Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Human Rights
Issue 7 - Evidence - Morning meeting
REGINA, Tuesday, September 19, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights met this day at 8:58 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: Honourable senators and ladies and gentlemen, we are presently examining and reporting upon Canada's international obligations in regards to the rights and freedoms of children. We are particularly interested in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child which the Canadian Government signed and ratified in 1989 but did not implement legislation to make it law in Canada.
While some provinces and the federal government have moved to conform with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and with certain acts have, in fact, come into compliance with the convention, it has not been in any holistic way accepted into the law of Canada. One of our concerns has been to ensure that Canada's international obligations are met, that when we sign and ratify treaties we stand by our word.
Additionally, we wish to see to what extent the implementation has taken hold in Canada for the betterment of children. Of course, there are other international obligations towards children such as international adoption and the Hague Convention. We have centred our study on the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We cannot talk about children in isolation of an international agreement; therefore, we are travelling across the country listening to Canadians, academics, individuals, groups and NGOs of all types in order to learn more about the status of children in Canada.
We are very pleased to be here in Regina and I welcome this morning Kearney Healy, who is a practising lawyer, and Professor Otto Driedger from the University of Regina School of Human Justice.
Kearney Healy, Lawyer, as an individual: Thank you for inviting me. I am a staff lawyer with the Saskatchewan Legal Aid Commission in Saskatoon. I have been there for about 25 years and, for the last 10 or 12 years, have focused exclusively on representing youth.
I would normally handle about 400 cases a year. I have heard thousands of stories of young persons. I have heard the stories of their victims, their families, the social workers who work with them and the police who arrest them. I participated in many circles when they were called ``sentencing circles,'' and continue to now that they are called ``family group conferences.''
In relation to your work on the rights of the child, I would like to commend you, first, for realizing that a rights- based approach for youth is fundamental. Nowhere is that more true than in Saskatchewan, as I am sure you are aware. Saskatchewan tends to lock up young people frequently on a per-capita basis at a much higher rate than anywhere else that I know of in the world. There may be exceptions but we tend to use control rather than development as a response to young people in trouble.
To my mind, it is a horrifying reality that 75 per cent to 80 per cent of the young people who are taken into custody in Saskatchewan are Aboriginal. Most of the kids in custody are children with disabilities; again, that same 75- to 80- per-cent figure applies. In terms of education, you will find that they are usually at least two years behind their age level. Even at the age of 15 or 16 they are very poorly educated.
If you consider the other indicia of the quality of their lives, you will discover that they suffer higher rates of depression, suicide and family breakdown. There is frequently, if not always, a concern that abuse of substances will be the response to their difficult circumstances. One may say that these are family problems; however, many of them do not know their families. Indeed, when the Children in Care group took a snapshot across Canada of the youth in custody, they found, I believe, that 50 per cent had been in the care of either child welfare or social services or the appropriate agency in the particular province. Accordingly, a large number barely knew their parents. Of course, we are all aware of the problems that have been created by the residential school system and many others.
It is my firm conviction that resolving those problems and taking young people out of crime is actually a fairly well- plotted process, and I do not think you would have to look very far to see enormously high success rates in moving children from crime to success.
You were wise in seeing the necessity of a rights-based approach rather than simply a need to respond. The problem is that you have to develop a policy which meets the needs of young people and allows them to develop into independent, successful adults; that is absolutely essential.
I would urge you to consider that children have a right to grow into adults who are successful human beings, pro- social, talented, reliable people who can take great pride in their accomplishments. I suggest that is implicit in your idea of a rights-based approach for young people. When that approach is taken, the transformation is amazing.
I would like to quote correspondence from Dr. Benjamin Rush to Thomas Jefferson, both signers of the American Declaration of Independence. When speaking of the difference between a monarchy and a democracy, Dr. Rush said that, in a monarchy, a person's body to the monarch is of no more importance than that of the cow or the chicken or the cattle to us, whereas in a democracy every individual is a unique and shining potential of greatness, and every person deserves to be nourished to be something wonderful. He said that was the difference between a democracy and a monarchy.
Indeed, I would suggest that a democracy is best illustrated by the emergency room. I may go into an emergency room at Regina General Hospital with a sniffle and I may be wealthier than most. I may have just appeared before a Senate committee. I may have all kinds of advantages yet I take my place in the queue. But if someone else comes in who is about to give birth, is having a heart attack or has been in a terrible accident, they would be taken first because their need is greater. In a democracy we worry about each person, and their needs become much more important than their position vis-à-vis the monarch.
Unfortunately, in Saskatchewan, we have done the opposite and I believe the reason is cultural. Supervision and control and all of the things that formed our relationship to the monarch have still hung over.
I have given you indicia that would suggest that many children are in extreme difficulty because of not knowing their parents, high rates of suicide, et cetera. They are marginalized in so many different ways and, rather than responding to those needs, we have simply controlled them.
In Saskatoon, we have several excellent programs that are tremendously underfunded and underresourced. What happens is a child becomes interested in some activity such as a sport, the Saskatchewan Native Theatre Company, Saskatoon Community Youth Art Programs, Advantage Computer Co-op, filmmaking, canoeing and wilderness adventures with the Saskatoon Police Service and their Peacemakers Program. Then you have a group of adults who are keen on something and they get together a group of girls and boys who can be similarly excited and talk about what a great world it would be if only everybody could be similarly excited — that is, they are invited to imagine a better world than what we have now and to start working towards creating that vision. Once they have created that vision in a very pro-social group of people, then they have to live it.
I have represented many young people who are described by the police and by the prosecutor as the worst that Saskatoon has to offer. I have seen them get into those different types of programs and be transformed and, indeed, become someone very powerful who takes a real interest in our community and would be willing to give up much of their free time and energy in order to make this a better community.
That did not happen through supervision; it happened through the excitement that they could make that transition from youth to successful adult. Rather than being the kid at the back of the room that no one likes, they can be at the front of the room saying, ``come on you people, we can make a better world.'' That is such a powerful process. Unfortunately, in Saskatchewan, I feel we have a culture that would rather control and supervise than encourage.
Because I am a defence lawyer, I believe that the fear is there because they have committed a crime. Maybe you have to get them before they commit a crime when they are not being described that way, but that seems to be an absolute barrier which is absurd.
As the Linn commission reported, it is far more likely that a young Aboriginal person will go to jail than graduate from high school. That is a terrible notion and, of course, obviously we have to look at how to transform those young people. I would dare say that, with 90 per cent or even more, it would be an easy process to transform them into groups of people that are the pride of our community.
What is difficult — and it is a gross example of a community willing to cut off its nose to spite its face — is organizing communities so that they recognize the genius, that they recognize the brilliance and the potential a young person may have in perhaps furniture making or being the best server in a restaurant, making movies or being in drama, it does not matter what. We have not done that.
I would like to mention one more thing. In your report, Who's in Charge Here?, you quote a young woman with whom I believe I worked. I believe she was from Saskatoon and was a young person who was on the street. She was invited to a conference in Vancouver to meet with other young children who had been sexually abused by the street trade. I was involved with her as well as the people who sent her to the conference. We proposed a bill called the Keep the Children Somewhere Safe Act, which essentially would say that a young person caught in the sex trade could find a worker they trusted who would put together a kind of wrap-around committee, including a social worker, a teacher, a justice worker if necessary, along with several pro-social people from the child's family.
That group would then look at the johns and the pimps involved with this young person because they obviously make money off him or her, and would use provincial legislation around unsafe work places to sue these people for asking them to perform a service that was not only illegal but very dangerous. The money that would be received from the johns and pimps, usually monthly, would then be used by that wrap-around committee, not by the child — because we do not want them sticking needles in their arms — in addition to whatever monies they received from social services, to look after the needs of that young person, such as making sure they have a decent place to live, tutors for education and access to recreational or developmental activities.
I would urge you as a federal body to consider working to promote that kind of concept. I realize that you cannot do it on the federal level but you certainly can promote that kind of concept in each province. I believe that once johns and pimps realize they could be paying $500 a month for however many years it takes for a young person to graduate from university and develop a career, that in itself would go a long way to reducing the sexual abuse of children by men involved in the street trade.
I urge you to stay on the path of a rights-based approach. I believe the chief right is the right to develop into a strong, free and creative individual who can be at the front not the back of the class.
Otto Driedger, Professor Emeritus, University of Regina, School of Human Justice: It is a privilege to be here. My wife, Florence, and I recently had the opportunity to work as consultants to CIDA on an invitation from Ukraine to Canada to assist their Supreme Court in formulating new legislation on issues related to youth services. It was a privilege to work with CIDA and Ukraine on that particular project.
First, I will address some aspects of your report and then I will identify some other areas that I have highlighted.
In terms of coordination, public information and initiatives, I think your idea of having a national coordinator or ombudsman is an important and necessary step for coordination on a national basis and I would certainly be in favour of that. The idea of having a secretariat or cabinet committee should also be seriously considered.
Another thing I believe would be helpful is legislation which sets national standards. I realize that the federal government has, on occasion, had some difficulties with national standards, particularly in health, but I think it is important to have national standards in terms of the rights of the child which could then open a dialogue between the provinces and the federal government.
The second point is democratization and legislation. I also support your suggestion that there should be legislation at the federal and provincial levels in terms which specifically relate to the rights of the child, and then regular reports to Parliament, not only on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child but also regarding the whole area of the rights of the child.
In terms of youth, youth offenders and troubled youth, unfortunately, in Canada we are moving in the wrong direction at the present time in that we have a punitive rather than a developmental trend. In my view, it is very important that there be no transfers to adult court. We ought to be able to deal with youth using youth legislation; we should not have to transfer youth to adult court. That was my view when I was with the provincial government many years ago and I still believe we should move in that direction.
I believe there is no excuse for housing youth with adult offenders. You have made that point and I strongly support that. In Canada, where we have a strong economy, there is no excuse for having youth housed with adults. In a report which you identify, a point made in defence of that was that we should not have older youth housed in the same location with younger youth. That is also a problem and we must develop resources to deal with those concerns.
Among industrial societies we have one of the highest numbers of incarcerated youth. I have been involved in this area long enough to remember the Juvenile Delinquents Act and the many permutations since then. One of the concerns with that act was that the rights of the child were not protected appropriately. A view held by many was that if we focus on the offence rather than on the person, we will have many more people incarcerated. Unfortunately, that has been the case. In my view, there should be an extensive review of the legislation respecting young offenders in order to examine how the issue of excessive incarceration can be addressed.
In the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the focus is on the best interests and well-being of the child. The best interests of a child has been a long-standing and very important issue. Later, I will make some observations with regard to perhaps moving beyond looking at issues only in terms of the best interests of the child.
One of the questions that arises in looking at it from a best-interests orientation is who decides best interests? Is it the parents? Is it society? Is it the community? Is it the ethnic community? Is it the family, or is it the child? I will address that issue later.
In relation to the role of NGOs, I agree with your observation that there are not many non-governmental organizations involved with children's rights in Canada at the present time. The services that NGOs do provide are important and, as you have indicated, the funding is usually very inadequate.
