Hon. Jim Ernst (Government House Leader): I move, Madam Speaker, seconded by the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism (Mr. Downey), that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair and House resolve itself into a Committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.
Motion agreed to, and the House resolved itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty, with the honourable member for La Verendrye (Mr. Sveinson) in the Chair for the Department of Education and Training; and the honourable member for St. Norbert (Mr. Laurendeau) in the Chair for the Department of Health.
COMMITTEE OF SUPPLY
(Concurrent Sections)
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
Mr. Deputy Chairperson (Ben Sveinson): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 255 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Education and Training.
When the committee last sat it had been considering item 2.(a)(1) on page 35 of the Estimates book. Shall the item pass?
Order, please. Firstly, the minister has some documents she would like to table.
Hon. Linda McIntosh (Minister of Education and Training): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We indicated yesterday that we would try to table by the end of the day yesterday, or first thing today, the funding agreement with the independent schools, so I have that here for tabling.
There is a letter that outlines the agreement and the attached appendices, so I table that for the committee's information.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Now the honourable minister has 10 minutes for her answers to the questions that were asked at the last when we closed yesterday.
Mrs. McIntosh: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I indicated yesterday, the questions were very numerous and I will try to get through all of them, but it is difficult when a complicated question is asked. It takes 30 seconds to ask but maybe four or five minutes to answer. As I indicated yesterday, it is like asking how do you make an airplane, quick to ask, not as quick to answer.
As nearly as I can recall the questions that were asked last time, and if I do not have time to complete them all, I am trying to address them in what I think are the priority that was intended by the member.
The member asked about a Ms. Dufresne, who was a staffperson, I understand, with my department. She asked why she resigned. I do not normally ask why people leave, because if it is a personal matter it is usually something that I will allow them to keep as a personal matter. So we do not usually discuss these types of issues in a public forum. But my understanding is that it was for personal reasons. The member seems to feel there is more to it than that, and if she feels there is, if she has other details that she would like to indicate publicly, I leave that to her. As far as I know, the staffperson in question resigned for personal reasons, and I really do not know more than that. That was the reason that was provided.
She asked who wrote the minister's letter to the field, if Ms. Dufresne was not available, and I think inherent in that is the indication that I do not write my own letters. Be that as it may, as sometimes with detailed letters, the technical parts are drafted for my perusal and approval by staff, but I answer that that was my letter and letters that go over my signature normally seem to be my letters. I do have other staff people working in the Department of Education who can advise and assist me on technical details in the drafting of a letter.
Ms. Dufresne, who is not known to me, but if she was the person who provided technical draft information for the minister, I can assure the member that I do have more than one person in the department and that many, if not all, of those people are well qualified and capable of providing technical information for drafting purposes for my perusal to accept, reject or modify. So I am not sure if that answers her question or not, but that is the information I can provide her at this point.
There are also, whenever anyone resigns, other people who pick up duties. Never in government is there just one person who is able to do one thing. So we always are prepared for people resigning or retiring or moving to another place or dying or whatever reasons people might have for no longer being in the employ, we always have other people who are able to pick up those duties or fulfill those duties, and those people are extremely capable.
Regarding the physical education specialist, does the government support physical education specialists was one of the many questions asked. I am not sure what the member is getting at here because, obviously, we support specialists of all kinds in the schools, physical education, music, guidance, French, a wide number of specialties. It is something that we think enhances the school. We also know, as the Manitoba Teachers' Society will maintain, and the member may wish to examine the Manitoba Teachers' Society and the Manitoba Association of School Trustees' position on this issue because they will say that teachers graduate with a degree that makes them pedologically capable and that a teacher can teach. We have been maintaining that it is good where possible to have master teachers with expertise in a discipline. I am glad the member supports us in that and hope that it does not get her in trouble with her friends in the union for taking that position. Nonetheless, we feel that a good curriculum, integrating physical activity, sport and health, health topics, that with the combination of those things we will see a solid physical well-being for children.
