because I am a former member of the legislature, and one of my last speeches there was a response to the budget as finance critic and it lasted for nine hours; so if I go on, please do not hesitate to cut me off.
I mention the students because, although I can make the presentation — it is easy enough for me to do — they did most of the work and the research. Then they can answer the questions, if you have any.
[Translation]
My presentation will focus primarily on specific cases. I wanted to respond to your invitation by referring to actual cases because it seems to me that we can go on at great length about human rights, children's rights, but these rights become more real when we see how children, even in Canada — and this is almost inconceivable — have a great deal of difficulty obtaining the services they need.
Our office, by definition, is not the office of the ombudsman for children, because we do not have any ombudsman for children's advocacy in New Brunswick. We receive complaints pertaining to children and we deal with these complaints on a regular basis.
I accepted your invitation for various reasons. I hope that your interventions and reports will be noted and have an impact and will be used to improve the situation of children in New Brunswick and elsewhere in Canada. I still have hope. Obviously, one is always somewhat hesitant to appear before a Senate committee.
The cynicism that exists for our politicians also exists with respect to senators, and one wonders what can come of this. Nevertheless, I do have confidence in Canada's political system. I want to make every possible effort to find solutions to troubling problems that I see in my office every day.
[English]
I wanted to mention specifically the child advocate office in New Brunswick, because we have had for about a year now a rare event in our legislature, unanimous approval of a bill, one creating a child advocate. I had mentioned earlier in the year in my role as ombudsman that I really felt there was a need for a child advocate. I feel even more strongly today that that is the case. Unfortunately, a year later, we are not much further ahead. We still do not have a child advocate specifically tasked to look at issues involving children and youth.
In fact, we have had a bill proposing amendments that I fear will weaken the original bill in two ways. Firstly, by limiting the definition of ``services'' in the original bill, in my view, the mandate will be curtailed. I am concerned about that. The second amendment that concerns me limits access to information that a child advocate would have in investigating complaints regarding children and youth. Certainly, that is the first point that I want to make.
As I travel the country I have met with other ombudsmen, and with child and youth advocates. Those are dual roles in some provinces, such as Nova Scotia, for instance, our sister province. Others have completely separate offices. There is no doubt that New Brunswick needs a youth and child advocate. It needs one quickly, and there are certainly serious issues that need to be dealt with.
I will begin by giving a couple of examples, if I can, of why we need this kind of advocate. I know one of the arguments for having a separate child advocate is that ombudsmen traditionally are impartial and are not advocates. They do not advocate. They receive complaints, investigate, hear both sides, and then make recommendations. Certainly that is true of our office. I would hasten to add, though, that once we make up our mind on a complaint, then we rapidly become advocates. If we believe that there is a lack of fairness in the treatment of an individual, and in this case, for what concerns us today, a child, then we become advocates for that child. It is just impossible to remain impartial once we have all of the facts and have heard all of the parties involved, including officials of the department. If in any specific case we feel that there is an issue of fairness, of justice, of rights, then we rapidly become advocates for that child.
I will note that I am not using names because of the confidentiality provisions in our act, although parents often urge me to talk publicly about their cases, and I may, with their consent. To date I have hesitated to do that, although I know that the Ontario ombudsman has been very aggressive recently and is providing names, with the consent of the parents. It is something that I am considering here.
The first case that I would like to refer to is that of a 15-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with a severe case of paranoid schizophrenia. The reason we became involved is that the parents have been unable to care for her. The Minister of Family and Community Services has obtained custody of that child. In learning more about this case, several concerns have come up. All of these cases relate to what the convention describes as ``the best interest of the child.'' I am coming at it from that perspective. What is in the best interest of the child?
This girl, at 15, is now virtually completely institutionalized. She spent the last year in a psychiatric ward in one of our hospitals, and she had very few options available to her.
The frustration of the parents, and, I would add, my frustration now, is that there has been a lack of cooperation between departments of the same government. Mental health officials have recommended a certain type of intervention for this girl — and mental health in our province is under Health and Wellness — but the Department of Family and Community Services is not following those recommendations.
We have had a medical board recommendation. They received a complaint and made a recommendation, but the department that has custody has said, ``This board does not have jurisdiction over us so they are outside their mandate.'' We see a classic case of government working in silos, not cooperating, not working in the best interest of the child, and that has been very frustrating for us.
We have also noted in this particular case an inconsistency between regions. One official of a department told us, when we found out that other regions are providing residential care outside of an institution for this type of child, ``Well, that region is not concerned about its budget. They will go over budget. We work within our budget.'' This is in the same province. In one region we do not provide that because it costs too much, yet children from other regions are in residential facilities in the region where this child is in hospital. They are sent by other regions that do not have a facility. The region has a non-profit facility caring for children from other regions, but children from that region are not admitted because that would cause them to overspend their budget.
These are the types of issues — and this is a specific case — that we meet in our work that we find very frustrating. We also find it frustrating when our recommendations are not respected.
We have another case of a respite care worker who has cared for a disabled child for many years under the auspices of one government department, but when she applied to become the foster parent, she was turned down because the department found out in their investigation that as a teenaged mother, she had faced a child protection issue. She had gone to the department for help in dealing with a child and had received assistance. It was about two decades later that she applied to become a foster parent. The department turned her down because she had sought help from the same department 20 years earlier, after she had provided, to the satisfaction of the department, care for a disabled child over several years during the intervening period. Again, my concern is that a straight adherence to policy became the norm, rather than what is in the best interest of the child. It has raised another concern for us as well. Our department made a recommendation that was rejected.
We have had several cases dealing with autism and schizophrenia. I especially mention autism in this case because we have referred complainants to the Human Rights Commission. In New Brunswick, the Supreme Court has clearly decided that governments can decide which services are covered by medicare and which are not. Therefore, it is up to government whether they want to provide autistic children with services covered by medicare. The Government of New Brunswick has decided to provide public services to autistic children, but only up to age five. As far as I know, there is a complaint at the level of the Human Rights Commission here in New Brunswick dealing with that question.
[Translation]
So this is an issue of allegations of discrimination based on age, for an autistic child, and that applies to many children.
Further to the Human Rights Commission decision, there have been some improvements, but, unfortunately, this type of investigation is carried out over a long period of time and may even take years. This is no different in New Brunwick. For children, it is absolutely essential that we provide services quickly.
The parents of a four-year-old child, for example, must wait two or three years to obtain a recommendation and they do not know whether it will be favourable or not. When they get an answer it is often, unfortunately, too late. Parents here, and elsewhere in Canada, have more or less set up their own agency.
Parents in the Miramichi region have set up, on an informal basis, a centre for autistic children, where service providers from Ontario come — and this service is paid for by the parents — one week per month to provide treatment for their children as well as others from the greater New Brunswick region. The parents cover the costs. Parents do fundraising activities to cover the services, and provide the services to their children themselves, because they feel that these services provided by the government are inadequate. This is a very controversial issue across Canada.
On this subject, there was an important case in British Columbia and an important decision recently rendered in Ontario. The legislation will evolve, but it is clear that this is an issue that concerns me and should concern all parents and grandparents in Canada, in my opinion.
We have received many complaints from parents unable to secure specialty services for their special needs children. One specific case comes to mind, where a young boy, Ryan, cannot obtain specialty services because there are not enough services and they are made available only to the most severe and crucial cases, according to the authorities from the department in question. Once again, are we putting the best interest of the child first? That is a concern.
Last year, I also raised the issue of ADHD and this trend, that we see across Canada and New Brunswick, of being too quick to diagnosis this condition and too quick to prescribe medication, particularly Ritalin for children.
Moreover, when I made these comments in public, other individuals more knowledgeable than I am, including people from the medical profession, admitted that there was a growing problem with respect to ADHD diagnoses and drug prescription in Canada. I believe that this is certainly a North American phenomenon and one that can also be found in other countries. We have a tendency to prescribe drugs to children who are agitated instead of trying to find out what causes the agitation. The easiest solution is to prescribe drugs without sufficient knowledge, in my opinion, of the long-term effects of this solution.
Further to complaints filed by parents in our office, we raised the issue of teachers suggesting that a child may be suffering from ADHD and should perhaps be prescribed Ritalin by their doctor.
[English]
Following our intervention, and the interventions and the public comments of others on this, including Charles LeBlanc, who I know is here this morning and has been very outspoken on this issue, the Department of Education sent a directive to all its teachers throughout New Brunswick saying that they are not medical personnel and are not competent to and should not suggest any particular course to parents of children who may be showing signs of ADHD. Certainly I have seen a copy of that directive and it was clear in that respect. That is another issue in which you might be interested.
I have suggested that a legislative committee look at the increase in the prescribing of Ritalin to children suffering from ADHD and the increase in the diagnosis. I am not convinced that it is not being seen as the easy solution.
One issue that is dear to my heart now is the issue of grandparents' rights of access to their grandchildren in the case of separation and divorce of the parents. We have had several complaints in that regard. We are in the process of preparing recommendations. I know that Quebec has the most progressive legislation in Canada, in that its Civil Code provides a specific right of access to the grandparents unless it can be shown that it is not in the best interest of the child; whereas all other provinces, to my knowledge, take the opposite approach, that it is up to the grandparents to show why it is in the best interest of the children for them to have access. That is a tremendous onus on some grandparents.
As a recent grandparent, I can sympathize with them and can only live in fear that the same situation could occur. I have found their stories heart-wrenching and compelling, of not being able to gain access; of having obtained visitation rights in New Brunswick, but then the custodial parent moves to another province, and having to start from zero because the other province does not recognize the decision of the New Brunswick court.
