December
1, 2001
Abandoning
the Weakest
"Nowhere
in Canada has a government threatened the lives and basic
freedoms of people with developmental disabilities in the
way this government is planning to do," says Claudia
Semaniuk, President of the BC Association for Community
Living.
The
Association's
news release goes on to say:
The
Minister has also publicly promoted the idea of replacing
four-bedroom group homes with institutional "congregate-care"
facilities for people with disabilities.
Veteran
family advocate Mildred DeHaan, whose 49 year old daughter
lives without speech or hearing, and is legally blind,
is one of hundreds of family members who has appealed
directly to the Minister, asking him to abandon any plan
that would institutionalize BC’s more vulnerable
citizens.
"For
15 years my daughter was confined in an institution where
her functioning ability was slowly but inexorably destroyed,"
she told the Minister. "I rescued her from that situation
22 years ago and she is now an active member of her community,
has a quality of life that no one had expected possible
and has learned to communicate."
It
is not just children at risk of abuse or neglect that will
be harmed by cuts to the Ministry of Children and Family
Development. The Ministry is responsible for 8,700 adults
with developmental disabilities. Aging parents whose
children suffer from such disabilities live in fear of the
day they can no longer look after or act as advocate for
their adult children. Alternatives of institutionalization
or dumping back on aged parents are cruel ways to pay for
high income tax cuts.
The
Campbell liberals said tax cuts would pay for themselves.
Never did they say that the most vulnerable in our society
would pay such a high price for the failure of New Era promises.
November
30, 2001
Where's
Political Integrity in the New Era?
Linda Reid's advocacy for children
 Consider
the following questions:
-
Do
we support implementation of timely access to essential
social services?
-
Will
we demand development of a needs-based budget by the Ministry
for Children and Families?
-
Do
we support the creation of an early intervention fund?
Those
are the questions posed by BC Children's Advocate to Linda
Reid, then critic for the Ministry of Children and Families,
and to Gordon Campbell, then Leader of the Official Opposition.
Their answers were yes, yes, yes.
In a
speech titled "Making
Services for Children and Youth a Priority", Linda
Reid indicated support for the recommendation of the Children's
Advocate that "the Ministry for Children and Families
publicize clear, detailed information about how current
resources are being spent and that the ministry institute
a new budget allocation process based on need and an implementation
plan that includes a commitment from the Legislature to
provide adequate funding." The implication not only
in that speech, but throughout years of criticism of the
former government, was that more funding was and is needed.
That
speech by now
Minister Linda Reid, was made on March 21, 2001, just
two months before the election! It is hard to believe
that the Campbell government could go from calls for more
funding to 30% cutbacks for children at risk in such a short
time.
Compare
the 30% cut announced by Minister Hogg with what
Linda Reid said during estimates debate on June 26, 2000.
"But the direct service, the front-line service delivery
for kids, is what is constantly compromised, whether it's
last year's example of clawing back 1.5 percent, and someone
suggesting that that wouldn't impact on service. . . . For
some agencies that was the service; that was the staff person;
that was the person who dealt on the front line," said
Reid. The 1.5 percent legitimately criticized by Reid was
an attempt to live within a budget that had increased. The
30 percent announced by Hogg is part of real reductions
that will see child care workers and social workers laid
off.
Linda
Reid didn't necessarily lie when she spoke in the legislature.
She had no reason to know that Premier Campbell would
slash the very services she then advocated so strongly.
But now, one would expect her integrity to force her to
again advocate for those services and say no to Premier
Campbell and Minister Hogg.
October
23, 2001
Cutting
Children and Family Development beyond the Core
 According
to a Canadian
Press story, Minister Gordon Hogg is trying to cut $58
million from the Ministry of Children and Family Development.
With only six months left in fiscal year 2001-02, that is
like trying to cut $116 million from the annual budget.