So while phys ed specialists are no doubt important, we do not mandate to school divisions that they must have a specialist in this area because many times there are people with high skill levels in some of the specialties. Music, for example, you can quite often have someone who is highly skilled in music that does not have a music degree; similarly with any of the other specialties.
Is the member similarly recommending math specialists, science specialists, geography specialists, et cetera, music specialists, because boards are always saying they want well- qualified teachers and do not want rigid rules on specialists. The Manitoba Teachers' Society has the same position. So I just alert her that those two organizations have those particular perspectives.
The member asked about a development process. The development process involves the development team in reviewing the literature and research, reviewing curriculum documents from other jurisdictions, reviewing any assessment information that is available and/or reports. This then helps them to provide the framework for the work of the development team.
The member indicated as fact information about a new curriculum which has not been written yet, nor have the topics to be included been specifically identified. So I find it difficult to respond to her criticisms of a curricula that she thinks somebody someplace has written. She may be responding to a curriculum that she has seen someplace else because we have not started to develop ours yet. So it is difficult to respond to–oh, she is pointing to my letter, which is not a curriculum. If that is what she is basing it on–
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The minister's time has expired.
Ms. Marianne Cerilli (Radisson): I just want to clarify for the record that throughout my questions the other day, I was making reference, not to the curriculum–it seems the minister is confused–I am making reference to the interim guidelines that have been supplied in her March 22 document sent to superintendents and school principals. I think that it is obvious by the question I asked about the resignation of the staffperson with the Department of Education, whose job it was to design curriculum in this area of physical education and health education, that I am aware that there is no curriculum.
I think if she listens carefully or reviews the Hansard, she will recognize that my questions were specifically related to the fact that there is a problem in the schools now because of the fact there are changes to the recommendations from the government with regard to these courses, but there is no curriculum in place to replace the existing curriculum. They are being told not to follow the existing curriculum, and there is no new curriculum in place. The minister is shaking her head, but the guideline that has been supplied is different from the existing curriculum.
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In the existing curriculum for physical education, there is not an expectation for teachers of physical education to teach community health, social and emotional well-being, safety, dental health, nutrition, et cetera. There is, as I have indicated, concern amongst the teachers in the school system about the inconsistencies that are going to occur.
The other question I had been raising was, not as the minister had indicated with respect to specialists, but I had asked if she is in support of the action of the Portage la Prairie school district, where they have made a move to not have physical education specialists teaching physical education. I am wondering if that is something that the minister can accept occurring in Manitoba. I am wondering if she will acknowledge that this is a subject area that does require specific training.
There are all sorts of considerations. I know that a number of other teachers do not know how to use equipment and they do not have the specialized training to deal with the safety considerations of using equipment in the physical education setting. I am just wanting to clarify for the record that those are the questions I was asking the minister.
I am wanting, though, to move on. I am joined today by the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk), and we are wanting to raise some questions in this area around the government's plans with regard to special needs students. I am going to focus on the Department of Education's involvement in the Youth Secretariat. I know that part of–especially the original mandate–the Youth Secretariat was to try and co-ordinate services for students who were high risk or multiple handicapped and were involved with a number of different departments from the provincial government; that was the original intent.
So I am wanting to ask some questions related to the Department of Education's involvement in the Youth Secretariat.
First of all, I am just wanting the minister to clarify that it is still the undertaking of the Youth Secretariat to have each of the five departments identify 2 percent of their budget and dedicate that towards the Youth Secretariat, and I am wondering where in the Department of Education that is going to come from.
Similarly, I am wanting the minister to clarify which staff in the department are assigned to liaise and participate on the Youth Secretariat structure. There is quite a large number of committees and subcommittees. I am wondering if the minister could indicate for me which staff from the Department of Education are involved in each of the steering committees: the care and protection of children committee, the adolescents and pregnancy committee, the high-risk youth committee, the early childhood committee and the critical health incidents committee. I am wondering if there is a consideration for the amount of staff time and how much time is being dedicated to the workings of the Youth Secretariat from the Department of Education.