You have also made the point in your report that funding is based on projects. This has been a problem since the 1970s in my opinion, when we shifted from a developmental approach to funding to one of project funding. In addition, the trend has been towards tendering, which then implies that the lowest proposal will be accepted. That is a real problem for some agencies that have been providing services for a long time. You cannot build a solid service through that kind of a project-oriented tendering approach. I think that needs to be addressed.
The correlates which you identify in your report that inhibit child development and well-being, such as poverty, migration, community and family disintegration, handicaps and health, are very important. I believe we as a society in Canada need to address those issues in a much broader sense in order to minimize the breakdown of the rights of the child.
The child should be seen in a holistic manner; this is important and you identify this in your report as well. The intellectual, psychological, social, physical and spiritual development should be seen in a holistic way.
The last point I wish to discuss is the philosophic basis of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the preamble to the convention, there is reference made to the Charter of the United Nations and to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, reminding us of the ``equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family,'' and the ``dignity and worth of the human person.'' Children are not excluded from that; however, in our policies or assumptions we tend to exclude children from that particular perspective as we move into a best-interests orientation, generally not taking the opinions of the child into consideration in a substantive enough way.
An interesting series of studies was done by the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research in Vienna. They conducted a study of many countries, including Canada, of the nature of services to children and the nature of understanding children. The book, Childhood Matters, resulted from these studies that took place over a period of time and in it the authors ask some important questions.
For instance, they raise the question of ontology, or the nature of being, and age. They identify that society has tended to say there is a difference between the nature of being for a child and the nature of being for an adult. They question this and say that really the nature of being, or the ontology, is not age-related.
If one accepts that statement then one would recognize that it is not a matter of rights, or a child cannot be seen as an object in relationship to adults who are seen as the subject of the rights. Therefore, we need to shift our mentality, our thinking, into children also having rights in a similar way as adults. The proposal they make is that, as a result, children should have rights as human beings not as ``human becomings.''
We have generally tended to see children not as human beings but as ``human becomings.'' ``They will be the next generation,'' and so forth. They are that, too, but they are also in their own right human beings at the present time. Changing our mentality on this would mean we would recognize that children have rights as human beings and those rights would only be modified to the extent necessary according to their capacity. John Rawls also refers to this in his philosophical orientation in relation to children, that the limits to the rights of children should only be there in relationship to their capacity.
If we move in that direction. I suggest it would bring about some profound changes in terms of how we understand children and how we relate to them. I cannot speak to this in the limited time we have but that is an area I believe is important to consider. If we had a national commissioner and a secretariat with substantial funding, I believe these are the kinds of areas that could be explored to assist us in reformulating the true meaning of ``rights of children.''
The Chairman: Thank you both for two unique and important presentations.
Senator Munson: I was curious, Mr. Healy, about the issue of control. How did Saskatchewan get into what I would describe as a mess, the whole controlling nature of the approach to children as opposed to the approach of the rights of the child, more than any other province in this country?
Mr. Healy: That is a difficult question and I deserve to be slapped if I am in any way wrong on this. I could quote a past Attorney General of Saskatchewan who said to me once in a personal conversation that, when it comes to us locking up middle class white kids, we are as good as Sweden and Denmark — we rarely do it. We are as good as Finland where, I think the last I heard, there were eight kids in the entire country in custody. They are too busy playing good hockey, I guess.
I am afraid it is a holdover from the residential school system. I am afraid it is racism. I am afraid that people are not willing to commit to the development of Aboriginal children. Why that should be, I do not know. I am frightened because they are our future and I think that, in Saskatchewan, we are giving up an incredible opportunity to embrace that Aboriginal culture and make it work for us. I am afraid that Aboriginal children are seen as ``the others'' and because people do not understand them, or claim not to understand them, then we have to go to the barest and most obvious response, which is let them do what they want but we will supervise them in ever tighter circles in order to make sure they behave in a certain way.
I did a study which I presented to the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform. In that study I looked at every crime that was listed on the youth court docket in October 2002. Approximately 45 per cent of those crimes involved harm to people, harm to property, or threatened harm to people or property. The other 55 per cent related to control — that is, Johnny was out with his best friend Freddy, Johnny was out past his curfew, Mary did not go to school, Susan failed to meet her addictions counsellor. That is a tremendous thing because those conditions are all plans for people and the plans obviously should have a goal. If the plan breaks down and Johnny is not going to school, how does it help to put them in jail? Why would you not put them in school? They are not hurting anybody. That is the point where you can start saying we are on your side.
Senator Munson: What we have heard in the last few days is that the problem is always a lack of funding but if it is more than that, if it is racism, what can be done to change that? What drastically has to be done within government social services to address an issue like this? The statistics do show that Aboriginal youth is the highest growing population in this province; how do you tap into that and change those attitudes?
Mr. Healy: I think the worst thing is the young people, mostly girls, who are involved in the sex trade. That is why I suggested that, if funding is a problem, let us just skip that — let's sue the johns and the pimps, let's get the funding, they can pay for it.
I did another study. I phoned all the insurance companies in Saskatoon and asked them how much they paid out for break and enters. Break and enters, car thefts and damage to cars are crimes largely attributable to youth. The insurance companies came up with a figure of $5 million per year and that is just the insurance companies in Saskatoon. That does not include the cost of youth custody facilities, the police or judges. That also does not include the cost to the people who own those residences or cars.
The police said at that time there were only 40 or 50 kids in Saskatoon who were responsible for those crimes. I disagreed; I thought there was about 200 to 300. But whichever number you use, $5 million divided by 200 or 300 kids, these are all lost kids; they are all dying to have somebody like them, to have somebody move them to the front of the room.
It is not lack of money, it is the culture that says it is better to control than to develop kids. I cannot say it any clearer than that.
Senator Carstairs: Professor Driedger, I want to thank you for the most exciting phrase I have heard in a long time and that is that ``children are human beings not human becomings.'' I can assure you I will use it many times.
I want both of you to reply to a question that has bothered me as I have also lived through the Juvenile Delinquents Act, the Young Offenders Act and the Youth Criminal Justice Act. How do we get the message to the public? How do we get, therefore, the message to the politicians that we have to change the model by which we deal with children? That to me is the greatest obstacle. I deal with politicians who believe, increasingly, that punitive measures will work. I know from 20 years in the classroom that they do not work. How can I make them understand that?
Mr. Driedger: That is the $64-million question. I think there are a number of approaches one needs to take. One of them is the point I made at the end in terms of a reconceptualization of our understanding of youth.
A second one is that restorative justice has real possibilities. There is a philosophic orientation in restorative justice that shifts the thinking, and I think that is good both for adult as well as for youth issues. In many parts of the country, including Saskatchewan, there have been a lot of initiatives in restorative justice.
I agree with you that we have a lot of problems in Saskatchewan but I think we also have some bright spots and one is the initiatives in relation to restorative justice. If we assist society to shift the mentality into restorative justice models, not as an absolute alternative but as a parallel initiative, that will assist us to have a less polarized approach. But it will be a long process.
In this city, for instance, we have a committee that runs educational programs every year for restorative justice to assist us to think in different terms, and we need much more of that kind of thing.
Mr. Healy: That is a huge question. I think the key to it is actually not in going to the public first and then seeing what happens. I believe the problem lies not with elected officials but with bureaucracy. I think bureaucracy needs to know that there has to be a transformation and the transformation has to be to trumpet the successes that I know are out there. The programs that I know exist in Saskatchewan are barely known by the public. Bureaucracy has to make sure that those programs and those ideas are well and hardy and then the role of the elected officials is to trumpet them.
There is something very fundamental about a democracy, which is why I quoted Dr. Benjamin Rush — that each individual is precious and unique, and that is inherent in a democracy. Elections are what we have to ensure those rights but they are not the essence of democracy — Hitler was elected.
Democracy is in how we treat each other and we have to be able to look at people who say punitive measures are what people want therefore they should have it, and say that is not democratic, it is anti-democratic.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Mr. Healy, this is something that drives me crazy meeting after meeting, report after report, where people refer to ``young people,'' ``children,'' ``youth population,'' and there is no gender breakout. You did say that one of the things you hoped for was that there would be some way to give these kids imagination, that they could imagine a better life. My experience of life is that there are gender differences, girl children do learn differently, there are studies on the female brain. How would you develop public policy here in Saskatchewan to reflect those differences, and do you see a problem when words like ``youth'' and ``children'' are used that there is no gender breakout in terms of incarceration or sex trade or anything else?
Mr. Healy: That is a good question. I dodged the issue that you are properly bringing up by saying that you have to be careful about each child. Each child will teach you what it is that is in their heart, what is in their fantasy, what is in their aspirations, what they think they would be competent and capable and successful at. That is the best answer I can give, to focus on the child and their success.
Senator Nancy Ruth: Professor Driedger, I want to ask about conventions that may be in conflict. If the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was made binding in domestic law there are some who are fearful that this could be used in family law against mothers. Do you think that all conventions that Canada is signatory to and their protocols should be made binding in domestic law? Do you think this would cause confusion in some instances? How would you sort out equal but conflicting rights?
Mr. Driedger: We could have a good discussion about that for an hour or two. First of all, I would suggest that if we sign conventions our intention should be to follow through on them. I think we do in a general sense but not in a specific sense. In principle, I would suggest that they should have an effect on national and domestic policy. I am not sure whether they should all be put into law. I have not really thought that through; however, I think in principle the intention should be that they have binding authority. In terms of the conflict there would be, we would then have to address that and look for ways to sort it out.
Certainly, that is what I was talking about when I was identifying matters in terms of the best interests of the child. There are conflicts between the interests of families and those of an individual child, and there are conflicts in the ethnic context, Aboriginal or any other ethnic group, in terms of what their values are in relation to society in general.
I would much rather have us debate those kind of things and try to come to some kind of resolution rather than ignoring them and not making them applicable. I prefer that approach although it would not be easy.
That is the issue in terms of child welfare and family services legislation that has been debated. How does one orient the legislation? Is it the primacy of the child? There is always a pressure in society for the primacy of the family. Over the period of time since 1954 that I have been involved in this whole business, there have been shifts. There was the primacy of the child and then, in terms of legislation in Saskatchewan for example, it shifted over to the primacy of the family. Some of us were asking how much abuse is acceptable in families before we take children away from the family.
There is always some tension and it will not be solved in a clear-cut way; it will always be one of the dynamics and I would say those are the things we have to wrestle with.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Why are Aboriginal youth poorly educated?
Mr. Driedger: As Mr. Healy was saying, I think racism is an important issue. There are also a whole range of additional reasons why we have the issues related to Aboriginal youth at the present time. Sociological studies have been done, not just in terms of Aboriginals but in terms of communities where there is a major influx of a different orientation. If you have a small, stable community and a potash mine moves nearby or some other major element that brings in many people who are not part of the community, this will cause community disintegration. When there is community disintegration you will always have a range of social problems that will arise, including prostitution and delinquency.
I believe that is what happened in the Aboriginal community. When Europeans came to this country, not only did we influx, in addition we did not allow them to continue with their value system. We put them into residential schools and so forth, and there was a social disintegration of Aboriginal communities. That disintegration is one of the reasons we have so many Aboriginal people in our criminal justice system at the present time. Racism is also an important issue but I think there are a lot of other dynamics too.