That is contrary to, for instance, support payments, where we now have agreements virtually across North America that if a court provides for support payments in New Brunswick, it will be respected in other jurisdictions. I believe there is a need for more consistency across Canada on the issue. It is not a problem that will go away by any means, given the divorce rate with which we are all familiar. That is something that needs to be addressed.
There was quite a good report from a special joint committee of justice officials from all departments that made recommendations back in November of 2002. Unfortunately, not much has been done since that time.
I have talked about the issue of autistic children. I will not repeat that. I will mention a specific case of a too-rigid adherence to policy. Again, this is a case of parents who adopted a child in the custody of the minister, only to find out after the adoption that the child suffered from fetal alcohol syndrome. This is a working-class family, with not many resources available to them. They returned to the department because they were aware that some adoptions are subsidized if the child has a condition that requires special treatment, therapy, or medical intervention — dental care, for instance — not covered by medicare. The department said, ``Well, there is nothing we can do because our policy is clear. We cannot subsidize adoptions once they are finalized.'' Although obviously, fetal alcohol syndrome is present at birth, and was present, without a doubt, when the child was in the custody of the minister.
We spent a year on this case, and I am especially frustrated because the parents have told me that they considered giving up custody of the child after they have had her for five or six years since they were told that the child would receive better services, paid for by the province, if in the custody of the minister. I do not think that is right.
There have been several such cases in Ontario. It has been a prominent issue recently, where the ombudsman there has tabled a report and the government has promised to act. We have had a few of those admissions at our office. It concerns me greatly that we cannot find the resources to provide services that children need when they are in the custody of their parents, whereas we would provide those same services were the children in the custody of the department, the minister or the government.
In this case, we have made recommendations. I have met with the deputy minister. I have met with the minister. The final action that the act allows me to take is to file a special report with the legislature. We have had an ombudsman since 1967. It has never been done in New Brunswick, but I will be doing it in the course of the next several weeks because I feel that this is a case my office was created to address; my office was created to determine whether there are exceptional cases that fall outside of the norm and deserve special consideration. I think this is one of those cases, yet I cannot get anyone at the department to agree with me. Therefore, we will be tabling a special report for the first time in almost 40 years, seeking the legislature's Standing Committee on the Ombudsman's support for my recommendation.
As I said, we have had a few similar cases. I know my presentation has probably been a bit too long, but since you have been so generous in allowing me time, I will add this case. It relates specifically to section 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, where the convention states that children or youth in detention should not be housed in facilities with adults.
Canada, as a signatory, has reserved the right to disregard this article in the convention in specific situations, and the reservation reads like this:
The Government of Canada accepts the general principles of article 37(c) of the Convention, but reserves the right not to detain children separately from adults where this is not appropriate or feasible.
I mention it because we have now a situation in New Brunswick where adult males are being detained in the same facility that was built for youth, which has been the object of some controversy in New Brunswick. I want to be clear that I can see occasions where it may be feasible to house some adults, particularly female adults, with youth, because there was an issue in New Brunswick with females being housed in prisons. It is one of my responsibilities as ombudsman to receive and investigate inmate complaints about institutions where female inmates are housed with male inmates, obviously in different sections. I can see where it might be possible to house low-risk female inmates with youth in a separate section of this prison that has been specially designed. I do have a concern over the housing of male adult inmates with youth inmates, especially when the convention is so clear on this issue. Although Canada has put forth its reservations, I think it is something that we need to address.
Essentially, that is what I had to present to you. I have been a bit long-winded. I did warn you in advance, I have to say, Madam Chairman. However, I will be pleased to respond to your questions, and hope that it will help you in your deliberations as well.
The Chairman: Thank you, and certainly I think the time was well spent on the examples, as they are troubling examples as well as helpful to our study.
Before I turn to the other senators, you did mention the Convention on the Rights of the Child. To what extent do you use the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and to what extent do you believe that the civil service and the legislature here in New Brunswick feel bound by that convention? In other words, do they use it? Do they know about it? How often do you refer to it in your work?
Mr. Richard: I would say rarely, if ever, and I was a member of the legislature for about 13 years. I do not know that I ever heard it mentioned in those years. Certainly we do not use it at our office. We do not refer to the convention. We refer to our statutes and laws and rights, our Charter of Rights and the legislation here in New Brunswick. In my view, it is not used at all and not considered specifically.
Your coming to Fredericton has allowed me to become more familiar with the convention and to do some reading and thinking about it. The rights contained in the convention are not unknown to Canada. Providing services that are in the best interests of the child is a concept that we know very well in Canada, and we use it. Those words are contained in our own legislation. I would say the general rights are known, and I would be hesitant to overdramatize even those cases that I think are dramatic.
By that I mean this is an international convention that would see many more violations in some countries than in Canada. However, I am concerned that with the resources we have available, we do not pay close attention to those rights. Sometimes we will say that we would love to do something, but the resources are limited. You will hear from elected officials, and from other officials, that we cannot do everything. We cannot be everything to everyone. The resources are limited. Yet it is not uncommon to see tremendously rich corporations receiving tax incentives, rebates, that sort of thing, and a balance is needed. In my everyday work as the ombudsman, I have seen some cases where there is insistence on not creating precedent, on not recognizing exceptions, on not reacting to situations that cry out for help, based on the fact that we do not want to step outside the policy. That really concerns me. I think that even in New Brunswick, which could not be described as the richest province in Canada, we have resources to address those issues, and we are not doing it.
Your invitation to me to come here has certainly helped me become more aware of the convention, and it may be that our practice will change over the coming months and we will refer to the convention in dealing with some of these cases, because I think it is an important tool that we have not been using in New Brunswick.
The Chairman: That was to be my follow-up question. You have given us certain examples related to the convention, certainly the last one, about facilities and adults. Have you ever in your reports or your studies used the convention as one of the supporting reasons, if not the essential reason, for why you believe services should be provided, or attitudes, policies or laws changed?
Mr. Richard: Well, ``ever'' is a long time, and we have had an ombudsman for 38 years. I have been the ombudsman for almost a year and a half now. I have not used it. Clearly, I have not used it.
However, as I say, having become more familiar with it, I think it is something that will be very useful to me. I am thinking of the specific case of our annual report. The tradition in New Brunswick has been to produce an annual report that is essentially a statistical compilation of the numbers of complaints, the types of complaints, the departments concerned, all of that, but without recommendations. For the first time, this year we have produced a report with recommendations, although not dealing with children's issues specifically. For the first time, we will be tabling a special report dealing with children's issues in which this convention may be cited. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it at this point.
Senator Oliver: At the beginning of your remarks you indicated that you were a little cynical about a Senate committee coming here to talk about this and that you did not know what effect it might have. I wanted to say that a number of the questions that you have raised today, about the child who is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and so on, are now being studied by another Senate committee led by Senator Kirby, and it will produce a landmark report that will ultimately resolve a lot of the issues.
You should also know that the same Kirby-LeBreton committee produced the major report on health care in Canada. There was a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada last week, and when you read the decision carefully in conjunction with the Kirby Senate reports, you will find that the Supreme Court decision that will restructure health care delivery in Canada is based largely upon the Senate report, and not the Romanow report that cost $15 million.
The Senate does in fact have a major role to play, not just in human rights but in many other issues, and I wish more Canadians knew that. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make that statement. A lot of good work is done by the Senate of Canada and this committee. If you look around, Senator Pearson, Senator Andreychuk and Senator Poy are examples of the kinds of people who do a lot of that good work.
My question deals with the difficulty of this subject because of the jurisdictional arrangements in the Constitution of Canada. The federal government has certain jurisdictional powers, as do the provinces. I realize that you spent many years as a Liberal member of the provincial house, but your first cabinet position was as intergovernmental affairs minister. That is why I want to put that question to you, because that was your first area of expertise. Because of our federal framework, provincial governments have exclusive jurisdiction over some aspects of the law, whereas the federal government ratifies international instruments like this one on the rights of the child. One of the first things you said today is that you are the ombudsman for the province, but there is no child and youth advocate. I would like to know, given this federal/provincial dichotomy in this entire area, what would be the best way to create an office of a child and youth advocate in New Brunswick? How should it be funded? Who should be there? What should be the mandate, the powers? Should it have lawyers, social workers, psychologists and so on? How should it be structured so that it will help us to adequately implement this covenant that has been ratified by the federal government?
Mr. Richard: Yes. Well, thank you for setting me straight on the usefulness of the Senate. I apologize for probably repeating comments that you hear from the general public. I know that you are aware of that, and the Gomery commission has not helped the level of cynicism with regard to public institutions, but I should know better than to repeat those kinds of things.
I have already expressed my views on the need for a child and youth advocate in New Brunswick, and having been a cabinet minister, I am mindful that there are costs to establishing those kinds of offices. Therefore, I have indicated that in a province like New Brunswick, where the number of cases, because of the population, will be limited, we should look at the model in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia has recently asked its ombudsman to take on the responsibility for child and youth advocacy issues.
I think that is the most efficient way of doing it, whereby you do not have to duplicate administrative and technological resources. We have a case-management system that allows us to track complaints in our office. You would not have to re-create that in a separate office, with perhaps three or four people.
As a former social worker, I would say that it is important to have social workers in this job. As a lawyer, I would say it is important to have lawyers as well, and I have access to lawyers in my office. However, we deal more with administrative-type issues, and that would be expanded or slightly different with the added responsibilities of a child advocate, or in a separate office for a child advocate. I do think that it would be important to have officials with knowledge of child welfare issues, social work techniques and policies, so that they in investigating complaints, they would know whether procedures are being followed and appropriate services provided. I have access to a legal adviser in my office, and it is an invaluable service because we have to always look at not only policies and programs, but also legislation and regulations and their interpretation. I do not think you would need a separate legal adviser if you had a combined office.