One of the other issues that I am wanting the minister to deal with is if the secretariat's schedule is on track and if she has had some reports from the staff in her department who are involved with the Youth Secretariat, if they are on their deadline to have had maybe recommendations by April of '96 as was outlined in the Youth Secretariat time frame that was developed May 1995. If there have been recommendations, I am wondering what recommendations have been made for the Department of Education and for school programs from those working groups in the Youth Secretariat.
One of the areas I am especially interested in, what are the education benchmarks for youth at risk and youth with special needs that have been recommended through the Youth Secretariat for the Department of Education and subsequently the school programs?
So with that, I will stop for a moment and give the minister time to answer.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member indicates that she will pause now and give me time to answer the questions, but I would point out for the record that I am only allowed 10 minutes, which is not enough time to answer the many, many questions she asked in her time to ask a question. I tried very hard to keep track of the two dozen or so questions I think were in that and I will try to answer them as best I can. I will continue, however, with the answer to the questions that she gave in her first round of questions because there was not enough time to answer those either.
In the first part of her questioning just now, she did a postamble commentary on my responses and indicated information that is inaccurate. I think it is very important for the record that it be stated that the first three or four, five or six paragraphs of her response are absolutely incorrect, not true information. Maybe the member believes that it is true. I am not accusing her of deliberately putting falsehoods on. I am just saying it is important for the record that it be stated that the information she put forward as fact is not indeed fact. It is absolutely incorrect. The member needs to know that in January 1995 we informed the field that as of September '96 physical education was compulsory from kindergarten to senior years 2 and that health was optional.
The updated letter which she pointed to, which was a piece of correspondence from me to the field, points out to the schools that if they wish to address core physical education and health topics until the arrival of the new curriculum, that we had suggested a method by which they could do that if they wish. I think that is a very important difference from what the member thought was happening, and I correct that for the record and for her information so that she has a better understanding of how things are really working in the field.
In our recent consultations with both the health educators and the physical educators, we believe that we have reached a good agreement about the ratio of time that should be dedicated to activity and that which should be dedicated to health topics. In conversations as recently as last week and the week before with the physical educators and their heads, Dr. Janzen and Brian Hatherly, who are the head phys ed people communicating with my senior staff, my senior staff, deputy ministers at the deputy minister level, in consulting with them, have received indication that they are very satisfied with the agreement that has been reached. So I do not know if the member maybe has not talked to her colleagues or her friends in the physical education field recently, but she might do well to communicate with them about the agreement and ask them if the agreement they have come to with the deputy minister meets their needs as they tell us it does. Quite frankly, I feel that their indication of satisfaction means more to me than hers because they are the ones out there working.
We believe that both of these associations have worked hard to come to an agreement that will benefit the physical well-being of children in our province. The ratio that was present was in fact that ratio of health to physical education that currently exists. Many schools and divisions want to continue using school time to continue offering both of these. The ratio presented allows for schools to continue offering both of these, using the flexibility and the time allotments that were presented earlier in the year by this minister. The development process involves the development team in reviewing the literature and research, reviewing curriculum documents from other jurisdictions, and I have indicated this to the member before that they can then review assessment information that is available or in reports. That, as I indicated, helps them provide the framework for the work of the development team.
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For those school divisions that want to offer both health and physical education, schools can use the existing curricula that are now in schools, using the same ratio or proportion of time that each of these subjects currently uses. Time in the school day allows for this choice, and so I hope that clarifies the misunderstanding the member had and alleviates the concerns that she expressed and indicates the way in which the field is evolving as we prepare for the new curricula to be written.
There was originally some misunderstanding, and this may be where the member herself is confused, with the physical education teachers who read my letter and then misinterpreted it and then phoned a few hours later within the day to apologize profusely to us, in that they had misread the letter and informed members of the field, then realised their mistake, called to apologize and immediately issued the correction.
She may have picked up that initial misunderstanding for which the field has apologized to the minister and the minister's department and then did correct it with the members so that the correct information which pleased them was the information that went out. The member may have picked up on that few hours span and chose to present that instead of following through to find out if there was indeed some other information that she should have been made aware of. I hope that I have been able to provide her with that today so that she now has access to correct information and will not then be harbouring any further misconceptions.