I was encouraged by the Aboriginal community here in Saskatchewan that way back in the 1970s realized that one of the things they had to do in order to reduce disintegration in their society was to educate their community. They did a lot of stories in terms of the positives of Aboriginal culture. They have profiles of people that have been successful. They are building a pride and identity which is positive.
This is a long way to get back to your question about education but I think those are the kinds of things that are helpful in moving things forward.
When I began working at the University of Regina in 1971, you could count on both hands how many Aboriginal people were enrolled in university. When I retired in 1997, we had the First Nations University of Canada plus there were thousands of Aboriginal people attending university.
I believe a multifaceted approach is necessary in order to address these issues.
Mr. Healy: I think it goes back to democracy again. When the BSE crisis happened, everybody looked at the ranchers and the people who raise cattle and said they are in a difficult situation, they need support. People have known for decades that Aboriginal people were going to be moving off the reserves into the cities. Did city councils spend their time wondering how they would house these people? No. Did school boards say, oh, all these children will be coming to our schools, maybe we should change our program? No. Did the law society say, we have to start advocating for these people otherwise they will be in conflict with the law or abused by landlords and other people? No. Nobody did.
That is the essence of democracy and we are still not doing it; we are not using democratic means to solve a problem, we are looking for control. It is simply enough to say these are our rules, you live by them or you die by them. We will change the rules for the cattle farmers involved in the BSE crisis but we will not change the rules for Aboriginal people.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Do you think a language barrier is also a major part of the problem Native people have?
Mr. Healy: I do not think language is an issue.
A professor from the University of Saskatchewan went down to Arizona or New Mexico, one of those two states, and he told me that the Aboriginal culture there is worth $5 billion a year. That could be true of Saskatchewan. We have this tremendous resource of Aboriginal people with unique ways of thinking about things, and people from Germany and France would all like to know about the Cree way or the Saulteaux way.
There could be signs up all over, ``Cree Spoken Here,'' in every business if we were using democratic solutions. The Cree language would be used by white people as well as by Aboriginal people. The problem is that we have not opened up our society to say these are citizens, they are our brothers and sisters and we have to make sure they are successful, because that is what we would want for our family. Instead we have controlled them.
Mr. Driedger: It is not a major problem but I think there is an element of language, not just for Aboriginals but also for immigrants. Just a short story: There was an Aboriginal family that brought a child into a health clinic and the doctor said, ``Well I will give him a shot.'' And the mother started crying. She thought that he was about to shoot the child.
The Chairman: Neither one of you has mentioned what I thought had been a positive development in Saskatchewan, in Aboriginal leadership taking some hold on children's issues whether through the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations or Aboriginal NGOs. Is that a positive trend, or do they have the same problems in that they have Aboriginal adult leadership and they also do not take into account the youth?
That is two questions. First, what is the impact of more autonomy and responsibility in the Aboriginal community for youth and children's issues? Second, do they have the same conflicts between adults and children that the rest of society has?
Mr. Driedger: I obliquely made reference to your first point when I spoke of the development of identity and stories, et cetera. The leadership of Aboriginal communities has been very important and that is one of the reasons I have a lot of optimism.
When I was with the Department of Social Services years ago, I was pessimistic because I always saw the problems. When I began teaching at the university, I saw many of the good things that were starting to happen, particularly Aboriginal initiatives relating to children and also initiatives by society in general. I am not as pessimistic as you appear to be in terms of the condemnation of Saskatchewan initiatives. There are many good signs and, certainly, the development of the leadership in the Aboriginal community is an important thing.
I think they do have some of the same issues in terms of adult in relationship to child. I think that is borne out by one example: When you look at child welfare and the custody of children, keeping a child in the context of the Aboriginal community is very important but it is an adult agenda to not ``lose'' their children. Some children might say, yes, but I do not want to be neglected. So I think there is that dynamic also in their communities.
Mr. Healy: I am here because one Aboriginal leader suggested that I be here. Of course, I think the Aboriginal leadership is very important but we are all human beings under the skin and we all have to struggle with what is the right thing to do in the circumstances. We all have the same moral dilemmas and we all have our blind spots. I am, of course, very heartened by the Aboriginal leadership and by the breadth and wisdom of many of my Aboriginal colleagues. I am also entirely enthusiastic about what I have read of the Aboriginal culture as was practiced for hundreds of years in this territory.
What I worry about is that it will be said, ``well, this is an Aboriginal problem and they should solve it.'' It is a partnership; we are brothers and sisters. At times we have to disagree — not as races which would be a very sad thing — but we should disagree as human beings.
As we search towards a vision of a better Saskatchewan in which to live, of course, somebody may think that I am full of hot air and something that I disagree with is real, and I may say that is a mistake. What human beings have to do in order to achieve greater wisdom is to debate and converse. I think that, in the culture of control, it is not unusual for people to say, ``well, that is their problem, let them solve it.'' It is not their problem, it is our problem; all of us have to solve it.
The Chairman: We have run out of time. I wish we had more time to talk about the specific needs of children in Saskatchewan, such as fetal alcohol syndrome or any of the other problems and disabilities that we know about. It would have been good to have spent more time on that. Thank you both for sharing your experiences and thoughts. We have certainly gained from that.
Betty-Ann Pottruff, Executive Director of Policy Planning and Evaluation, Department of Justice, Government of Saskatchewan: Senators, it is a pleasure to speak to this committee. There are a number of officials with me from other departments and, when we get into questions, I may ask them to respond to a question if it is in their particular area.
One of the reasons so many of us are here is our interest in and commitment to youth and children's rights, and because we work very closely interdepartmentally to promote children's rights, restorative justice for youth, and a lot of other programming that we do together. It very much is an interdepartmental, coordinated effort and I am just the spokesperson for that. I will give you the views of the Department of Justice as well as the views of the provincial government.
Our submission to the committee is an ambitious one and I would not be able to read all 27 pages in five minutes; however, it is there to provide you with information on a wide range of program issues dealing with youth justice. As well, we have made comments on some of the areas covered in your interim report and on chapter six, Future Plans, to try to give you some sense of our thoughts on that.
I think one of the important things that has been discussed this morning by the previous presenters was the fact that Saskatchewan does take a restorative justice approach in dealing with youth justice issues. I know that Mr. Healy has a different lens on issues but I assure you that, as we go through this material, you will see the important steps we have taken both in terms of restorative justice and in trying to reform the situation we find ourselves in with youth justice.
As well, we are trying to face the challenge we have as the province with, unfortunately, the highest crime rate and that drives other issues in terms of our response.
When you look at the issue of the high number of Aboriginal youth, and youth in general, in custody or under the care of the Department of Community Resources or the Department of Corrections and Public Safety, this is coming to you from the context of the disadvantages being faced in those communities. We are conscious of those disadvantages and the government has, for some time, committed significant funds to respond to Aboriginal needs, and particularly over the last couple of years, in the justice area.
In your materials is a copy of the youth services model that was designed between departments in 1999-00; it serves as our template for moving forward across the province. It was our template for the implementation of the Youth Criminal Justice Act to, in fact, try to get better results and outcomes for youth involved in misconduct. We do not always refer to them as offenders because there is misconduct, and sometimes the method used to respond to that is the youth justice system but, if there are other ways to respond, we pursue those as well.
We believe that the Youth Criminal Justice Act is being implemented as was intended under the principles of the legislation and that, in fact, we are achieving success in changing the response to youth misconduct and offending. There has been a significant increase in the use of police discretion and non-court processes as indicated at page 3 of your materials. There has been a 13 per cent reduction in youth being formally charged in Saskatchewan. There has been a significant uptake by the police in terms of dealing with youth through non-traditional means. They have even asked for a provincial police cautioning program. We developed and approved that process this spring and those materials are also available.
We have seen as a result that, in fact, the numbers of youth appearing in court and in corrections programs is changing. There has been a 25 per cent decrease in the number of youth appearing in court. There are fewer 12- and 13- year-olds, which is what you would expect and we are seeing fewer first-time offenders; the proportion of 16- and 17- year-olds, who have more of a history, is increasing in relationship to the overall number.
Sentencing patterns have changed. We are seeing less use of custody, less use of even non-custody and community responses, and more a move to alternative measures and extrajudicial sanctions and measures.
We have changed the approach in terms of looking at the overall risk pattern and the needs of these youth and why they are presenting these problems and getting a justice system response. We are attempting to find ways of responding to their needs that will help to change what brings them before the justice system. It really is a needs-based focus in terms of looking at how we deal with youth, not a control focus as has been suggested to you.
On page 5, we explain the risk needs of the population in the youth justice system as being 62 per cent of offenders and 85 per cent of youth in custody assessed as high or very high risk to reoffend. That means they have multiple factors that are indicia of disorganization in their lives, the reasons why they are offending. It may be addictions or home life or violence; those are the sorts of issues we are trying to address with programming so that they either do not reoffend further or reoffend less seriously.
We have developed programs to ensure that education occurs, and there is a transition between youth in custody and the school or education community to which they are returning.
We have developed youth services model projects in Regina and Prince Albert and evaluations on those projects are available to you. They have been very successful in mobilizing communities and community entities to develop employment and other types of programs for youth. There is extensive Aboriginal youth programming happening in response to the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform.
We make extensive use of alternative measures, the highest in the country, and have found it to be successful in 93 per cent of cases involving over 3,500 youth in 2004-05.
We also have programs targeted to areas where there are specific youth-offending problems. An example is the Regina auto theft strategy program where a combination of monitoring, control in terms of custody and custody sentences, education and re-education, as well as a particular alternative measures program for first-time offenders, has led to a 44.1 per cent reduction in auto theft in the City of Regina.
We use many different approaches in attempting to deal with the problems presented by youth and we recognize that we continue to have a number of challenges. However, the picture is not bleak and I would like to leave you with a sense that, in fact, when we look at the youth crime numbers, when we look at the education numbers, we can see we are making a difference. There are more Aboriginal youth graduating from school, there are more, as Professor Driedger said, in university, there are more youth who are staying out of the justice system and being dealt with alternatively, and there are more programs for Aboriginal youth.
Some of those programs have come about as a result of the response that the province has given to the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform. In 2005, $48 million was invested, over $80 million in 2006. We continue in our attempts to implement the recommendations of that commission.
Part of that implementation is Project Hope where significant funds have been provided for addictions and substance abuse, which are significant problems for youth, particularly Aboriginal youth. There is new funding for child and youth mental health, new education initiatives and gang response initiatives. We are working with northern municipalities on a project to assess the needs of northern youth and attempt to target them.
We have many partnerships working with First Nations communities, many of which are listed in the document in front of you. We continue to move forward with a restorative justice approach in terms of therapeutic courts and alternative measures and working with community justice committees. We believe in this approach in terms of trying to deal with these issues.
However, it is a balance because, when you have an offender, you also have a victim and a community where the offences occurred. You must balance the community's safety needs and the safety of the victim with a response that is appropriate for the offender as well, in order to reduce or stop the offending behaviour.