Certainly that would be a saving in terms of efficiency in my view as well, and you would not need a separate, highly paid — perhaps too highly paid — administrator such as me in a separate office if those services were combined. I have already stated publicly before a legislative committee that given that a bill was approved unanimously almost a year ago, in late June last year, it can be up and running within a matter of weeks.
Senator Oliver: What kind of budget would be required to cover the entire province of New Brunswick?
Mr. Richard: The province has set aside in its budget this year about $400,000.
Senator Oliver: Would that be enough?
Mr. Richard: Yes, I think it would be enough initially. In fact, I think you probably could do it with less than that if both offices were combined, because as I said, you would not have to duplicate services. It could be up and running within a matter of weeks with a budget of probably around $300,000.
Senator Oliver: Does that include money for training and advising youth and children about their rights?
Mr. Richard: Yes. That is an essential role. However, it is not only to advise youth, but also to advocate for them. There are several instances where that can be done, including before the legislature, but in other ways too, such as conducting studies on specific issues. I think of the gap in services for 16- to 18-year-olds. That has been an issue in New Brunswick for several years. It concerns children between the ages of 16 and 18 who no longer live at home and their access to some services. It likely would deserve some attention from a youth advocate, as soon as one is appointed, because at our office we deal with about 3,000 complaints a year regarding inmates, income assistance clients, injured workers, anything that you can think of to do with provincial government services.
Senator Oliver: However, when you were talking today about youths, the main types of complaints were largely medical — paranoid schizophrenia and so on. What about education and the justice system? Surely children's rights in New Brunswick have been violated in those areas as well. Have you had many cases involving those two systems?
Mr. Richard: Yes, I think they are very often connected. I give the example of the autistic children who are entitled to services until they go to school and then the —
Senator Oliver: That will be the education component of it?
Mr. Richard: Yes. The government position is that once they are in school there are other services available. However, we all know that those services are woefully lacking, and certainly do not compare with the services that are available before they go to school, even if judged inadequate by the parents. They have been forced, or felt compelled, to hire private services and are paying a huge cost. It is a cost of tens of thousands of dollars a year per child.
Obviously, there are other issues that we have responsibility for, including youth in prison. We do visit the youth detention centre on the Miramichi on a regular basis and we deal with complaints emanating from that institution.
Although I have only been ombudsman for a short period, I recognize that these are the types of investigations that will take a lot more time. They are very complex. They often deal with medical issues, mental health issues, and other types of services, so it is hard to make comparisons. Two hundred complaints regarding children would compare probably with about 3,000 miscellaneous complaints that deal with all kinds of issues, some of which can be handled quite easily. I do not think that would be the case with children's complaints. The fact is, though, there is no child and youth advocate, so we will not turn down a complainant. We are dealing with those issues, but we do not have the resources or the clear mandate. I feel very strongly that it is overdue in New Brunswick. It is needed.
Senator Pearson: Thank you for a very interesting presentation, and for a clear commitment to the rights of children. If I may so, I think it is clear in everything you said that you understand their rights, even if you have never used the convention, as you said. Of course, we are hoping that you will now be using it more.
We do note that the Province of New Brunswick is required to make a separate report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child — we read the last one — so there are people within the bureaucracy who are aware of this, and that the convention itself, while it is ratified by the federal government and is the state's responsibility, required letters from every province and territory before the ratification took place.
I believe on the last part of the convention, which is the optional protocol on child prostitution, child pornography and so on, New Brunswick was fairly early in sending its letter. It is just a matter of ``There is a letter in the mail'' from the last province, and the protocol will be announced shortly.
We are very interested to hear the description of the child and youth advocate office and are a bit curious as to why they would think of amending the bill. If I can read between the lines of what you said, the kinds of amendments that concern you relate probably to resources, and the fear that this will create a sense of entitlement that the government bureaucracy is nervous about.
Mr. Richard: That would be my interpretation as well.
Senator Pearson: However, we hope that our presence here may help to spur this along. The oldest child advocate office is in Ontario, which is just about to pass legislation to make the advocate an officer of the legislature. She has been extremely active, and of course the ombudsman there has helped on this entire issue of giving up custody, which has always made no sense. I think that the child advocates, as they work together in their Canadian association, have been a good, strong voice on the national scene as well. Having yet another mandate or officer will help to strengthen that association, which I think is one in which the different provinces are able to learn from one another and come to common ideas. All the offices clearly structure themselves around the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I have worked with them for a long time.
I will ask a question on behalf of one of our colleagues on this committee, Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, who is, of course, a senator from New Brunswick, and is detained in Ottawa for the moment, since she is the whip.
On her behalf I have to ask about French language. As you know, there is in the Convention on the Rights of the Child a right to culture, identity and so on. In the work that you have done, and particularly if anything has crossed your path with respect to children, are there any issues related to access to the language, not just in school, but in child care and in other kinds of facilities?
[Translation]
Mr. Richard: Since I have been the ombudsman?
Senator Pearson: Yes.
Mr. Richard: We have a Commissioner of Official Languages in New Brunswick. Complaints about services in either of the official languages would be forwarded to the Commissioner of Official Languages. Even if our office received the complaint, we would refer it to the commissioner. New Brunswick is, after all, the only officially bilingual province in Canada.
Tremendous improvements have been made over the years. We now have duality in the Ministry of Education, where we have one minister and two deputy ministers. Services, certainly those that pertain to instruction, and curriculum, for example, are provided separately to the two linguistic communities through schools organized on the basis of language. As far as schools are concerned, I think that we could assert that tremendous progress has been achieved and that the minority community is now given good services in our province. Over the years, we have been able to adopt legislation, such as the Act Recognizing the Equality of the Two Official Linguistic Communities in New Brunswick. The principle of this act has been incorporated into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, specifically for New Brunswick.
Further to the Charlottetown accord, there has been an important amendment that further guarantees legislation. I believe that, in New Brunwick, we have made some very important progress over the years.
Moreover, Senator Oliver mentioned that I had held the position of Minister of State for Intergovernmental Affairs. When I performed this duty, I had the privilege of promoting New Brunswick as a site for the Francophonie Summit held in Moncton, in 1999. I often gave New Brunswick as an example of a jurisdiction where minority rights were gained with great difficulty but without violence.
As a francophone Acadian, living in New Brunswick, I am, like many other people, aware of the fact that we have to remain vigilant. Sometimes we tend to forget that these rights are important in principle, but that they are even more important because they actually do exist and we have to remain constantly vigilant.
If there are any shortcomings, I would say that they may be found in the area of health care. In some regions, complaints have been filed over the years that certain hospitals did not provide services of equal caliber to the minority community. In particular, I believe this would apply to the Miramichi region where one third of the patients are francophone and where there have been some complaints over the years.
I know that each regional health corporation in New Brunswick has made efforts to provide services of equal caliber to both communities. I do not think that there are any major problems. We do have to remain constantly vigilant. There are always improvements that can be made, but I think that, generally speaking, significant progress has nonetheless been achieved in New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Poy: Mr. Richard, I just want to go back a little to your office as ombudsman. There is no child advocate at this time in New Brunswick, but obviously from what you have talked about, you have handled a lot of cases to do with children. What would be the percentages of cases involving children and adults that you have handled in your office?
Mr. Richard: I wish I could give you a specific number. It would be small in terms of percentage. As I said, last year we handled 3,000 complaints, and maybe a hundred related specifically to children. I hasten to add that these cases are much more difficult for us to handle. They are often very complex. They involve issues of custody. They involve medical issues, as Senator Oliver has said. We talked about a child who has been in a psychiatric ward for almost the last year. These are very complex issues that involve several health professionals, and professionals from other non- health departments. I am thinking of Family and Community Services, for instance. We have dealt with youth in the youth detention centre here in New Brunswick. There are sufficient numbers, in my view.
One of my frustrations has been that because our mandate is not specific to children and our resources are lacking — and I have mentioned that publicly several times — we are not able to give the quality of attention that I think that we should to those cases. I feel strongly about that.
Thankfully, we have three law students and a business student working at that. When you look at the fact that in my office, other than myself and my legal adviser, I have four investigators, it doubles my investigative staff for four months. Even with all their qualities, they need to be trained and become accustomed to the work, and before you know it, unfortunately they are gone, and then we start again, usually with a new batch, the next summer.
We do not have the resources to handle these types of complex cases. I would say that although the numbers may be low relative to the total number of complaints that we receive dealing with all kinds of issues — tax assessments, road works — you cannot really compare those to a complaint regarding an autistic child, or a child not receiving speech therapy, for instance, where the department cannot fill a position in a certain region because those professionals are so hard to come by. Yet when the parents identify a speech therapist in private practice who could provide the services, the department says, ``No, we cannot do that.'' They are saving money on their budget because they cannot fill the position, and yet the child is going through critical months, and perhaps a year or more, of waiting for these services that need to be provided on a timely basis. Although the numbers are not high, they are seen by me and by my staff as critical complaints that deserve our attention. Unfortunately, we cannot devote to them all of the resources that they deserve, in my view.
Senator Poy: Therefore, there must be a lot of other complaints that do not get to you?
Mr. Richard: Absolutely.
Senator Poy: Who would have been handling those? Would Family and Community Services be handling all of the other complaints for the time being?