The figure quoted by Canadian Press is up from the $55 million
in "spending pressures" acknowledged in the ministry's
"Core Services Review" discussion paper. For fiscal
year 2001-02, the ministry's budget is $1.56 billion. It
is now trying to cut spending by 8% (annualized) but its
costs are driven by the need to protect children at risk
and developmentally disadvantaged adults who used to be
kept out of sight in institutions like Woodlands.
The
ministry's core
review paper says:
"The
ministry supports about 8,700 adults with developmental
disabilities. This represents about 30 per cent of British
Columbia's adult population with IQs under 70. These adults
live in the community and are fully funded by government
at a cost of about $60,000 per year, up to $400,000 per
year.
About half of the ministry's $1.56 billion budget supports
this service area, largely through the contracted community
sector. The budget needed to support the service is projected
to grow at an unsustainable rate, at about four per cent
per year.
It is likely that the $60,000 per client placement cost
could be used much more effectively if the system offered
choices to families, to communities, to private and community
sector partners."
It looks
like government has its eyes on cutting the amount spent
on these dependent adults by shifting to a model called
"individualized funding (IF)" that gives less
money to the person who needs care and then lets that person's
family buy what is needed. In the words of the Victoria
Association for Community Living (pdf
30K), "we hear from many families who have children
of all ages that they support IF as an important choice,
but they do not want it to be the only choice. Many families
are exhausted and do not have the time or energy for IF."
Sun
columnist
Vaughn Palmer credits Hogg with sharing details of his
ministry's core review process with the public. An alternative
view is that chopping 35% out of a ministry that cares for
the most vulnerable in our society is bound to be especially
controversial given the record of the BC Liberals with their
merciless attacks on the former government's child welfare
policies. It is also the case that many of the community
organizations funded by the ministry to deliver its services
are sufficiently well connected so as to create political
problems for the government. Whether the Minister is particularly
committed to openness or whether he is politically smart
enough to see the benefits of radically changing his ministry
through an open process, the ministry's website devoted
to its core review (http://www.mcf.gov.bc.ca/core_review/)
is a valuable resource. There for all to see are the ministry's
discussion papers and the responses from anyone who cares
to provide an idea. Most importantly, the responses from
advocates and care providers are posted and available for
all to see.
The
B.C. Association for Community Living (pdf
217K) has responded to the ministry's paper with qualified
support saying "Without a government commitment to
budget according to the reality of people's needs, we will
see a future where families are pushed further into crisis
and government is forced to bear the costs for more expensive
crisis driven services." The BCACL might be overly
optimistic when it suggests that government would bear the
costs that flow from its cutbacks.
The
ministry paper speaks about six new strategic goals. It
says "The third strategic shift sees resources deployed
with an outcomes based approach, with evaluation measures
built in. The belief is that funding decisions must result
from evidence-based research, and be fully accountable to
the public." It goes on to say "Investment in
Early Childhood Development is one example of programs that
are being clearly identified and benchmarked so that progress
toward goals can be regularly and publicly accountable,"
but it does not provide any example of an "evaluation
measure".
In opposition,
the BC Liberals came close to suggesting that every death
of a child was somehow the direct fault of the government.
No one should deny that life and death decisions are made
in the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It happens,
however, that immediately after the election, the Provincial
Health Officer released a report titled "Health
Status of Children and Youth in Care in British Columbia
- What do the mortality data show?"
In the
introduction to that May 2001 report, the Provincial Health
Officer wrote:
"For
the first time, death rates for children and youth in care
have been calculated and compared with those of the general
population. Trends are examined over a 15-year period, during
which there were 226 deaths to children in care and a total
of 7,842 deaths in the B.C. population age 0 to 18. While
not a measure of health per se, mortality (death) provides
an indication of the health problems and risk conditions
that children and youth experience. Results show an encouraging
trend. Death rates have declined among all groups of children
and youth, including those in care. For B.C. children and
youth as a whole, death rates have decreased 50 per cent
since 1985, which means that the risk of death today is
half what it was 15 years ago. Death rates have decreased
nearly as much - about 40 per cent - among children and
youth in care, although rates are subject to year-to-year
volatility because of the small numbers."
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