Regarding awareness of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, I have made available a booklet that was put together by multiple provincial government departments. It outlines what a child should know and gives details of convention provisions, along with provincial legislation to try to make this information more widely known. We are in the process of revising the booklet and trying to decide if we need a different one for youth and children versus adults and families, those sorts of issues.
There is also a wealth of material that the Public Legal Education Association of Saskatchewan has developed and which is used in schools in relation to the UN convention. Concerning the involvement of youth in decision making, commencing on page 14 the paper references a number of places where we have youth committees that are instrumental in advising government of issues which concern youth and also serve as a resource for government contact and consultation with youth.
There are a number of ways that we are attempting to increasingly involve youth in decision making. The provincial Youth Advisory Committee is a youth voice developed as part of the Regina youth services model pilot project; another is the Saskatchewan Youth in Care and Custody Network that I think you will hear from later today.
We have provided a fair amount of information on health, which is one of the issues that you address in chapter 6 of your report. I will highlight a couple of areas we have provided information on.
The first is programming for children with disabilities. Although we recognize the importance of fetal alcohol syndrome disorder, we realize that cognizance disabilities are broader and, in response, our attempts to deal with those disabilities are broader. There is an issue surrounding the provision of disability services for Aboriginal people, in terms of where the legislative and financial responsibility lies and in the coordination of services.
Poverty is an issue affecting many Aboriginal children. However, at the provincial level we believe we are beginning to see an improvement. We note that, in January 2005, there were 37 per cent fewer Aboriginal families on welfare than in January 1995.
That said, we also recognize that Saskatchewan has the highest level of Aboriginal poverty of any Canadian province. Of course, we are not satisfied with these statistics; however, we do think there are indicia that we are, in fact, making progress in our attempts to address some of the underlying causes of the disorder that we see in communities.
We reported to the Senate committee last year on a number of initiatives that have been undertaken by the provincial government as part of its strategy to address child sexual exploitation. There is an update to that report available to you here. We have achieved much and implemented all but two of the 49 recommendations made by the special joint committee in 2002. There is still more to be done and the child advocate spoke to that last week.
In our paper, we provide a full description of the child welfare programming that is available in the province and the partnerships that we have with First Nations communities. In total, over 4,000 children are in care, about 1,000 of which are involved with First Nations agencies. It is a real partnership which gives consideration to a range of responses to child care issues, including kinship care. Taking a child out of the home or the community is certainly not the first response to child care issues and attempts are made to find other, more supportive, alternatives for the child.
The final issue that I address in the paper is corporal punishment, merely to advise you of amendments the provincial government has made to the Education Act, which confirm our policy of prohibiting the use of corporal punishment in schools and in all other provincial programs or facilities affecting those under provincial care or responsibility.
That is a brief provincial overview. Obviously, there is a huge amount of information that can be shared about the response to the Aboriginal community's justice issues. It has consumed our attention for several years now and, truly, the government is committed to responding to, and working in partnership with, Aboriginal communities to have better outcomes for the children and youth and, indeed, all the people in those communities.
The Chairman: I know that you would have liked to have said a lot more; however, we do have your materials, whether they were created for our purposes or whether they were available previously, we appreciate receiving them.
Marvin Bernstein, Children's Advocate, Saskatchewan Children's Advocate Office: Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. I am here with my deputy, Glenda Cooney.
Our fundamental premise is that, while Canada and Saskatchewan are generally concerned about advancing the rights and interests of children, and we have excellent people in this province who are committed to advancing the well- being of children, both jurisdictions could be doing much more to comply with their obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In addition to our written submission, we would ask you to consider the submission we made to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for the day of general discussion, which I believe was sent to the Senate committee last week.
We also ask you to consider four other documents generated by our office and which are referred to in the lengthy submission we provided to you this morning and which can be found on our website at www.saskcao.ca.
The first document we ask you to consider is CAO Perspectives on Corporal Punishment and Saskatchewan Children, volume 1, issue 1, February 2005. The second is the Special Report — The Youth Drug Detoxification and Stabilization Act. Also, I released two reports last week — Investigative Report of the Oyate Safe House and the Beyond `at Risk' Children Systemic Issues Report regarding Sexually Exploited Children and Oyate Safe House.
We have three key messages for the committee. The first is that children must come first and must be protected from all forms of harm and violence. It is government's responsibility to protect and prevent children from harm and to ensure that they are provided with an environment in which to grow and flourish. This includes the need to move expeditiously to repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code of Canada. I will also make some comments regarding what the province can do in that area.
Second, children's rights must be entrenched in the laws of this land both at the federal and provincial levels, in an interconnected way. This is a necessary first step in ensuring that the interests and well-being of our children are being met. Canada must take a stronger role in monitoring the obligations of the provinces and the territories to incorporate and apply the principles of the UN convention in legislation, policy and practice.
The third point is that a children's commissioner responsible for overseeing services to children under federal jurisdiction must be appointed in order to promote responsible and good governance, and provide a seamless service delivery to children. As an adjunct to that, Canada must actively encourage all provinces and territories to appoint independent children's advocates in their respective jurisdictions.
Given the time constraints I will proceed directly to our recommendations.
The first recommendation is that the Government of Canada enact the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as law in Canada and that it be binding upon the provinces and territories.
Sometimes it appears there is a disconnect between what is happening at the federal level and provincially. There is need for a monitoring mechanism ensuring compliance within provincial jurisdictions. That is something I take very seriously in terms of my role within this province as Children's Advocate and as an independent officer of the legislative assembly.
The second recommendation is that the Government of Canada undertake to show leadership through both positive persuasion and proactive monitoring, with a view to having provincial and territorial jurisdictions endorse, incorporate and apply the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in all provincial and territorial legislation, policy and practice impacting upon children.
In our submission, the Government of Saskatchewan is lagging behind in endorsing, incorporating and applying the principles enshrined in the UN convention into provincial legislation, policy and practice. Examples cited in our written submission relate to serious deficiencies in both the Child and Family Services Act and the recently proclaimed Youth Drug Detoxification and Stabilization Act.
In particular, it should be noted in the area of access to justice and Article 12 of the UN convention that, unlike any other provincial or territorial child protection statute in Canada, Saskatchewan's Child and Family Services Act explicitly prohibits a child from being treated as a party to, and participating directly in, a child protection proceeding, regardless of age.
Similarly, in the area of access to justice in the context of intrusive youth drug detoxification legislation, Saskatchewan's Youth Drug Detoxification and Stabilization Act, which is the first of its kind proclaimed in Canada, is built upon a mental health model and it would appear to violate a number of articles in the UN convention, specifically, Articles 12 and 37. In our submission, we detail issues of procedural fairness, rights of notification, legal representation and related other concerns.
In regards to the issue of access to justice and the Child and Family Services Act, we outline in our submission the lack of a consistent mechanism for children to enjoy independent legal representation; it is dependant in large measure as to which court the child protection case happens to be proceeding in. There is inherent jurisdiction in the Court of Queen's Bench but no specific jurisdiction conferred upon the courts in the provincial division, so there exists differential treatment under the law which cries out for legislative amendment.
As referenced in the two Oyate reports, unlike most other Canadian jurisdictions, there is no child-first focus contained in the statement of purpose provision in Saskatchewan's Child and Family Services Act. This lack of primacy of the best interests of the child is really out of sync with most Canadian jurisdictions and is not consistent with Article 3 of the UN convention. Therefore, I submit there is a clear breach of Article 3 in terms of the underlying philosophy that supports the Child and Family Services Act in Saskatchewan.
The Government of Canada has a responsibility to all children, particularly First Nations children, who fall within federal jurisdiction and we recommend the appointment of a children's commissioner, advocate or ombudsman. First Nations children do not have an independent advocate to ensure they receive the services they are entitled to under the treaties and by law. There is a need for someone who is directly responsible for ensuring that children's rights are protected in all federal government actions.
My colleagues who are children's advocates in other provincial jurisdictions and I often feel as though we are trying to fill in the gap through our Canadian Council of Provincial Child and Youth Advocates trying to touch upon federal jurisdiction where there are impacts upon the rights of children. Under federal legislation we can certainly advance interests within our home provinces but there is a clear gap at the federal level. We would like to work in a collaborative fashion with a Canadian children's commissioner.
We also recommend that the Government of Canada undertake to actively encourage all Canadian provinces and territories to appoint an independent children's advocate in their respective jurisdictions. We are concerned that there has been non-compliance with the recommendation by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in its concluding observations in 2003 that a truly independent children's advocate be appointed in every jurisdiction. Not only are there still some children's advocates who directly report to a government official, there have been no children's advocate positions created in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island or in any of the three territories.
In our view, the federal government ought to proactively encourage all of the relevant jurisdictions to take the necessary steps leading to the appointment of independent children's advocates. In particular, we would commend to the committee the Saskatchewan Ombudsman and Children's Advocate Act as model legislation that could be adopted by other jurisdictions.
The last recommendation we are advancing is that the Government of Canada move expeditiously to repeal section 43 of the Criminal Code. In our view, the Supreme Court of Canada judgment is, in effect, a patchwork reading down or judicial rewriting of section 43 of the Criminal Code. The judgment fails to take into account the equality and fundamental human rights of children guaranteed in Articles 19, 28(2) and 37 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Supreme Court has applied a series of judicial principles that are both confusing and dehumanizing, reducing Canada's children to the status of mini-persons with diminished human rights. Since the Supreme Court has rendered its decision, many lower courts have turned even some of what appears to be absolute limitations into discretionary ones.
As time goes by, there is increasing empirical evidence demonstrating the harmful effects of corporal punishment, growing public opinion in favour of banning corporal punishment, and an increasing number of enlightened countries incorporating civil bans against the use of corporal punishment. I submit that it is time for Canada to step up to the plate or risk significant embarrassment on the international stage.
Both the Saskatchewan Children's Advocate Office and the Canadian Council of Provincial Child and Youth Advocates have endorsed the authoritative joint statement on physical punishment of children and youth. I am passionate about this issue as I appeared as co-counsel before the Supreme Court of Canada as one of the interveners in that constitutional challenge.
I acknowledge the good work within this province in terms of incorporating amendments to the Education Act to prohibit the use of corporal punishment in a school setting. I would, however, encourage the province to go further and to incorporate a civil ban into the Child and Family Services Act against the use of corporal punishment. I applaud the Saskatoon Public School Board for being the first school board in Canada to have endorsed the joint statement on physical punishment of children and youth.
In our materials, there is a reference to general comment number 8 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in particular paragraph 39 sets out a recommendation from the UNCRC that:
Family law should also positively emphasize that parental responsibility includes providing appropriate direction and guidance to children without any form of violence.
This raises the notion that provinces and territories should be, could be, ought to be seeking amendments to their child protection statutes as well as their education statutes, incorporating civil prohibitions against the use of corporal punishment.
Senator Andreychuk: Thank you all. I know that the topic really demands a day not an hour but your materials are very helpful.
Senator Carstairs: My question is to Ms. Pottruff. You repeated a frequently heard statement that for every offender there is a victim. I suggest to you that in almost every case the offender has been a victim, and that victimization occurred long before that person became an offender. Why is that proposition — for every offender there is a victim — put forward without tying it into the fact that that very offender in almost every single case has been offended against? In some cases they have been betrayed by social services or by their family, or perhaps they were born with disabilities. Why do we not deal with that?