Mr. Richard: I think so. I think they end up with the departments. We found that people do not know we exist. People do not know that we deal with these kinds of complaints. However, when we do talk to complainants, we find out that they are very frustrated by the way they are being dealt with.
Having been a social worker for three years, I understand that you have a specific mandate, you have policies, and so the unusual, exceptional cases disarm you. It is good to have someone who can look at it from an impartial, independent point of view — being an officer of the legislature, I do not report to the Premier or to any cabinet minister. I am completely independent and report to the legislature, and that gives me the opportunity to speak out without having to report to a supervisor or administer specific policies.
I am not surprised when we get the response, ``Well, the policy is clear,'' or ``The program is clear. We cannot do anything other than what we are doing.'' Although I am not surprised, I think it is my role to point out that this is an exceptional case, and that perhaps fair treatment would be to go beyond the norm or the policy. It is not very easy for officials who are employees in the departments to do that. It is not very easy for me to do that because I know the types of responses that I will get when I raise those issues. It is not fair to expect officials of the department, employees of the department, to do the kinds of things that an advocate should do.
Senator Poy: You mentioned that the best solution for New Brunswick is to follow the Nova Scotia model, to have the ombudsman and child advocate in the same office. Now, you mentioned that legislation is being passed in that respect?
Mr. Richard: No.
Senator Poy: I did not understand.
Mr. Richard: No, the bill was before the legislature and was approved unanimously last year, but then amendments were introduced in January of this year that provide for the establishment of separate —
Senator Poy: And it would cost a great deal more?
Mr. Richard: Well, in my view it would cost more. I state it humbly, but in my view it would cost more. I think it is pretty obvious. In a small province like New Brunswick, setting up a separate administration would mean that valuable resources would be spent on administrative issues that should be spent on providing services to children. I have made that plea and stated that case.
The legislation is in place. It has not been adopted yet. There is barely a week or two left in our legislative session and the amendments have not been debated yet. I was hoping that it would go to a legislative committee so that I could address the bill. I am sure that others would want to address the bill, but that has not been the case. I do not know if it will be adopted before the end of the session. If it is not, then normally our legislature would not reconvene before approximately mid-November. In practical terms, it could be a year and a half, two years, before an office is set up. I think that is unfortunate because people are crying out for those services.
Senator Poy: Has anyone proposed a bill to include your office with one for child advocacy?
Mr. Richard: No, but that would not be very complicated.
Senator Poy: No?
Mr. Richard: Essentially, it would be a bill describes the mandate, and that is fine. It would be a minor amendment stating that, perhaps even, as I have suggested, for a transition period, because it is possible for us to be up and running very quickly, that the ombudsman is designated as the child advocate for a period of two or three years. That transition would allow you to judge what resources are required and whether a separate office would be better. I am sure that could be done fairly easily, if the will is there.
I cannot help but mention, for instance, that there is an issue in Saint John, our largest city, regarding a liquid natural gas plant where the municipality has agreed to provide a significant rebate on property taxes to the proponent of the project. That is $5 million a year for 25 years, which is a lot of money. However, because our current legislative framework does not allow a municipality to provide that kind of incentive, there needs to be an amendment to our Municipalities Act, and that appears to be going ahead by leaps and bounds. In some cases, I think there is a need for incentives. I express no opinion on whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.
However, what I am saying is that when we want to make legislative changes and the will is there, then it certainly can be done in a hurry.
Senator Oliver: Well, it is the Irvings. It is New Brunswick's politics. It is the Irvings versus the province.
Mr. Richard: As I say, I make no comment on it.
The Chairman: You have used the phrase ``the best interest of the child.'' You have referred to the fact that it is in the convention. I am going back to your social work days and my old Family Court days. Very few parents ever say they do it for selfish reasons. They want custody of the child, or they want to restrict the child, often using the phrase, ``I am doing this because it is in the best interest of the child.'' It is true of grandparents also. Rarely do family service officers say that they are putting their own stamp on a case. They are always couching it in phrases like, ``We believe this is in the best interest of the child.'' My question is how do you define the best interest of the child? Who do you listen to, the child, or all of these advocates on behalf of the child?
Mr. Richard: I think it is an excellent question, because it is not always easy to tell. I can tell you that the majority of the complaints that we deal with we find to be not substantiated. Once we have done our investigation, we have obtained all of the information — and I long ago learned that there are two sides, and sometimes three and four sides, to every story — on many of the complaints that we have received, we have come to the conclusion that in fact what was done by the officials is in the best interest of the child. There are those cases where we have concerns, and we have expressed those concerns.
The key, in my view, is having an independent office to look at these issues, with access to all of the available information, access to expertise, either in terms of social work, law, or other services, and that is able to independently come to some judgment or conclusion. To me, that is essential. I have read the New Brunswick submission on the convention, and essentially, we are asking officials of government departments to assess themselves. I think chances are they will say they are doing pretty well. Therefore, the key, in my view, is to have an independent official such as a child advocate or an ombudsman and allow that official to have access to all of the pertinent information, to look at all services relating to children and not to restrict the mandate. If you do that, then I think in the end it is always an issue of judgment. Providing someone independent with the tools to do their job is the best guarantee that you will get the best results.
It is never black and white, and it would be wonderful if, for every complaint that we get, we could say with absolute certainty, ``Yes, this is what needs to be done and this is a clear violation.'' It is rarely like that, so we have to exercise our best judgment. As long as we have the tools to do it and are independent of the agencies that we are investigating, then I think we have the best possible way of arriving at a state of affairs where we respect the convention as completely as possible.
There is turnover in departments. Social work is a tough job and there is a high turnover rate here in New Brunswick. I am sure it is no different in other jurisdictions, so it is difficult. Then they have all of the internal pressures from their departments, their supervisors. These cases often tend to be very interesting to the media, and I find there is always a concern about that. The important ingredient, in my view, is to have somebody independent with sufficient resources look at these complaints in a detached way, and if we do that, then we will do the best job possible.
The Chairman: We have allowed cameras into the meeting. We often do not because of the kinds of testimony we hear, but we thought this might be a good educational resource. Do you have any objections to them?
Mr. Richard: I do not find them intimidating in the least.
The Chairman: No. I think you have 12 years of experience.
Senator Oliver: I would like to go back to the Constitution of Canada. As you know, there are provincial and federal rights in the Constitution. Many of the issues that affect the rights of children are shared jurisdictions — health, education, law and justice, property and civil rights, and so on. Our federal government, which signs these international treaties such as the Covenant on the Rights of the Child, often does not consult with every province before doing so. Then the federal government begins to implement some of the terms of that covenant, and we do not have any overarching, overriding system. Should we look at having some standard enabling legislation to implement international treaties in each of the provinces? What is your view, as a former provincial cabinet minister, on that relationship between the federal and the provincial governments?
Mr. Richard: This is also an excellent question because it is an issue with which we have struggled. I would almost have a different answer for Quebec than for the other provinces. As you are well aware, Quebec is very concerned about any federal encroachment on provincial jurisdiction, so it is a never-ending issue. However, if we can find a way to work together on issues such as health care and address the waiting lists, the lack of resources and training of physicians, if we can work across boundaries in doing that, for the life of me I cannot understand why we could not find the same resolve on the rights of children.
I think even given our complicated federal system, if there is a political will to find a way to work together to make sure that our obligations as a country are fulfilled, then I think we should, and we can. I think it has been shown on other issues and on other important subjects. Well, I cannot think of any issue more important than the rights of children. It is possible, although I agree it is difficult, and at times it seems impossible.
Senator Oliver: What about enabling legislation? Do you think that we should have some standard legislation that can be recommended to all provinces to help enforce these international agreements signed by the federal government?
Mr. Richard: Certainly a lot of work is done in Canada on uniform legislation, for instance. It is done on a continuing basis, but when you touch on the subject of jurisdiction, it becomes a lot more difficult. I would be concerned that we could lose a lot of time debating issues of jurisdiction when we have shown that informally, we have been able to overcome some of these issues. I am thinking of child care, for instance. It seems that provinces across the country are agreeing with the federal government on a new program.
As we often hear in New Brunswick, the resources are in Ottawa, the jurisdiction is in the province. However, if they are able to do it on the issue of child care, then perhaps it is possible informally on the issue of the rights of the child as well. I am just concerned that if we are looking for a too formal cadre that we may waste valuable time. I cannot disagree that it would be better if it were agreed to formally. I am just not sure that we can get there, but we have been able in the past to agree informally, and if that is the way it has to be done, I am happy with that as well.
Senator Pearson: I have a particular interest in the civil and political rights of children. I have been working a lot on youth participation. In our interview with the Children's Commissioner of New Zealand, we were struck by the fact that she had the statutory obligation to consult with children. It was written into her statute. I am just wondering whether, since your child and youth advocate is still in the process of evolving, you might think about putting in a provision of that kind.
We were speaking yesterday with some young people in Newfoundland for whom the discovery of the Convention on the Rights of the Child had been transformative. It was extraordinary. They had not known about it, so we have failed badly in educating, which is part of our obligation under the convention.
One of the young people said that she would really like to see the voting age go down to 16, because then she would be forced to think about being involved in politics. I was not quite sure whether this was the way to go, but her sense was there was a need to build a critical mass of young people who will be prepared to take part in the political process. I have been thinking about defining the political rights, because political and civil rights go together. Articles 12 to 17 of the convention, the right to participate in decisions affecting you, the right to free assembly, the right to privacy, the right to free expression and so on, are in some ways civil rights, but they are tied to political rights, because unless you have those you cannot have the others. I would be interested in hearing if you have a reaction to the political rights of children.
