November 10, 2001

More Complicated than Employable or Unemployable

Spaceship to Minister Coell: Don't repeat the "get a shovel" mistakes of the late 70s. People who are already at the bottom will do what is necessary to survive if you overreact and put cutting 35% of your budget ahead of the needs of people who are flat broke.

Unlike Coell who was challenged by some of his colleagues, no one attempted to bring Minister Hogg down to earth. His plans to hand off responsibility for children at risk and for developmentally disadvantaged adults will hurt thousands of people. Some of the single mothers who may be targeted by Coell could have their children end up in the hands of Hogg's staff or much, much worse.

During the November 7th staged cabinet meeting Human Resources Minister Murray Coell said that people would be put into two categories - employable or not. He said "Temporary assistance is for clients who are employable," and he went on to say "Continuous assistance is for those who are not expected to achieve financial independence through employment." Three of his colleagues raised questions as to whether some seemingly "employable" people might be easily misclassified.

Transportation Minister Judith Reid was the first to challenge the Human Resources Minister.

Hon. J. Reid: Murray, certainly we want to be helping people who have been having difficulty finding employment and finding full-time employment. The group of people that I've found most frustrating, through my office as MLA, are those who have barriers to employment and don't easily fit into the programs that might be in place. I found that those barriers to employment are not usually identified. It's something that people make voluntary disclosures about.
Looking at page 12, the employment plan agreement, is there going to be any part of that where there's an actual assessment of individuals to identify those barriers to employment so that part of that employment plan would be that that person would be connected with the resources in the community for anger management, for example, or to develop social skills or to deal with addiction problems? Will an assessment take place, and will that be part of the employment plan?
Hon. M. Coell: Thanks, Judith. Yes, very much so. Even today, when someone goes into an income assistance office, we have an initial assessment done by financial aid workers. Then there's a screening process done by the employment programs that we're offering. There is an ability, I think, to add a broader range of programs, which would be anything from literacy programs through to alcohol and drug counseling. Those would be very much a part of the new program.

Apparently thinking that Coell missed Reid's point, John van Dongen repeated the point.

Hon. J. van Dongen: Just to quickly underscore the same point that Judith made, it's been my observation that a lot of people on income assistance…. I'm not sure they're lacking so much in skills and actual training needs as they are in…. They've got emotional issues; they've got psychological and various types of personal issues. I think the services that are going to be needed also need to include counseling and a broader range of assistance based, I think, as Judith said, on good assessment at the outset of these issues.
Hon. M. Coell: Yeah, you're right, John. The key is identifying people's strengths and building on those strengths and realizing at the same time that there are barriers. There are people with multi-barriers that will probably fit into the continuous assistance program, as well, who aren't going to get off income assistance. I think, a lot of times, you want to have those programs available to them so that if changes in their life occur, they can be employed as well. I just don't think you give up on people. I think that you have to say that people should be able to do the best they can with their lives and will do it.

The Minister of State for Mental Health made yet a third attempt to get Coell to recognize that the world is more complicated than employable and not.

Hon. G. Cheema: One of the concerns from the mental health community has been that the definition of chronic and persistent mental illness must be part of the new process. With a person with depression or schizophrenia who has not been able to work for a number of years, if we push them, they will end up going to the hospital and then costing us more. I hope we can take the definition at this time, when you are reorganizing the whole thing. I think it would be a best start and that it will help them, because some of them may never, ever be able to function independently. I just wanted to make sure that I expressed their concern.
Hon. M. Coell: Yeah. I'll make sure that I work with you on those definitions as we get closer to implementation.
Hon. G. Cheema: The third concern is that when a patient goes to a given hospital, some of them lose their benefits or their payments to their rental place. When they come back, they don't have a place to go back to, so they end up going to the hospital again. It's costing us more, and also it's not solving any of the patients' concerns. I think that also has to be included in some way so that when the person with a chronic mental illness is discharged from a hospital or is in the home and ends up in a crisis and needs to go back to the hospital, then they have a place to come back to. I think that's one of the main concerns and should be addressed.
Hon. M. Coell: That's been a main concern for many years and one that we're going to work on.

"Going to work on" is just great. How about solving the problem before blundering forth?