Ms. Pottruff: I will give you a brief answer and then turn it over to Mr. Kary. I believe we do deal with it in terms of looking at the actual needs of the youth and what those needs are and what we need to address within the system in responding to that.
Bob Kary, Executive Director, Young Offender Programs, Corrections and Public Safety, Government of Saskatchewan: In 2003, with the coming of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, we did a major overhaul of the approach we take with young offenders. It is not that there is one answer, but it is a needs-based approach. We try to understand the needs of the child which does not simply mean the risk to reoffend. It is their needs related to education, employment, home life, housing, those kinds of things, and the approach we take is to try to design a plan which addresses all of those needs.
Planning for a young person who offends does not solely involve corrections, it involves education, employment, child welfare, mental health, every possible issue that could affect a young person's life. It is through that kind of joint approach that we attempt to address the issues.
We can talk about the victimization issue in terms of the issues that lead young people to offend, and I think that is part of what you are talking about. As well, for some young people there are special programs to deal with their own issues of victimization because, as has been mentioned, there is a lot of overlap between child welfare and young people involved in street life and those issues that must be addressed.
Senator Carstairs: Words are important and when we classify it as a continuum between the offender and the victim and do not tie in the fact that the offender has been victimized, then what you hear on the street and in the parliaments and legislatures of this country is the victim needs to be protected. You do not hear that the offender has been a victim.
Glenda Cooney, Deputy Children's Advocate, Children's Advocate Office, Province of Saskatchewan: The report of the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform, which is on the Saskatchewan Department of Justice website, completely ties the treatment under child welfare to young offenders. There is a high percentage of children who go through the child welfare system who have been subjected to a great deal of bad treatment and end up in the youth criminal justice system.
In Saskatchewan, there is an overrepresentation of Aboriginal children in both the child welfare system and the youth criminal justice system. Albeit that it has been reducing, it remains one of the highest percentages in Canada. They are disproportionately represented. Many of these children come from reserve settings, which are under federal jurisdiction, and there is a differential standard of treatment. These children do not have access to housing; they do not have access to preventative services that support the family. The whole public policy around federal provision of services on reserve has to change. The victimization of these children will not stop until we have adequate services on reserve to support children in their home environment and put the needs of the child first.
Senator Munson: Mr. Bernstein, we have heard some rather conflicting testimony this morning and I would like to hear your point of view about the situation in Saskatchewan. We heard from Mr. Healy who seems to be on the streets as a lawyer with legal aid representing young people in this province. He stated that, unfortunately in Saskatchewan, supervision and control are the norm. Programs are underfunded. He said, ``I am afraid it is racism'' and ``I am frightened...'' On the other hand, we have heard from government officials this morning that the situation is not bleak, that they are making a difference.
From your perspective as a children's advocate, what is the situation in Saskatchewan today, and do you have enough funding?
Mr. Bernstein: I believe there are many committed individuals who are working hard to make a difference through a number of initiatives. Certainly, since I assumed my position I have been impressed by the quality of commitment of people within government who deeply care about the needs of children and are attempting to serve their interests.
There often is a lot of activity; however, what sometimes seems to be missing is coordination, the articulation of a vision, having a sense of direction, integration of services and a sense of a collaborative partnership. In the work that I do, talking about the rights of children at times is a hard sell. Sometimes what comes back in discussions and discourse is that it is threatening to the rights of parents, it is threatening to the rights of families. To counter this, we talk about the importance in terms of respecting the dignity of all individuals and the fundamental rights of children and that, as a society, unless we are committed to that principle we will pay a collective price in the future.
There needs to be an incremental public education process in order to advance the notion that children have rights, that children need to be respected and to have a voice, for example, in the court process as I mentioned. To me, these things are fairly self-evident but they are obviously not self-evident to others; therefore, there is much work to be done.
The sexual exploitation of children is the subject matter of a report that I issued last week, Beyond `at Risk' Children. In the files we reviewed from child protection workers and other service providers, we found that there are problems with the use of language. These children are often referred to as ``prostitutes,'' as ``working the streets,'' as ``hooking,'' and that just perpetuates the victimization.
We still have a lot of work to do in Saskatchewan in advancing the notion that children are victims, that children are rights holders, and that we need to respect and implement that in everyday life.
You inquired about funding for our office and the work that we do. We operate with a very broad mandate which makes us unique in Canada. We were the first independent children's advocate office. There are only eight positions similar to the one that I hold; four are independent, although some of them only have jurisdiction over child welfare. We have broad jurisdiction over the provision of services by a government department or agency.
I also function as an ombudsman for children which means that I do not only engage in individual and systemic advocacy, I conduct institutional and individual investigations, child death reviews, critical injury reviews. It is a whole menu of services that we provide to the children and youth of Saskatchewan. It is a model that I would recommend. The challenge is having limited staff and resources and allocating our resources according to the priorities that emerge. Could we use more funding? The answer is yes.
Senator Munson: That message from the Children's Advocate should be sent to New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island and the Northwest Territories from us.
Ms. Pottruff, you mentioned the rights of the child and programs that are in place. For example, you spoke of teaching youth the Charter of Rights in the classroom, that sort of thing. Is there any statistical evidence that children are actually listening, paying attention and participating in these programs, or do you think you should have a big billboard saying, ``The Rights of the Child, Call This Number,'' that the government should have some more interaction with young people?
Ms. Pottruff: Those are public legal education association programs and so I would not be able to speak for them. I think it is positive that the materials are there and I believe they are being used. Obviously, more can always be done to ensure that people are educated about their rights and responsibilities relating to children.
Senator Munson: Should the government be doing more in terms of getting the message out, having round tables and so on, and engaging children? Today we are engaging adults.
Ms. Pottruff: We are certainly interested in increasing the involvement of children and youth in our policy development work. We are currently in the process of revising and reissuing information regarding the rights of the child in a way that makes it more useful to children, youth and parents. I believe it would be useful to do more in that area; however, we do not presently have a budget for that and I am unsure as to what priority it should take among the other activities we wish to undertake. It is certainly important to reinforce public attitudes about the value of children and their rights and responsibilities.
Ms. Cooney: The Children's Advocate Office has a program called the Rights/Advocacy Project that was developed by young people. We have delivered it in schools across Saskatchewan in grades 4 to 6. I think it has been a resounding success. We are currently discussing with Saskatchewan Learning the possibility of including it in the curriculum. We have been really pleased with the results in that young people have been able to quickly understand the UN convention. We would be very happy to send a copy of the program to you.
Senator Munson: I am pleased to hear that — that is the kind of message which can be sent across the country.
Senator Lovelace Nicholas: Mr. Bernstein, since many Native children are uneducated and language is a barrier, is there a Native justice advocate?
Ms. Cooney: The Children's Advocate has provincial jurisdiction and we have 18 Indian child and family services agencies in the province over which we have jurisdiction. It certainly gets muddied in areas under federal jurisdiction such as housing, education and health services. However, under the agreements in effect at the present time we do have jurisdiction.
There is no First Nations advocate per se in the provincial context and there is no First Nations advocate at the federal level although it is something we have been lobbying long and hard for, as we do need a counterpart.
Ms. Pottruff: As a supplementary, I would note that one of the recommendations made by the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform was for the creation federally of a children's advocate for Aboriginal children.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I am constantly amazed that, both provincially and federally, words used in reference to youth are always gender neutral. Can you help me understand why statistics are not broken down in terms of male and female children and how public policies might differ if they were?
Ms. Pottruff: We actually do collect information that is gender specific; however, we did not break it down for the purposes of today's brief overview. If you wish, we can attempt to do that. It is certainly one of the fields that we track.
We rely on information received from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, as well as public information, and that is also broken down by gender. We do have that information and do examine the different needs of male and female youth whether involved in the child welfare system or youth justice system.
Senator Nancy Ruth: The reason I ask is because, in your presentation today, you do not differentiate and so, again, these differences become invisible; again, women, girl children, become invisible.
Ms. Pottruff: Certainly, in the area of violence we know there are huge differences. Issues about violence against Aboriginal women and children are certainly addressed in the report of the Commission on First Nations and Métis Peoples and Justice Reform and it is an area we continue to work on and have designed some programs to address that. It certainly is also part of the response to the issue of sexually exploited children and youth because the majority of those youth are female.
Marilyn Hedlund, Executive Director, Child and Family Services, Government of Saskatchewan: We collect data on both male and female children in care and we can provide that breakdown if you wish. Clearly, in the sexual exploitation area, the majority of children that come to our attention are female which tells us something about how we need to respond to their needs and to the issue of them becoming parents in the future.
A percentage of children who are victims of sexual exploitation are male and in Saskatchewan we are currently researching that.
Senator Nancy Ruth: I encourage you to make it public on a continuing basis as it is time this stopped being an invisible statistic.
The Chairman: In this province we have changed family services acts; federally, the Juvenile Delinquents Act has been revised and we now have the Youth Criminal Justice Act. Just as Professor Driedger said he went through all the permutations in between them, so have I.
It appears that family services and youth justice systems still are not coordinated and working together. We still hear that if family services does not have the resources then, if we can get them before the courts, we can get the services. The two departments are still saying, due to a lack of resources or mandate, it is the other's responsibility. The message has not come through that they must work together.
Although there has been a lot of consideration given to what age youth justice issues begin, in my opinion they begin pre age 5 and that has not changed anecdotally or statistically. There may be problems with health, supervision, disabilities and, if they are not addressed at an early age, that child will end up being dealt with in a welfare or youth justice setting.
I am concerned that we are not dealing with the real problems children have early enough; we wait until they are either justice or family services issues. I am also concerned that the two systems still are not working together. On that topic, I have heard individual optimism but not unified optimism. Who would like to tackle that?
Ms. Hedlund: I think you raise a very important point and the area of prevention is something that is of keen interest to all of us, across all sectors. I totally agree — it is in those early years that some of the most important interventions are made. A new initiative in Saskatchewan has been the introduction of the KidsFirst program. That is a joint initiative of the Departments of Learning, Health, Community Resources, First Nations and Métis Relations, and numerous community agencies. It involves universal at-birth screening to identify risk factors.
Also, in a number of targeted communities across Saskatchewan, there is priority access to supports such as addictions and mental health treatment, psychological counselling, family support and other services. And, through KidsFirst, there are in-home visitors providing supports to those families where there is a need. The focus has been on the earliest years and the intention is to, through voluntary and other early support, divert some of those children from becoming involved in the more formalized child welfare system.
Ms. Pottruff: On the broader question of interdepartmental coordination, we do not work in silos any more. We may not be as integrated as we should be in all cases but the reason so many people are here with me is because we do work jointly on child and youth issues. Most programs have an interdepartmental link or network that is attempting to build coordination between programs. Where we struggle the most is in moving that policy and resource coordination downstream regionally and then community by community. We have processes such as the regional intersectoral committees, which are both government and non-government agencies, which try to coordinate how we deliver youth and child services in a range of areas. There are projects such as the youth services model project in Regina and Prince Albert, and there are various other mechanisms.