Mr. Richard: I confess it is not something that I have thought about a great deal or considered. My spontaneous reaction would be that given the level and quality of adult participation in our democratic institutions, I cannot see that they would do much worse. When we look at the rates at which adults are voting, the cynicism that exists, often the lack of interest in some critical issues, that sort of thing, certainly I do not think that we could do much worse. I do not have any objection in principle. I know there is some work being done on that now, perhaps by a Senate committee, I am not sure, but I have read something about it. That would be my spontaneous reaction.
Senator Poy: I would like to refer to some of the specific cases that you mentioned in your presentation. There was one about grandparents' rights. Now, I would like you to please expand on what these rights are in New Brunswick. I have always thought of it as in the best interests of the child that the grandparents have access to grandchildren.
Mr. Richard: There is fairly limited mention in our laws of the rights of grandparents to access. There is a mention of grandparents' access in our Family Services Act. It does not specifically protect grandparents' rights to access. Essentially, you are absolutely right, the best interest of the child is of the foremost importance, but it is up to the grandparents to establish that they have a right of access and that it is in the best interests of the child.
Grandparents in New Brunswick, and in Ontario, have organized a group that I think is called GRAND. I am not sure exactly what it stands for. Their impetus has been to have legislation in all provinces similar to the legislation in Quebec, where it is assumed to be in the best interest of the child that the grandparents have access. I think in a very high percentage of the cases that would be true, but it is up to the custodial parent to establish in any specific case that it is not in the best interests of the child. I can imagine some cases where it may not be in the best interest of the child, but then the onus is on the custodial parent to show why.
In cases of separation and divorce, certainly there are often hard feelings, although not always, and the custodial parent may not want to provide access to the parents of the other spouse. I have come to believe that the Quebec approach is the better one. It changes the onus completely. From my readings and research, I have concluded that it has not been a disaster in Quebec, and the feeling is it does provide easier access.
Court cases are expensive. They are becoming even more so. It is not easy to use the courts. If the onus is in your favour and the judges have to interpret your request or application in that light, it makes it easier for grandparents.
We have had several complaints here, and I have met with a number of grandparents, and corresponded with others, who are just completely disheartened by situations where they have had access for a number of years, and then as a result of a separation, usually, that access is cut off. The children have been spending weekends, summer vacations and having regular outings with their grandparents, and then all of a sudden, because of a separation, the custodial parent has decided that there will be no contact with the ex's parents. Although it is not impossible to obtain access, it is very difficult.
Senator Poy: That is the case in New Brunswick at the moment?
Mr. Richard: At this point, yes.
Senator Poy: You were talking about the 15-year-old girl who was diagnosed as a highly paranoid schizophrenic. She is hospitalized, but there are cases where, because of resources, people in other regions could be sent to the same hospital, but it does not work the other way? Could someone like her then not be sent to another region to live in a residential setting?
Mr. Richard: Services are provided on a regional basis. If you reside in that region you deal with the authorities in that region.
Senator Poy: When you say ``region,'' it is a region within New Brunswick?
Mr. Richard: A region within New Brunswick.
In this case the girl is in a psychiatric ward in a hospital. There are facilities that provide counselling and residential care for youth like her, but I have been told directly by an official that the region takes the position that it is too costly, and they have a budget within which they have to live. However, that same official readily admitted that the residential facility takes children who come from other regions. In my view, those regions have decided that they will overspend their budget if it is in the best interest of the child. I raise the issue because it concerns me that there is no consistent application of policy throughout the province.
Senator Poy: As ombudsman, though, could you not say, ``You have to''? Could you not impose that on them?
Mr. Richard: I could certainly make the recommendation. I cannot impose.
Senator Poy: I see.
Mr. Richard: All I can do as ombudsman is to make a recommendation, and the departments deal with my recommendations as they deem fit. That is an ongoing case for us, so we were not at the end of our road on that one, but I thought I would mention it because it is one that has bothered me.
The Chairman: You talked about teachers sometimes suggesting medical treatment for their students, particularly those with attention deficit disorder, and, I presume, fetal alcohol problems. We know that there is an increase in bullying and difficulties with supervision of young people in schools. We know that many of the abilities to restrain children have been removed from teachers. In other words, physical intervention is not allowed or is frowned upon, depending on the jurisdiction. Do you believe teachers are reaching for medical answers as part of a supervision problem in the schools? Or do you believe they are doing it because they are overstepping the bounds in thinking they have the medical answers for their students?
Mr. Richard: I think your first scenario is the most likely one, in that teachers are being asked to manage classrooms in which two, three, four, five, six, seven students have special needs. They do not have the resources to deal with those students. In New Brunswick we embrace a school system where all students are integrated, and I think it is a wonderful idea and tremendous progress from the time I was in school, a very few years ago, but it requires resources to do it properly so that the students who do not have special needs are not penalized because they share a classroom with others who do. Teachers are struggling with that. I know from talking to teachers on a regular basis that they are really struggling. The nature of the classroom has changed dramatically, so the easy answer for a child who is agitated, hyperactive, overactive, is to perhaps tell parents, ``There is medication for little Tommy, and it is called Ritalin. If you talk to your family doctor, he can get it for you.'' Not all teachers do that, but there have been cases, and it has prompted the department to send a directive. Parents are sometimes struggling as well, and teachers are people in authority, so it is possible for them to overstate the case, in my view, and cross the line of, ``I am having difficulty with little Tommy. We are looking at different resources. Perhaps we can arrange for a meeting with the school psychologist or something.'' It becomes the easy solution in a classroom that is already pretty difficult to manage because there are too many children who require resources that are not available.
The Chairman: Thank you. I think we have come to the end of our time. I will just make a comment. You were a social worker and I used to be a Family Court judge, so we share some of that history.
You indicated that you were less concerned about putting female adult inmates with, I presume, female juveniles. My understanding is that we often do that because we think that females are less disruptive, less influential, and that seems like a benefit to women. However, according to many of the studies, it is probably a disservice to future generations, because we are finding that women can be capable of some of the same attitudes, behaviours and crimes as males. Consequently, I just put a question mark behind that, that making that gender differentiation may not be for the best in the long run.
Mr. Richard: Yes. Just a brief comment for the sake of clarity, I understand what you are saying. Obviously there is a notorious case, well publicized lately, involving a female inmate.
In New Brunswick we have overcrowded adult jails, where females are housed with males. We have a new youth facility where there are separate modules, physically separate, on the same piece of ground, and the government has decided to handle its overcrowding problem by putting male inmates in the youth facility in separate modules. I understand the need to deal with the overcrowding problem, because we get the complaints that result from that, but it would be perhaps more feasible to use the youth facility to house female inmates. However, I take your point, and I know you have much more expertise in that than I. I appreciate your comment.
The Chairman: Well, my knowledge is a bit dated, since I have been in the Senate some 12 years now. However, even if they are separate modules, we know that attitudes of care workers permeate walls, as, interestingly, do the conversations and attitudes of those housed. I share your caution on that, but my point was first on the gender issue.
I thank you for your commitment to your position, and for so openly and honestly sharing both the dilemmas and your suggested solutions. We hope that our report will support some of the work that you are trying to do, and hopefully will support the young people in this jurisdiction. Thank you for your very valuable time today.
[Translation]
Mr. Richard: I would like to thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about an issue that affects us all and which is important to our society.
I am very glad to have had the opportunity to speak before you today and to try to answer your questions.
[English]
The Chairman: Senators, our next witness is Susan Reid, Director of the Centre for Research on Youth at Risk. She is also an Associate Professor with the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at St. Thomas University.
Welcome. Perhaps you would like to highlight some points, and then we can go to questions.
Susan Reid, Director and Associate Professor, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, St. Thomas University, Centre for Research on Youth at Risk: Thanks very much.
A well-known journalist for one of our Toronto-based papers reported in a series of articles on the reality of life within our youth detention and correctional facilities. The tragedy of suicide by a 16-year-old young man held in locked detention along with 140 others who were awaiting trial after being denied bail draws attention to the ``rights'' of youth who have been deprived of their liberty. She begins the article with ``God forgive us for the harm we do to our children, simply because we can.'' It is with this opening thought that I come today to speak about the work that has been accomplished in our quest to ensure that our most vulnerable members of society, our children, are protected from harm and provided with opportunities to grow and develop in a supportive and caring environment.
Canada has made significant progress in ensuring that young people are afforded rights as part of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but we must look beyond our federal laws to ensure that youth are afforded those rights and freedoms outlined by the UN, the more universal declaration of rights enshrined under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Drawing on the four fundamental principles set out in the articles of the convention, my remarks will focus on the best interests of the child; the child's right to non-discrimination; the right to life, survival and development; and the right to participation.
I come to you today as a criminologist who has studied youth justice issues for over 20 years. My background in child studies, criminology and education has provided me with an interdisciplinary background to apply to my research interests in the area of child, family and youth studies. Having come from ``away'' — as I said to Senator Pearson earlier, I grew up in Ontario and will always be from away when you speak of people in the Maritimes. I am sure Senator Oliver will recall those comments — I feel very much supported in my home here at St. Thomas University, a small liberal arts university, having come from a larger institution, the University of Guelph. We pride ourselves on our commitment to social justice at St. Thomas, and it is home to the Atlantic Centre for Human Rights. We continue to expand our work under the leadership of your colleague, Senator Noel Kinsella. As a small undergraduate institution, we pride ourselves on our ability to reach out to those who may be a first generation of young people to attend university.