We continue to struggle at the field level where people are working with an active case load; it is difficult to remember to consult with everyone that they need to in decision making. There are protocols for complex needs cases, protocols for how groups should work together when they cannot decide whose mandate it is to respond to a particular issue. We continue to attempt to implement an integrated, wrap-around services approach; however, it is a work in progress.
Mr. Bernstein: I agree that there needs to be more emphasis on prevention and early intervention. One of the things that we hear in relation to First Nations children who bounce back and forth from on-reserve and off-reserve is the difference in jurisdictional approaches. Where there is the involvement of INAC First Nations child and family services agencies, in respect of on-reserve children, find it more difficult to get funding for prevention. As a result, they almost have to wait until there is a crisis situation before they can intervene. Our office certainly wishes to ensure there is a consistent standard of service delivery and that all children receive equal entitlements.
In the Oyate systemic issues report regarding the sexual exploitation of children in this province, we found that the average age at which those children who were residing in the Oyate safe house in Regina became involved with the Department of Community Resources was two years and 10 months.
For over a decade, there was apparently a pattern of attempts to provide some band-aid solutions and a focus on family reunification. Oftentimes, those children were being sent back to at-risk kinds of situations. There seemed to be an absence of a child-first philosophy and an absence of long-term or permanency planning. It appears to be much more of an intermittent, reactive, temporary response.
We found that, of the children we reviewed during our investigation, 88 per cent moved in and out of homes characterized by abuse and neglect for the majority of their lives. Something has to change. These children had multiple needs, many of them were drug addicted, many of them had contracted hepatitis C or were HIV positive. There are a great many problems.
We have to find a better way of turning back the clock and providing early intervention and support, and we have to stop giving parents more and more chances where they have clearly demonstrated that they do not have the capacity to meet the needs of their children on an ongoing basis.
The Chairman: Many years ago in Saskatchewan we would apprehend and put the child first. Then we realized that part of a child was his background, his identity, his roots, et cetera, and we started to factor that in and create community resources.
Are you saying the problem is a universal one, whether in an Aboriginal community, immigrant community or broad-based community, that inevitably the voices of the adult are heard and the needs of the child are not? Does bureaucracy prevent permanency, bonding, all of those things that are important for a child?
Mr. Bernstein: That is part of it. The other issue I raised is that there really is no clear mechanism for an independent voice in child protection proceedings in Saskatchewan. It is a combination of the imposition of adult positions, putting an overemphasis on the interests of the parents — failing to see children as separate individuals who have individual interests and needs, and somehow inferring that they are just part of a collective family context. Certainly, they are part of a collective family context and we want to try and keep those children together with their families where appropriate. We wish to respect cultural identities and be culturally sensitive but it can never compromise the interests, safety and protection of the child. Those are basic entitlements that every child in this province deserves, regardless of culture and race.
Ms. Hedlund: The Children's Advocate has certainly given us a lot to think about, particularly over the last week, in the release of the two reports. We are committed to a legislative review and to reviewing each of his recommendations. Important points have been made about language, about modernizing the principles and ensuring a more clear focus on children's rights.
I will point out from a service delivery point of view some of the challenges we face. There are just over 3,000 children in the care of the province and 70 per cent of those children are Aboriginal. Another 1,100 children are in care on reserves under the authority of the child and family services agencies who are delegated authorities under our act. That is over 4,000 children in total, 80 per cent of which are Aboriginal.
There are many issues in the urban centres where families are separated from cultural and community supports and are trapped in a cycle of addictions, mental health issues and violence. A recent review of our files highlighted that those are the issues driving the opening of child protection files.
When we think of the best interests of the child and how we promote their well-being, it is difficult to separate that from the interests of family and culture, although I appreciate that we need to have a clear focus on the safety, well- being and best interests of the child.
We have close partnerships with First Nations in Saskatchewan. We have joint forums with the directors of First Nations agencies. We have the same training to service providers on and off reserve. We have introduced two First Nations trainers to help our staff understand their culture and history. First Nations have assured us they do not want lower standards for their children.
I look forward, as we move through the review of our legislation and the consultation process around that, to talking with children and youth, families and First Nations and to finding solutions that would be reflected in legislation to address these recommendations.
Mr. Bernstein: One of the things I suggested in my report was not only a set of guiding principles indicating that the paramount consideration is to promote the best interests, well-being, protection and safety of children in a way that is consistent with most other jurisdictions, but also to codify a set of service delivery principles which would identify the obligation of government to meet the needs of children and also codifying the rights and entitlements of children in care.
Part of the work of our office is to remind government where there are obligations outstanding in terms of meeting the needs of children and young people in the province. There are jurisdictions that have a codification in their child and family services legislation which identify entitlements and rights of children in care. I advanced that proposal in the report I tabled last week in the legislature and I am challenging the province to take a leadership role in moving in that direction.
The Chairman: Unfortunately, we have run out of time. Mr. Bernstein, we have had access to your other reports, including the most recent ones. Although you have a lot of challenges here in Saskatchewan, I am reassured that you are aware of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we have found is not the case everywhere. We hope that we can put forward the convention perhaps in a unique or more forceful way than has been done in Canada to date. Unfortunately, it has been evolving very slowly since 1989 and I hope we can give it renewed impetus.
Thank you for your submissions. We will go through all of them carefully and if we need anything else we will get back to you. Thank you for your work and for your presence here today.
Bill Thibodeau, Executive Director, EGADZ (Saskatoon Downtown Youth Centre Inc.): I do not have an opening statement. When I first received this invitation I thought about it for quite a while and really wrote it off as another process that, quite frankly, would take away from what I feel is important and that is the hands-on work we do with kids. I discussed it with my board chair and some of my co-workers and colleagues. All of them spoke of what an excellent opportunity it was for myself and EGADZ; I thought about it some more and thought no, what an excellent opportunity for the children and youth we work with each day to be here. So I came with that thought and I will try to remain open-minded and optimistic throughout the process.
I will let others have a chance to open.
The Chairman: For the record, could you tell us something about the youth you work with?
Mr. Thibodeau: The name was given to the centre a number of years ago by a group of adults who came up of this idea of a place like the Saskatoon Downtown Youth Centre Inc. It is not a name that is really appealing to kids. We are better known as EGADZ Youth Centre, a name the kids came up with and it has stuck ever since.
We operate a youth organization in the City of Saskatoon which services anywhere between 100 to 150 children and youth each day. We offer everything from a drop-in component, street outreach services, teen parenting, a school support program and day support program to Operation Help, which is a joint partnership with other agencies in Saskatoon to address the issue of sexual exploitation. A few years ago we delved into the area of housing and we currently operate two homes in Saskatoon known as My Home and My Home Too.
The organization has developed and evolved but has remained at the grassroots level. It has been in operation since 1990. I believe it has stayed around because we have been willing to adapt to the needs and changes in the lives of the kids that come through our door on an ongoing basis.
Most of the youth that we see are street entrenched, street involved. We rarely get the opportunity for prevention- type work; our work tends to be in-the-moment and hands-on intervention.
Sue Delanoy, Executive Director, Saskatoon Communities for Children: Communities for Children is a government and non-governmental, youth-driven organization, and the youth we work with were adamant that I should come and represent their voices today. After discussions with them, this is our opening statement.
In Canada and Saskatoon, ours is a complex, advanced and democratic society that provides both assistance and hindrance to the provision of public policy which upholds the rights of children as outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
One hindrance we believe is fear on the part of the general public of providing opportunity for a child's insolence and an excuse to misbehave. Another is the public perception of individual versus collective rights which results in watered-down rights-based policies intended to address a prevailing fear of government interference in the rights of family to define their own roles and responsibilities toward children.
It is rational, therefore, that full implementation of children's rights requires improved public education and debate in order to fully illuminate these rights as a foundation for the child to be supported in their own right, while recognizing the need for protection and care within the family context, including illumination of the family context which, in some circumstances, provides poor living conditions and circumstances most of which are not there of a child's own doing.
The work that I do on behalf of Communities for Children is to oversee a series of working groups that bring together First Nations, non-First Nations, governmental organizations and youth themselves in every way possible to discuss, at this point for us, six different issues in Saskatoon.
Child poverty is the subject of one of our discussions, as well as the need for a comprehensive early learning child care system. The other issues are sexual exploitation of children, kids not attending school, the gang epidemic in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan, addictions and substance abuse.
Each one of those areas has a working group which includes government, non-government, First Nations and youth. Our goal is to influence public policy to make changes, support the youth themselves, come up with innovative ideas and support new endeavours in Saskatoon.
I am very happy that the Children's Advocate spoke before me because you now have a good idea of what it is like in Saskatchewan for children and families. It is obvious that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is not a reality.
The following are some recommendations we feel are important to make.
One is the increased availability of good jobs to address child poverty, which we see as adult and family poverty.
We firmly believe that we need to develop a universally affordable, accessible early childhood care and education program.
We applaud the KidsFirst program mentioned by my colleague before me; however, it is a targeted program and often these types of programs become fragmented and do not support families nor do they support the right of children to have access to early, high-quality education.
In Saskatchewan, there are 168,000 children under the age of 12; we have 110,000 mothers working; we have 8,000 licensed child care spaces. The question is — where are the children? As the Children's Advocate stated, often children enter the social services system as young as two years and 10 months; the availability of a high-quality early learning program would assist.
We work hard on behalf of girls and boys working in the sex trade and we understand the need for a comprehensive, non-fragmented system to support their needs.
I often take part in groups discussing collaboration and time after time I hear people arguing over jurisdictional rights; the rights of the child are never at the centre of the discussion. Keeping a child-centred focus is I think what we all aim for; however, it is increasingly more difficult to do so because of fragmentation, fighting political jurisdictions and not keeping the rights of the child at the centre of what we do.
Deb Davies, Executive Director, Saskatchewan Foster Families Association: On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Saskatchewan Foster Families Association, SFFA, I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to appear today to share our concerns relating to Canada's international obligations with regards to the rights and freedoms of children, and specifically as they relate to our experience in working with children in foster care.
While it can be stated that Canada's obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as Canada's legislation applicable to children meet the country's obligations under the convention, it can be argued that a significant rift exists between written legislation and practical application of that legislation when it comes to dealing with the lives of children being placed in the care of the child welfare system.
Articles 3 and 20 of the convention are clear in citing the responsibilities of the state in supporting and addressing the needs and best interests of children in care. However, the reality is that provincial legislation is not, in fact, consistent across the country, nor are legislation and policies always applied consistently within a given province.
As a result, we are left facing a range of long-term issues that impact the lives of children who move in and out of foster care.
This committee has heard before that when family breakdown creates an unhealthy environment for a child, removal from the parental home becomes a necessity. When abuse in its many forms, neglect or family dysfunction cause a child to be removed from his or her family, that child requires special attention and care due to the trauma they have suffered. Unfortunately, today we are here to argue that the rights of the child are not being fully respected when they are removed from a threatening or dangerous environment. There are numerous cases where young siblings are being separated from each other.
Furthermore, I can identify cases where children are moved from home to home between six and 13 times in less than a year and then ultimately to an institution for assessment or stabilization because they have begun to act out. Yet psychologists and other professionals acknowledge that all children require consistency and continuity in order to function and develop normally.
Should not a rights-based approach to child welfare emphasize the best interests of a child? It can also be argued today that this approach is not, in fact, being applied in making decisions on what is best for the child. For example, after a failed one-week reuniting with its birth parents, an eight-year-old child is taken back into care and moved to a new foster home, a new school and a new community after a 19-month placement in a supportive foster home. This step was taken simply so the child could be situated closer to the birth parents who had chosen to relocate.
Similarly, there was a recent case where a two-year-old child with significant respiratory problems was moved to a non-smoking foster home from a home where the foster parents were heavy smokers. The child welfare case plan now is calling for the return of the child to the birth mother who is a heavy smoker and whose other five older children are currently in long-term care.
While parental rights are acknowledged, how are current legislation and policies safeguarding this child who is clearly too young to speak for itself?
The provincial government is reluctant to take a stand on smoking in foster homes. Earlier this year, our association put forward a proposal for a minimum standard; to date, no action has been forthcoming.
Your committee has noted that not all provinces have children's advocates or ombudsman offices and that those in place are not fully empowered to perform their tasks in a fully independent manner. I ask you then — is it necessary to extend the role of the children's advocate in order that the office become involved with every child in care to ensure their rights are represented, or is the solution to call for the appointment of legal counsel for these children and youth who are too young or do not have the mental capacity to understand their rights and speak for themselves?
The best interests of the child are also being jeopardized by a shortage of foster homes and alternative care facilities combined with increasing demands. During a recent week in Saskatoon, it was reported that 43 children were taken into care. These young people are often placed in emergency homes which are in short supply and, as a result, high numbers of children are placed in some homes. We have confirmed reports of numbers as high as 21 children in a standard residential home. Large numbers of children and youth placed in emergency foster homes is of particular concern in that placement planning is limited or non-existent due to the circumstances in which children are frequently apprehended and the need for immediate placement in a stable and safe environment.
Children are apprehended from the streets as well as troubled homes and they are in emotional turmoil and can be violent. The SFFA is aware of instances wherein foster parents have been assaulted by a foster child in placement. It simply stands to reason that an excessive number of foster children in a home will increase the probability of problems occurring. The purpose of placing children in foster care is to provide a safe environment with quality care and supervision. I ask you — how can that be provided if a foster parent routinely has from 14 to 18 children in the home, along with possibly their own birth children?
The SFFA maintains that, in general, the placement of in excess of four foster children in a foster home is a recipe for problems; for example, the ability of the foster parents to effectively supervise that number of children, especially if a combination of boys and girls are involved; the ability of the foster parents to provide adequate care and attention to the children; and the ability of the foster parents to provide adequate privacy and sleeping arrangements for the children, especially if a combination of boys and girls are involved.
Other concerns are fire safety in the home and the ability to evacuate during an emergency; the emotional health and stability of the children involved; and the mixture of teenage youth with small children in an emergency environment wherein there is often little background information available about the children.
I have endeavoured to identify a small number of issues that we encounter from a fostering perspective. Unfortunately, I do not have all the answers to these issues.
However, in reviewing the interim report of your committee, I am heartened to see the nature of the rights enshrined in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the insightful findings, conclusions and recommendations of your committee to date. The reality is these are just words unless mechanisms are developed to ensure that all levels of government apply the legislation in their programs and policies, and that all administrators involved in child welfare are versed in these principles and understand that the best interests of the child must come first when making decisions.
Senator Munson: Mr. Thibodeau, you mentioned you were hesitant about attending today and I suppose, when you are working on the streets in a hands-on manner, this highfalutin statement about Canada's obligation under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is hardly a discussion that would be happening with the young people you are working with. Keeping that in mind, I understand there was a curfew proposed last year in Saskatoon and it was defeated by council.
Mr. Thibodeau: Yes.
Senator Munson: What is your view of that? I ask that in the context of what the legal aid lawyer, Mr Healy, talked about as a controlling environment in Saskatchewan. Were you in favour of it or is that a part of the controlling environment that seems to be the perception from some quarters?
Mr. Thibodeau: That proposal for a curfew had come up, actually, a few years ago and I was asked by one of the council members my thoughts on it at that time. Saskatoon currently has a curfew bylaw on the books which has been in existence since the mid-1960s.
The Chairman: I remember in Saskatoon they used to have sirens telling you to get off the streets.
Mr. Thibodeau: I knew it was already in existence. I told the council member that I do not believe that is an answer; it is smoke and mirrors. It is a false safety perspective for citizens in the community; they hear there is a curfew and there is automatically this belief that someone will react to it. I believe — although I am not 100 per cent certain — that the Saskatoon Police Service gets about 50 teenagers reported missing every weekend. There are just not enough resources for the kids that we see and deal with everyday out on the street. Where would you take them at night? Foster homes are overloaded, government facilities are already overloaded. I just do not see a curfew as a viable option.
Senator Munson: One of the many questions our researchers have put to us to ask you and I cannot believe I am asking a question about child prostitution — maybe I am a naive person from New Brunswick — but how serious is the issue of child prostitution in Saskatoon and other parts of the province?
Mr. Thibodeau: It is extremely serious.
Senator Munson: What can we do as a committee? Ms. Davies has just mentioned that words on paper do not mean anything unless something is actually done. How do we address this issue?
Mr. Thibodeau: We operate a street outreach program in Saskatoon where we go out and connect with kids out on the street on a daily basis, at least four late nights a week and two early evenings a week. This issue has existed in Saskatoon for some time; however, no one was acknowledging it. I have worked on the street for over five years with kids as young as 10 years old. I have known more than 35 children and youth who have died, some of them as young adults. You can count on it that all of them were sexually exploited and abused as children.
I really struggle with the term ``child prostitute.'' If we can get our heads around changing that, I think we can bring about a little more understanding in our communities. There seems to be this perception that prostitution is the exchange of sexual favours for monetary gain; therefore, there is no victimization. These are children. We have really fallen short and underserved these children; we have disserved children for many years in Saskatchewan.
Many years ago, just as I began to get into this field, we had a youth detoxification and treatment facility in Saskatchewan but it was closed down. Yet we still manage to maintain adult facilities. I have always wondered, if we are willing to provide detox and treatment to adults who have IV drug habits, why would we not do the same for children? The answer became clear to me; it was that, here, we have dealt with the problem by locking up these children. That was Saskatchewan's answer to the problem; therefore, nothing changed for these children. They would be released from custody, back into the same cesspool. They were not gaining any tools.
It is very difficult to work with a captive audience, as much as you think they are listening to you.
I was involved in the systems. I had all the right answers for my probation officers and for the social workers when they asked me questions because I became programmed. I knew what they wanted to hear and, if it could get me in and out of custody and get me what I needed, it allowed me to survive. Over all the years since, that has not changed for these children today. There is the issue of addictions. Housing is another issue.
I hear lots of average citizens griping and complaining about how lenient the Youth Criminal Justice Act is, about what a disservice it does to our communities as a whole, and I agree with them as it applies to children. What happened when that act came into force was that no one was ready for it, and so everyone hit the panic button and they are simply reacting to each case as it arises. There is no consistency or continuity to what is being done for children.
Our resources are either very limited or do not exist. We are trying to play catch-up and it is very difficult.
You mentioned earlier my hesitancy in attending today. Some of that is because I often hear people talk about how it takes a community to raise a child and children are our future — and I agree with both statements. But it is really difficult to look into the future when you are up to your neck in the present and what exists here and now. It becomes very difficult to say to kids, ``just wait, the future is coming, change is happening.''
Senator Munson: I appreciate that.
Ms. Delanoy: We have done a huge amount of work in Saskatoon and Saskatchewan to get away from the phrase ``child prostitution.'' It is sexual exploitation of children and, for that, there should be no tolerance at all. Bill Thibodeau and I, and other people, have made numerous presentations to our city councils, to the leaders of our communities, to anyone who will listen. We hold days of mourning, we have awareness weeks, we put posters out, we talk about it. But it was not until last week when our Children's Advocate released a very scathing report on the sexual exploitation of children that people are actually saying, ``oh, my goodness, maybe there is a problem.''
We have been speaking out about the situation of children in the sex trade and children as young as 10 for quite some time — Bill even longer than I — and we have become so well-known for it that we have been invited to travel to the United States to appear on the Tyra Banks and Oprah Winfrey shows to discuss the subject of children in the sex trade. However, in our own country, our own backyards, it appears that no one is listening to us.
Senator Munson: I am just wondering how the shortage of foster homes affects children with special needs. I notice that Mr. Evans was at one time Director of Autism Treatment Services, which is a subject close to my heart. In this province, a child with special needs who is in a foster home — talk about a double whammy — in that situation how is treatment facilitated?
Ms. Davies: The Department of Community Resources does bring in a number of supports for the children and for the foster families caring for children with special needs. Again, where we are struggling is the number of special needs children that may be placed in a home.
Larry Evans, Family Support Coordinator, Saskatchewan Foster Families Association: That is correct. The department does endeavour to provide supports to foster parents who are caring for children with a variety of disabilities, including autism.
With respect specifically to autism, from my past experience I can say that is one area the Government of Saskatchewan has not fully addressed, and I would not hesitate to say has missed the boat on. Funding certainly is always a problem when dealing with the range of issues that we face in society today. Unfortunately, the voice of those families dealing with children who have autism has not been heard. Autism is still considered a minor issue amongst all the other issues that we face, and there are not many services available for children in foster homes who are afflicted with autism.
This week we have decided to steal an idea that we used with autism treatment services and that is to employ the use of social stories. Our office will acquire the software necessary to prepare social stories that we can provide to all our foster families to deal with various issues that children with autism face. I also believe that those social stories will assist other children who have learning disabilities and other problems in adapting to their life in a foster home. It is only one small step when it comes to the big issue but we grasp every straw we can.
It is our intention to approach the Department of Community Resources to request assistance in providing additional supports for those children who have extra special needs. We will just keep kicking away at the can.
Senator Carstairs: Mr. Thibodeau, you said you dealt with between 100 and 150 children a day. Where does your funding come from and is it adequate? Could you be servicing more children if you had more resources?
Mr. Thibodeau: We receive funding from a number of sources, our largest being the provincial government. We contract services through them. Federally, we access very little funding. I could utilize probably a three-quarter-time person just to get through all the rhetoric, red tape and paperwork at the federal level. For funding we have received at the federal level, there are application deadlines to get our proposals in and get our programs up and running. For one program we received a signed contract and funding in December of one year, which gave us just a little over three months to spend all the money.
That really is a travesty because when we are working with the children in our organization. We encourage them to become involved and listen to what they have to say. We work on a compromise principle that life is all about compromises for all of us in our work and personal lives. We do not treat the kids that come through our doors differently. We sell them on the idea of developing programs that meet their needs and the needs of their peers. It is difficult to keep their minds engaged when every other week, or in that instance every other month, we kept saying we are waiting. We lost kids because they just do not have that patience.
Our organization fundraises on average about $85,000 a year to offset our costs; that is with no frills. I believe governments at all levels can learn from many of us in the not-for-profit world; you learn to manage with what you have and to be creative and resourceful.