My first year here, 1997, was after the tragedy of the Westray Mine disaster, and I remember in my first-year class a young man who seemed a bit out of place — bad teeth, if you will, very tall, shirt not able to be tucked in, but just full of that Cape Breton spirit. I followed him, had him in three or four classes throughout his schooling, and the proudest moment was when his mother came to the graduation to see her son walk across the stage as the result of the disaster that led to his education. It is that pride that we, as a small, undergraduate Catholic university, use to empower young people who might never have had that opportunity to come here. That context, as well as the Centre for Youth at Risk, fits very well with my passion for young people. I will leave it for you to read about the mission and mandate of the centre.
As we focus our attention this morning on Canada's international obligations on children's rights and freedoms, it is important to recognize the government's progress toward a better life for children and youth. Many initiatives have been put in place to ensure a healthy start to life for young children, including the most recent announcement by the Minster of Social Development of a national daycare strategy. Investments in the form of career and skills training through government-initiated youth grants have provided many people with hope for the future. We seem to recognize that the investment in community development is an important part of the overall solution to ensuring that children, youth and families are supported. Initiatives such as the National Strategy on Community Safety and Crime Prevention and the National Homelessness Initiative have shown the government's support for broad community development strategies to strengthen the links between individuals, families and social institutions.
We still struggle, however, with those young people who become enmeshed in the machinery of either our child welfare systems or our youth criminal justice system. These disenfranchised youth move from one caseworker to another, attempting to find a place to support them in their quest to move from childhood through adolescence to a healthy young adulthood. The pain and suffering of many of our youth at risk has been a focus of our work at the Centre for Research on Youth at Risk. While grappling with legal interpretations of the concept of the best interests of the child over the years, we have often been remiss in not seeking out and listening to the voices of those young people who are actually involved in the system. Senator Pearson has been a champion for that voice of children and youth, and we are slowly seeing the results of her continuing crusade.
I was disheartened to hear that she will not be continuing in the Senate, but she has plans after that crazy birthdate for a wonderful initiative at Carleton.
In the development of the new legislation to replace the controversial Young Offenders Act, the government should be commended for the work that was done with the renewal of the Youth Justice Strategy that preceded the proclamation. It provided an opportunity for communities to engage in public education about youth crime generally and young offenders in particular. In my estimation, it allowed the community to be prepared for alternatives to custodial settings and more aware of the myths that had previously surrounded what had been called a ``young offender.'' Prior to the proclamation of the new legislation, Canada had incarcerated far too many young people, and I was shocked to find that our rates were much higher, four times higher, than the United States.
The struggle continues in terms of looking at these disenfranchised individuals. It has been shown through the years that acting in the best interests of the child by an adult supporter may have a series of unintended consequences that prove to be problematic for the young person.
As we move through this discussion about the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the Young Offenders Act and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, something has happened in terms of our ideology on the best interests of the young person. It seems to me that one of the things that are missing in this is that we have moved so far right, to a crime control model, that we have forgotten that these young people also need protection.
If we look to the next page of my brief, at page 8, I wanted to draw your attention to a Nova Scotia Supreme Court decision that we still need to follow, despite the fact that we have in fact reduced incarceration and can no longer rely on the youth criminal justice system as a way of dealing with some of our child welfare matters. We still have to look at the lack of resources that are provided for such individuals as the young woman described here.
If we turn to page 9, the learned judge said in reviewing the sentencing judge's decisions it was clear that there were a number of errors in law. The issue before the sentencing court was that the young person was a troubled 14-year-old who was not able to return home to live with her parents, and it was believed that she was living on the streets.
When we look further down the page, this decision clearly underscores and corrects many of the problems of the Young Offenders Act in terms of not using custody for social measures. The judge remarked that, ``The entire series of events started with the primary offence where this troubled young person took a piece of pepperoni.'' Unfortunately, many of the young people who have ended up in our system have had to commit an offence to get necessary mental health and substance abuse treatment and so on. We need to be clear that when we look at these best interests, we are not losing sight of the problems of not providing sufficient resources to balance out the child welfare side.
Looking at page 10, young people being housed in adult jails, I feel that I have been harping on this point for too many years. This issue needs to be dealt with. We have no good reason to continue to house our young people in adult jails, and I am concerned that as time goes on and we do reduce the number of young people in our young offender facilities, that those beds become available. Why not, given Canada's reservation on the article under the UN convention, move our adult offenders into those facilities? In fact, at our one youth custody facility in our province we have had to use those beds on direction from the province, because of an agreement at the federal level, to house adult offenders when our local detention centres and penitentiaries did not have enough space. We must not — and I really mean this — on the one hand reduce incarceration, yet on the other expose those serious so-called offenders to adult offenders, because they are not throwaway kids.
I wanted to draw your attention to the issue of non-discrimination, the opinions of Barry Stuart in a classic case about who are the kids in our jails, and the need for us to look at other articles within the UN convention to be clear that we are not talking just about the deprivation of liberty:
Our jails are overflowing with people who suffer from substance abuse, have few employable skills, are mentally challenged, are significantly disconnected from mainstream society, and whose lives are characterized by little, if any support from family or community...Many have been to jail so often, they have become institutionalized. Most have lost the connections to community and family that induce constructive lifestyles. These are the people who fill our jails.
That is not something for our country to be proud of.
I wanted to move to the issue at page 12 around rights to privacy protected under the UN convention. There is a discussion on that page of the evolution of this practice of the publication of names, but I put it under this particular heading because I strongly believe that if we are to have a separate system of youth justice, then all the young people who come before a youth court need that protection, regardless of the fact that they may be serving an adult sentence. They are still seen as young people and they need that protection as guaranteed under the UN convention on rights and freedoms.
We have solved some very important problems, in that we no longer try young people in adult court and go through that double jeopardy provision, whether or not they could be tried. I feel really good about that. That was a wonderful choice that the government made. However, we still have to be careful to recognize that we are dealing with kids, and placing these kids' pictures in the newspapers is bad. I remember giving testimony in the House of Commons many years ago about some young people from the Portage drug and alcohol facility, where they were addressing the all- party committee on whether or not we should place their names in the newspapers. A member from the Reform Party had very clear ideas about what should and should not happen. One of the young lads stood up and said, ``Sir, I am a drug lord from downtown Toronto, and I would love it if you put my name in the newspaper, particularly the Toronto Sun, because do you know how much it would cost me to take out a full-page ad?'' That shut the comments down because the kids' perspective is that they do not care. You are only really punishing the parents and providing some of these substance abusers with more advertising. I am still harping on that entire issue about publication.
Let us look to the back of my brief, because this gets to the more fun stuff. We are on page 16, article 12 of the convention, about the right of children to participate, and I go on to talk about what is valuable. One of the books that I found most interesting, and a popular book that the general community could pick up and not be scared by all the academic references that scholars tend to use, is Tough on Kids by two Saskatchewan lawyers, Green and Healy. In the middle of page 17 is probably the most salient argument that has been presented in quite some time. They suggest that a simple question should be put to every young person who comes into the juvenile justice system: What can we do to convince you to join us in using your personal talents and strengths to build a better life for yourself and our community? What a novel idea. I know that Senator Pearson is aware of my involvement with the National Youth in Care Network, and I believe that they met with this committee in the fall and had a strong voice in presenting what it is really like to be a youth in care, youth in custody. I have also had the privilege of working with them on two projects, one of which was sponsored by the Youth Justice Renewal Strategy to find ways of helping communities better prepare for the new legislation, and the other was a Health Canada project on teen moms.
One of the most salient points about this project was that it was designed so there was an equal partnership between myself as the adult supporter of youth and a young person who was a researcher. Not only was I mentoring a young person, but I learned so much from those young people that some of our literature on peer helping was thrown completely out the window in the context of their own lived experiences.
In the middle of page 18 you will see some of the comments that formed a consensus among the young people and the adult supporters at a national round table on what would be seen as most necessary for creating this curriculum. I am proud to say that this curriculum has been used in a number of locations, particularly the Toronto Children's Aid Society. It was a fabulous experience and I would encourage other researchers to actively engage young people, not just give them a token voice.
The second project was one where I was approached by the network about teen moms, and my immediate reaction was ``Oh my goodness, there is so much negative publicity to begin with in terms of teen pregnancy. What angle are you coming from?'' Well, it was the angle that I adored, and we had an opportunity to take a group of young women who had had their babies while they were still living in foster care on a retreat, and I took my sons with me, who were 11 at the time. We all participated like family in terms of a lived experience, not only of being mothers ourselves, but also the lack of support that they had received, particularly as a foster child and being pregnant. The outcome of that has led to three or four publications by the National Youth in Care Network that will form public education in terms of some of these stories. You can read some of the things that the girls had to say.
In terms of a conclusion, there are a couple of things I thought were starting points for some questions. I have been honoured to be a board member of the Vanier Institute of the Family for the last six years, and this year we embarked on a project with Dr. Reg Bibby of the University of Lethbridge entitled, ``The Future Families Project.'' This was something of a departure for the Vanier Institute, in that we normally take data collected by Statistics Canada and do not go out and gather our own. However, we felt that that was only so much of the story being reported in census data, and we really wanted to look at what were the hopes and aspirations of Canadian families. When Canadians were asked ``What is your greatest hope for your kids,'' one in two said happiness. Can we hope for happiness for our vulnerable children and youth? Further on in this study, comparisons were made between what Canadians say they themselves want out of life and what their expressed hopes are for their children. Two core values stand out in this analysis: the importance people give to relationships, family life, being loved, having friends; and the importance they give to freedom. I wonder if these same core values could be applied to our vulnerable children and youth.