The Street Outreach Program has received accolades over the years it has been in operation for being very innovative and being out there, yet we continually struggle to apply for grant money. There seems to be all kinds of money for studies; we receive requests every other week to do studies. Currently, we have one full-time and one three- quarter-time staff members for the Street Outreach Program and I cannot get funding to employ more. Other staff take shifts. I go out, although not as often as I would like to; the staff think I have become a bureaucrat now so they do not want me out there.
We do what we need to do but it is very difficult on a day-by-day basis. We know other organizations have the same problem. We network with brother and sister organizations in Alberta through street outreach because we are aware of a connection there.
It is not always about money. Sometimes, although there are resources that exist, the rhetoric, red tape and the bureaucracy of accessing those resources consumes too much time and energy. There are matters that most people would consider to be common sense but because it does not conform with a policy, or there is no policy in place to address it, no one will take the responsibility to respond appropriately.
Senator Carstairs: My other question is to Ms. Davies. It is interesting that, in the past week, I have had discussions with foster parents in Prince Edward Island and in Ottawa and now I come to Regina, Saskatchewan, and hear exactly the same problem. The frustration that has been relayed to me is the movement of children from a foster home which seems to be in the best interests of that child, where the child is flourishing, is in school, there is consistency in their life, there is warmth and companionship in their life, and they are removed, often to their own family which has had previous breakdowns. When that family breaks down again, there is no guarantee that it will be the same foster family that that child is sent back to. When do we finally make the decision that there really is a best-interests-of-the-child concept?
Ms. Davies: That is a very good question. We struggle every day with planning for children when we are told it is in the best interests of the children to return them back to their natural families. As you have said, when there has been breakdown after breakdown, when does that child have the right to say, ``I want a permanent, safe plan.'' We believe children belong with their families and with their communities but only when it is safe for them to be there. Children deserve consistency and safety; safety is first and foremost.
Mr. Evans: Looking back some 30 years ago, I started my career as a social worker. The philosophy of the department at that time was to maintain the family. I was involved in juvenile probation and when I chose to leave that career and move on, I looked back at my case load and it was clear that, in 90 per cent of the cases if not more, the issues with respect to the children I dealt with related to their birth family. Whether it was the lack of a father, an alcoholic parent, whatever the issue was, it was tied back to the family. I could not deal with that any more so I moved on. Now my career has come full circle and I am again involved in a related type of work. Unfortunately, I see that the philosophy is still very much the same as it was 35 years ago.
It is important to build and maintain the family relationship, but not at the risk of the health, well-being or safety of the child. Someone within the department, within the government, that controls the placement of these children has to stop and think about the fact that children's health and safety has to come first. How many deaths do we need each year? How many children do we need to be sexually exploited? I do not know what the answer is but we have to put our heads together in some fashion to try to address the issue.
With respect to the issue of curfews, our organization responded to that as well. The suggestion we put forward was let us get the heads together, let us get all the agencies and people in Saskatoon that are involved in dealing with children together and talk about it. A simple curfew is not the answer; the issues are far deeper and we have to pursue it and get beyond the words. We could sit here and talk all day; the legislation is in place. However, as Deb said earlier, words are just words until there is a sincere effort on the part of all the decision makers to look and live the words and say that, ``yes, the child's health and safety have to come first.''
The Children's Advocate possibly has to play a stronger role. Give them the funding, allow them to enforce the regulations and the rules and the policies, or hire legal counsel to protect these children.
Ms. Davies: The voice of the children is very important and empowering the advocate or legal representation for youth is very important because their voices need to be heard; they need what is in the best interests for them.
Senator Carstairs: I have been a politician now for 22 years and politicians love simple solutions. They like the curfew, they like change to the Youth Criminal Justice Act which they think somehow or other will make a difference. Ms. Delanoy, there are no simple solutions, are there?
Ms. Delanoy: No, there certainly are not. Actually, I am trying to think of simple solutions and I am thinking that maybe a way to frame this is before-school care — those years before school — in-school care and after-school care. And the notion of a continuum of support for children that puts children first has to be at the forefront of everything we do.
You are correct; it is extremely difficult to get that point across. I think everyone believes in it, but it does not seem to translate into action.
I want to say one more thing. Actually true involvement and really listening to children and youth — I identify children and youth up to the age of 29, maybe because I am old now — is a huge thing. It takes time and resources and I think the true voice of children and youth is not being heard. We have tokenism more often than not. We have token youth on boards or as part of a committee, but really enabling youth to evolve and do what needs to be done takes time and effort and we do not all do that.
Senator Nancy Ruth: You spoke about working groups and discussion groups. Can you tell me if there is gender parity within those groups? You also talked about the public perception of individual versus collective rights and how this was a problem. Can you actually give us an example of that, how this kind of tension works out and what you would do to change that?
Ms. Delanoy: There is and there is not gender parity at different times. It is mostly young women that we work with, and mostly sexually exploited young women, although we work with a few young men or boys on our committees.
Regarding individual and collective rights, as I mentioned, when we work on different issues we attempt to have equal representation of government and non-government to really hear those voices and also have youth involved. For instance, we know that access to education is a right of children, it is an individual right; collectively, though, our school systems do not provide access to young people who have perhaps experienced violence or who are working in the sex trade, who may be looking after other children. The collective nature of the legislation does not allow for the individual's rights to access education.
Also in Saskatchewan, at age 22 you no longer can access education unless you pay for it. It has been decided that, by age 22, enough money has been spent to allow children to access education. Often children that we work with who have experienced addictions or sexual exploitation only decide to go back to school at the age of 23 or above. So their individual rights are challenged and our collective response is that the school system does not allow that.
The Chairman: A question for Mr. Thibodeau. Listening to you is like déjà vu. I left the area 20-some years ago and it is sad that you are talking about the same problems I heard then; on the other hand it is reassuring that you are all here. I always wonder how you measure prevention. Is it the same children all the time who come to you, or you see them and they leave and you do not see them for a while? In other words, is it really a crisis kind of operation? And to follow up, if you have been around as long as I think you have been, are you seeing a generational problem?
Mr. Thibodeau: When I first started at EGADZ back in 1991, we were seeing about 200 teenagers a night. The facility we have is located in downtown Saskatoon. It used to be a nightclub so it has a bit of a nightclub ambience to it — I vaguely recall being there once or twice. Those were kids that came from every corner of the city; after a while it was the kids who really had nothing and who sort of staked out, etched out that space as theirs. There are certain kids you could almost set your watch by everyday. They come there because they feel accepted, they do not feel judged. We get kids who go to school every day. They like school, it is a nice place to be, or they do not feel they fit in. There are poverty issues at stake there and self-esteem issues.
As well, we work with hard-core kids who are entrenched into the streets. Some we do not see for weeks at a time and, unfortunately, we hear of some who have met their demise elsewhere, which is why we have not seen them. We do a lot of court work everyday and find out who is going into custody so we figure out where some of the kids are going and why we have not seen them in a long time.
I have been there for the past 15 years and some days that has its advantages, but I quit about twice a week. It is a good thing I am still a smoker because I sit in my vehicle and look at the building and smoke and then go back in. It is disheartening. I am now seeing the second generation of the kids I dealt with 12, 13, 14 years ago coming into our centre — seeing that nothing has changed for their parents has translated into these kids living the same kind of life.
We have three staff members currently who were once just the same as the children we service. We have pretty strict standards and although we do involve kids in lots of things, we really struggle with pushing them too hard to have involvement when they have not taken care of, or addressed, their own issues. These three staff members have been working with us for about three years and have demonstrated the changes in their lives and, frankly, are probably my best staff members. They have been there, they have done that. You do not always have to be there, do that and design the tee-shirt, but it certainly is an advantage.
I am not sure I want to use the term epidemic but for years we did not have gangs in Saskatoon, we did not have sexually exploited children and youth. When I was living out on the streets even the street culture did not allow for children to be abused. There have been changes made in the city that have forced our sex trade, our stroll area to move into the low-income residential neighbourhoods where there are children who live in poverty who are being thrust upon the sex trade.
Sue spoke about education. I was at a meeting yesterday with a 17-year-old male who got into a pretty serious fight four years ago; it was a fist fight, there were no weapons involved. For the past four years, no school has been willing to take him. Finally, yesterday a school said they would take him but only for one hour a week. That is just stupid. How do you engage that kid, how do you tell him there is something more for him? He will soon be 18 and unless he really has some hope for the future he will ``join up'' and become one of the next gang members. He will be one of these kids that everyone says, ``well, we tried and we tried and he just did not seem to catch on.''
The beautiful thing about gangs is they do not judge you, they accept you for who you are and where you are, they are willing to take you in. We could learn a lot from gangs because, as a society, we do not do that.
The Chairman: When schools practice zero tolerance, they are simply pushing the problems into the community when a child is not going to school.
Mr. Thibodeau: Both boards of education sit on our board of directors. October is fast approaching. Call me in about three weeks and ask me how many kids are coming back through my door who no longer have a school placement because, by then, per diems will have been paid out.
Perhaps I am too idealistic and simplistic. When I was a teenager I led the same life as many of these children — jail, drugs, violence, the whole nine yards. I am often asked what has allowed me to change. I do not know the answer, just that there were people who listened and were willing to assist me without judging me. My whole experience with the system was everyone I came across who was within the system already knew everything about me after meeting with me for five minutes, which I thought was really ironic because at that stage I did not even know about myself. Not much has changed for the kids we see now.
Some of the solutions are quite simple. Our operation of the My Homes grew out of a knee-jerk reaction to the Youth Criminal Justice Act. One of the judges was threatening to call in the regional manager of social services. These homes have a lot of input from the children. Youth workers will come in and comment on the lack of a chore list. I have kids of my own and I do not have a chore list either; everybody lives there and everybody contributes.
We see many kids at 13, 14, 15 and 16 who have pretty much looked after themselves because their families have been so dysfunctional. In many cases, they have raised siblings and have lots of skills. We work with those skills and try to build on them so they can become independent.
I take my hat off to some folks in the central office of the Department of Community Resources who finally really listened to us. One of our homes is for girls 12 to 15, the other is for girls 16 to 17. We have had them stay for as long as three years in our homes; I think we must be doing something right. However, we see them start to self-sabotage just prior to their 18th birthday because a worker tells them they had better start thinking about the future because, ``when 18 comes, you are no longer on our roll and you will have to leave the My Home.''
It took a long time before they began to listen to us; it was not until one of my staff members asked one of the people in the department if they had children of their own. They said they did and he asked if they had kicked their children out of their home when they turned 18.
I am sure many of us would like to kick our kids out of our homes when they are 16 or 17, but we do not because they are our children. That is how we view these kids, as our children. The policy has since changed; we soon will have three 18-year-olds who will be staying at the My Home until a decision is made by themselves and everyone involved with them that they are capable and ready to move out on their own. It was a fairly simple solution that did not take a lot of rhetoric or red tape.
The Chairman: That is a good point to end on. If we considered the needs of each child individually rather than making them fit into a system of our creation, it would probably lead to more success. Thank you for coming. We trust that we will not simply add to the rhetoric but will create some action plans.
The committee adjourned.