I wanted to close with a comment from our Saskatchewan lawyers, and it is not because you are from Saskatchewan; it is phenomenal:
Of the thousands of children who have confided in us, most feel marginalized, excluded, and disenfranchised. For such youth, hopelessness is real. The belief that they may some day have a decent home, a good job, money to buy clothes, food, a car, is so remote. These youths do not see a clear or even a fuzzy path to their own personal successes. And that is the difference between youth who are marginalized and mainstream youth.
It is my hope that this committee will continue to promote Canada's involvement in the struggle to educate Canadians on the importance of the convention and to provide the leadership necessary to ensure the rights and needs of our most vulnerable members receive top priority. Thank you.
Senator Pearson: Thank you very much for that presentation. I look forward to reading it through thoroughly. I think the work you have been doing and the attention you have paid to the need was a new way of phrasing it, in the sense that young people in trouble with the law are in need of protection. It is not youth in need of protection; it is a different concept. I think that is a very important one to underline, that we have additional responsibilities towards young people that we may not have towards adults.
I am interested in almost everything, but particularly the project on the teen moms. I think it is a challenge for us to know how to provide the best kind of support and assistance, and I think the quote about the foster families was remarkable. As was the young girl who says that it is the child who gives meaning to her life. The Senate Standing Committee on Aboriginal Peoples undertook a study of urban Aboriginal youth. We had the same kind of experiences across the country, for example, meeting in Winnipeg with young people of 16, 17 with children, and it was having the children that turned them around.
Ms. Reid: That is right.
Senator Pearson: What you are leading up to, and what I would like you to comment on a little more, is this entire issue of mentorship, of the importance either of peer relations or mentoring. Could you expand on that?
Ms. Reid: I would be happy to, yes. We had a brief discussion before we convened here in terms of focuses. It came partly out of the peer helper network and the training that went with that. This is a form, I suppose, of qualitative research, where you are in the field and you do not have any presupposed ideas about what you will find. It is very difficult to not have a bias, because as I said earlier, I would not go into it unless I was clear that it would not have the hallmark of ``Here we go again. This is a bad thing, to get pregnant.'' The support that was needed came from the young people themselves, and the adults do very little in that process. I gathered their stories. They thought they could not write, and theme of this weekend retreat was ``Mothering as Your Muse,'' with the idea coming from the network that they could write down their birthing stories. Well, they cannot write; they have not had any education. They have been criticized all of their educational life for their inability to be an academic, and they honestly believed that they could not write, so we tried videotaping. We videotaped the sessions sitting like you would at a pyjama party, on their beds in the dorms, and talked about my experience as a mother of twins who delivered babies naturally, and their experience, and all of a sudden there was a connection. It was not because I am an expert on young offenders or youth or know a lot about adolescent development. It was the lived daily experience that seemed to make the difference. That is the difference between a so-called expert clinical psychologist and an adult supporter of youth. I am not necessarily in the same realm as a youth advocate, but I would see myself as being to open people's eyes to their ability to share their stories in a way that perhaps had not been done before. That provides lessons for more experienced front-line professionals, who can use that as a starting point perhaps for a mentoring experience, because not everybody has that ability to connect. How do you train someone to be a good mentor? You can list all the qualities in the world you need — compassion, empathy and so on — but sometimes you need a discussion starter or something that people would believe happened to someone else. I think it was that lived experience that I have been able to capitalize on the most, not just in terms of collecting data for data's sake, but being able to give something back in terms of applied research.
The same thing happened, I might add, with the work that I did on school violence. We were partnered with Toronto, and we followed along with Reverend Dale Lang. If you recall, his son was killed in Taber, Alberta. He was doing a school tour as part of the crime prevention initiative. I was doing this project on school violence, trying to look at kids' perceptions of that. We toured around with the reverend, and after he spoke, the kids would go back to their home room and fill out a questionnaire, which is tedious, and of course I got great quantitative data, but what felt really meaningful to me was that the bell did not ring after the assembly. The kids got a chance to go back and reflect on their own lived experience of whether or not that applied to them. The questionnaire was a research instrument for me, but I probably would not have done it if I had had to just go into the school and say, ``Okay, today you are not doing math; you are going to fill out this questionnaire.'' It had to have some sense of meaningful involvement of the young people for me to participate, and that is who I am as a researcher. The young people who commented afterwards in the halls would say, ``You know, we do not really have a problem with violence in the school. We just do not want people intimidating us or sexually harassing us or saying bad things about how we dress.'' That is a totally different springboard, geographically and otherwise, from what you will see in downtown Toronto, and it is not a one-size-fits- all.
A mentoring relationship may work in one situation, but would have totally different results elsewhere. You cannot create a binder that you pull off the shelf and say, ``This is how you work with this population.'' Does that help?
Senator Pearson: Yes, that is helpful. I think the right of a child to guidance is not just the right to be guided by his or her parents. It is a right to have access to older people, significant others and mentors. I think there is an underrated capacity within our community to do it, and I am glad to have you emphasize it. It is good for us to have this on the record. Thank you.
Ms. Reid: If I might add just one more thing about this mentoring business. We had a challenge presented to us because we also have a Third Age Centre at St. Thomas and a program in gerontology. A colleague of mine in gerontology and I took it upon ourselves to try to bring young offenders and seniors together because of this idea of intergenerational programs, and we often see these programs featuring grandparents and little, pretty kids. My big beef is that is all well and good, but what about those nasty adolescents who dye their hair? We ended up creating a resource after this pilot project, but the most interesting story was we had a tea up at St. Thomas. We brought them together for lunch, because I find that if you feed people, they always have something to talk about. We had no agenda. We provided sandwiches, some pop and some chips, and they sat at tables. We put together one group of residents from an open custody facility, some university students, and some other kids to see what would happen. At first it was really awkward, and they did not know what to say to each other. One of the kids was there against his better judgment because he had been kicked out of school. He sat there with flat affect and his hat down and his feet up. One of the church ladies, as I call her, because she goes to my church, came over in an exuberant way and said, ``Do you know anything about dyeing your hair, because my friends go every week to the beauty parlour to get their hair rolled up, and once a month they pay to get it dyed, but I just cannot afford it.'' She went on and on about her hair, and you can just imagine her, this woman who goes out with her senior friends. The guy looks at her like she has 42 heads and says, ``Yeah,'' and takes off his hat. His hair is 82 colours. She says, ``Yes, like that.'' There is no reaction, no ``Oh, my God, your hair is spiked and coloured.'' She asks, ``How do you do that?'' He says, ``Well, I just do it myself.'' ``Well, I have looked at those kits in the drugstore'' she says, in a regular kind of tone. Once we saw that, I said this could happen in rural communities throughout the Maritimes, particularly when you are bringing people together who may not be young offenders but at-risk kids who just need somebody to sit down and talk to. That is again mentoring. That is not a forced program. We went out and asked some kids and some seniors what the problems would be, and then came up with some ideas about how you might put that together.
Senator Oliver: It is my opinion that it is not in the best interests of youth or children to be incarcerated, to be in prison or to be deprived of their liberty. You have a section in your paper entitled ``The Child's Right To Non- Discrimination,'' and you talk about the effects of poverty and crime. One thing that was missing from your paper was the demographic breakdown on that. For instance, I know that in the United States most of the adults behind bars or in jail are Black. I need to know from you, when you talk about the child's right to non-discrimination and the correlation between poverty in Canada and youth crime and youth incarceration, the demographic and ethnic breakdown of these youth and children.
Ms. Reid: I cannot cite statistics for you, Senator Oliver, but I will definitely get some information for you. I can tell you that Aboriginal populations are four times more likely to be incarcerated, particularly out West. We are catching up with the girls. Before we started to ``decarcerate,'' girls were almost as likely as boys to be incarcerated for violent offences.
Senator Oliver: That is Aboriginal?
Ms. Reid: No, girls generally. In the Aboriginal population it would be three or four times more likely than the general population. In terms of age, they tend to peak at around age 17, so there has been an ongoing controversy about whether or not we lower or raise the age, but I think it is probably just about right. In fact, I have made the argument that we might want to raise it to a higher age, to age 21, which would allow that period of adolescence to extend into young adulthood and maintain the protections of the youth justice system for a longer period, because we know that the longer we can keep kids out of the adult system, the more likely we are to have a chance to rehabilitate them.
What I was doing in that particular section was drawing attention to the provision in our provincial legislation about non-discrimination as based on social condition. I am trying to make the argument that we know that the more likely choice for many of our kids in detention is jail because they have no place to go. If you take two kids of equal offence rating, and one has money and the other has not, then what is the likelihood that the person with money will to jail? It is very little. I think we are discriminating based on social condition because there are not the resources of both parents at home to monitor that young person pre-trial, and we are talking about kids who have not even been convicted of offences. Being discriminated against based on social condition is just one of many positions I would argue that our young people are vulnerable to.
Senator Oliver: I would like to look at the demographic breakdown. For instance, take Toronto. You have talked about Saskatchewan. Take Toronto, and take Jane and Finch, that area. What do you think the demographic breakdown is and what do you think the relationship between crime and poverty is? The colour of those involved is a significant factor that you and your research really have to look at, particularly when you are looking at forms of discrimination affecting the rights of children.
Ms. Reid: That is right.
Senator Oliver: It is my view — based upon my research — that if you are a visible minority, if you are Black, your rights are more quickly taken away than if you are White. When you are talking about the social condition of people, their colour is also a major part of that social condition, and it has to be addressed. I would hope that more social scientists would research that and comment on it, because it is holding Canada back.
Ms. Reid: I totally agree. We would not want to follow in the footsteps of the United States. One in three young people of colour in the Southern United States is likely to end up in jail, if they are not already, and those are not just Blacks, but Latinos as well. That is an alarming statistic, that because of your colour, the likelihood of going to jail is greater and it has nothing to do with your behaviour.
Senator Oliver: Do you have any statistics or numbers on the Jane and Finch area of Toronto?
Ms. Reid: No, I just know that my former mother-in-law grew up in that area, and it is frightening to live there. It is very frightening to live in that area because the crime rate is so high. She was a senior and had to move out of the centre that was her home. All her kids were raised there. It just did not feel right. Despite the fact my sister-in-law works at the Jane Finch Community Centre and knows many of the people in the surrounding community, she felt that she could not protect her mother, who has now moved to Nova Scotia. That is frightening, to have the place where you have grown up and lived all your life become so populated with crime that you cannot stay there any more.
Senator Poy: I will go back to the subject of mentoring that Senator Pearson was talking about. Usually when we talk about mentoring, it is adults mentoring young people. However, I am wondering whether the courses that you give at St. Thomas on youth at risk are popular and also whether many of the university students would like to mentor youth at risk?
Ms. Reid: That is a wonderful question, and I think my colleague, Bob Eckstein, sitting back there, who works for the Department of Public Safety here and also teaches a section of young offenders, and I can both vouch for the popularity of that course in particular, which is not even required for the major in criminology. We have some plans under way that I was speaking to Senator Pearson about, because of the popularity of that particular focus and a desire to work in partnership with the Atlantic Centre for Human Rights, to develop a major in child, family and youth studies. I would like to have a service component — not a practicum because it would not be a pre-service professional program — where youth are required to spend a certain number of hours mentoring. My ideal is to have a storefront in the Fredericton Mall, which is right across from the high school, and have our education, social work, and child and youth studies students provide counselling. Get the probation officers up there, get the police up there, get the drug counsellors up there at lunchtime and have these students be the mentors and tutors for the young people in the high schools.
Senator Poy: However, that would be a top-down arrangement. Have the young people who take your courses expressed an interest in doing that?
Ms. Reid: Oh, yes. That is where it came from. Many of them are looking for volunteer opportunities, and the market in Fredericton is certainly flooded. Many of our students work for Chimo and in the homeless shelters, and there just are not enough services. This would not be creating a new resource to get more funding. It is a needed resource that the other agencies cannot assist with. Many students work with Big Brothers/Big Sisters; they work with the Boys and Girls Clubs; they volunteer in after-school programs, so there is certainly an interest, yes.
The Chairman: In your paper you talk about the use of the justice system when in fact, if I am reading you correctly, the real issues are either mental health or child welfare issues?
Ms. Reid: That is correct. I am making that argument.
The Chairman: Therefore, in Canada we are still not providing the resources at what I call the front end, or early enough, and therefore the justice system seems to be the way that we trap them?
Ms. Reid: They are falling through the cracks.
The Chairman: They are falling through the cracks still. I just read your case, and that is what led me to the conclusion that while we have switched from the Young Offenders Act to the Youth Justice Act, which in itself may have some good tools, the net result is that is has not changed the dynamic. We are still using the courts because it is —
Ms. Reid: I do not want to bash the new legislation because there are so many parts of it that I strongly support, particularly the restorative justice components and so on. Let me rephrase my argument. I think it is important not to just change a law that was providing a service, even if we did not agree that you had to commit an offence to get drug treatment, without providing the drug treatment on the other side. That case illustrates that we cannot use young offender courts for social service requirements, but where is the money to support the social service requirements on the other side? It has not happened. We just said we can no longer, as we did under the Juvenile Delinquents Act, take kids who were committing status offences and put them together with kids who were aggressive and violent and say they all need protection. However, I do not think the new legislation is as far right of crime control as saying we want to punish all these kids either. It is trying hard to balance that need, to look for restorative solutions and mediation that will allow for community involvement. However, there is not the money to support the community to create those opportunities, or the specialized mental health services, child psychologist services, or, sometimes, children's residential mental health services for those who require that.
The Chairman: One of the other points was Canada put a reservation on the Convention on the Rights of the Child so that they could house youth with adult inmates, allegedly because there was a shortage of resources at the time and it was not expedient or was not seen as a priority to make facilities available. The most often used defence was in Northern Canada, where it was argued we would be separating the young people from their families, and the distances are great, the settlements small. Have you done any studies to see whether that is how we use the reservation, or has it been used throughout Canada?
Ms. Reid: I only know this based on conversations, so it is not a random sample of agencies by any stretch. However, we have used it, unfortunately, as a way to make sure our beds are full, even in places like the Toronto East Detention Centre. I know there have been phenomenal changes in Ontario, but there is no excuse for having kids in adult detention centres in Toronto, period.
The Chairman: Is it happening in New Brunswick?
Ms. Reid: As I mentioned earlier, yes. We pride ourselves on the fact that we have lowered our incarceration rate of young offenders to about 35. Kids currently incarcerated are in one facility. We have one secure custody facility. Unfortunately, the Canada/New Brunswick agreement on adults serving more than one year is no longer a viable option, as the penitentiaries are full, and so there is no place for these people serving over one-year sentences. A group of adults was brought to the New Brunswick Youth Centre to be housed there. If you want a description of the youth centre, it is a modern, cottage-style facility, but when the adults use the exercise yard, they are within sight and sound of the young people in the institution, and I do not find that acceptable. It is my understanding, in conversations with the Department of Public Safety, that this was just a temporary, stopgap measure and that they will be leaving. Again, if we did not have that reservation, we could not take that temporary action. We would not be allowed to.
The Chairman: Just following up on that, are the authorities that you have dealt with or studied aware of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the reservation, or are they acting without that knowledge? Is it expediency that is driving it, or are they making this effort without the knowledge that it is a violation under the convention?
Ms. Reid: I would have to answer that both ways. My moral will would like to say no, they do not know. How do we leave it at that?
Senator Pearson: I have a quick question. The ombudsman spoke here this morning about kids of 16 and 17 who are technically youth in care.
He was deeply concerned about that and felt that New Brunswick, along with a few other provinces —
Ms. Reid: Six other provinces.
Senator Pearson: One of the recommendations that we would perhaps think about making in our report is for a more uniform way of protecting young kids at least until the age of 18. Could you give us a bit more information on what has happened in New Brunswick with that age group? I can remember Matthew Geigen-Miller's study, which I would recommend to the committee. We will talk about it later.
Ms. Reid: My own involvement here in Fredericton with the 16- and 17-year-old problem is as chair of the board of directors for a girls' home that is specifically designed for that age group and does not receive funding from the province. It is called Youth in Transition: Chrysalis House, and was developed by caring individuals who saw that these girls have nowhere to go and have fallen through the gaps, since they were not children in need of protection but not old enough to receive welfare. Some of them received small amounts of student assistance but not enough to live on their own. It is most shocking — and you will find this particularly salient to your other work — that most of these girls were sexually abused. When they started to experience their own sexuality, they disclosed that they had been sexually abused, and of course could no longer live in their homes.
Senator Oliver: Sexually abused in their homes?
Ms. Reid: Or by a family member somewhere along the chain of the nuclear family. Therefore, they need to get out of the house, but where will they go? If they had been 15 when they disclosed the sexual abuse, the child welfare authorities would of course have stepped in and found those children in need of protection until they were 21. However, they are 16, and so there is nothing to be dome. There is one-day difference, in some cases, of kids between 15 and 16. As a national group concerned about children and the alarming statistics on the number of middle school children who are engaging in sexual behaviour, we want to encourage young people to have good attitudes to and education about sexuality. Surely to goodness when they start to explore their own sexuality and understand that something was bad touching, we need to support them. It should not matter if they are 13 or 17. They are still young people under the age of 18. We have only been able to service about five girls a year, although we have done really well with the ones who were there. However, it has had to close three times because there is not the money to provide a proper home. We own the facility. The plan was put together by local residents. Even with the mortgage paid off, there still is not the money, from a variety of volunteer organizations, fundraisers and bake sales, to keep a place like that running, but there would be if they were children in need of protection. I feel strongly about the 16- and 17-year-old issues, especially as related to youth homelessness. Where do those kids go? Kids are living on the street. We have kids who live under bridges here in Fredericton. A colleague of ours from the centre is doing some ongoing research on youth homelessness and trauma and is starting to recognize signs of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of living on the streets. Does that help?
Senator Pearson: Well, it reinforces my concern that I think we will find as we cross the country that there are several provinces where there is this gap between what will kick in at 18 and what stops at 16, and it is unacceptable.
The Chairman: Just to follow up on that, when the Young Offenders Act replaced the Juvenile Delinquents Act, some provinces set the criminal age at 18 and others at 16. Do you recollect what happened in New Brunswick?
Ms. Reid: It is 16.
The Chairman: Sixteen; so they went to 18 with the criminal law. However, the child welfare act stops at 16.
Ms. Reid: Sixteen.
The Chairman: Okay.
Ms. Reid: The other thing that is quite interesting about New Brunswick is that there was a push in the Education Act to raise the school leaving age, and they increased it from 16 to 18. You could, in theory, have 16- and 17-year-olds without a home who are required to go to school.
Senator Pearson: I think that is a very clear example.
The Chairman: Thank you for your report, for being here and the work that you do. Our emphasis has been on the application of the international instruments, particularly the Convention on the Rights of the Child, so I hope you will look to our report with that viewpoint. Thank you very much for coming today.
Ms. Reid: Thanks very much for having me.
The committee adjourned.