I would encourage her to give us a call if she has these questions in the future, because we can provide correct information right on the spot and would be most willing to do that for her if she is confused or misled or misunderstanding any of the issues that she might be trying to figure out.
As I appreciate and understand her special interest is physical education, and many other people have special interests as well, we are trying to seek the balance for the students between all of those special interests, the member's special interest, and other people's special interest, and provide opportunities for students that will lead to a well-rounded intellect and physically fit body, with an understanding of wellness and fitness, which does mean that health will have to be taught as well. We think it is important for people to understand why physical activity will lead to better health.
While the member may not agree, I do think, when she mentioned the other day about having children being able to touch their toes more frequently than they can, that it is important for them to understand why the exercise and the benefit of bending and stretching and reaching is good for the body and what it can do for the brain as well. So we think knowledge coupled with physical activity is a good combination, and most fitness and wellness experts, I should indicate to her, would probably agree with us that the health component is a very important part of being totally well and fit.
I may have left out some of the questions on physical education. As I say, there is not a lot of time to respond to the vast number of questions. I will now begin the series of responses to the many questions she asked on special needs. If I do not complete them all in this 10 minutes, I will continue on in the next 10 minutes that I am permitted.
The member asked questions about special needs and Children and Youth Secretariat, and she asked questions about budgeting and I should indicate to her that the Child and Youth Secretariat is not funded in the sense that a government department is. The member, again, is misinformed in her question that she thinks that that kind of funding occurs.
The further budget details, the Child and Youth Secretariat should be addressed properly to the Minister of Child and Family Services, but each department involved has a stake in the Child and Youth Secretariat, and the funding for that is not similar to departmental funding. My time is up for now.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Item 2. School Programs (a) Division Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits.
Ms. Cerilli: I was hoping to move on from dealing with the policy and curriculum issues around the physical education, health education changes, but given some of the minister's comments, I want to pursue this a little bit more, because I have a letter from the former president of the Manitoba Physical Education Teachers' Association, Mr. Brian Hatherley, addressed to Mr. Carlyle dated April 10, '96, and it states fairly clearly that they are concerned about the policy changes where they feel that physical activity time is going to be jeopardized.
They say it is the desire of the Manitoba Physical Education Teachers' Association to include the active-type health concepts into physical education, health education (20 percent to 25 percent health, 75 percent to 80 percent physical education as we presented at our most recent meeting with you and your staff. Other topics could possibly be integrated into other areas. It is our aim to continue as much activity time as possible in the curriculum to meet the needs of our students.
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I am wondering if the minister wants to clarify then if this is the change that she is referring to, if they are not proposing that the split should not be 60-40 percent for health, different from what they have indicated. They had hoped and expected and they recommended that it would be 75 percent to 80 percent physical education and 20 percent to 25 percent health education. I am wondering if she wants to clarify as well when this misunderstanding occurred and if it was prior to the Physical Education Forum 3 which was I believe only last weekend–no, I guess is was two weekends ago now, but definitely it was after this April 10 letter went out. So I think it is important that we clarify those issues, and I want to let the minister know that as of that meeting, the Physical Education Forum, they still were not satisfied, different than from what the minister has indicated on the Hansard record, that they are not satisfied with the proposal from the Department of Education and the minister.
I just want to clarify for the minister, as well, that my own interest in education is quite broad. I have a teacher's certificate, she may know, but I have the ability to teach English and language arts. I double majored and have been in the classroom teaching those subjects, and I wanted to let her know that I ended up being employed as a guidance counsellor, so I am also trained in the family life curriculum and able to teach the health education component and family life component as well. I just want to emphasize that that broad point of view is what I bring to the table, that I am not suggesting that there be sort of a limited focus in our curriculum.
I do not want the impression with the minister that I am focusing only on physical education, but I think that she should recognize that the whole child must be the focus in our education programming. In the school setting, in a classroom often where there are upwards of 25 children for each teacher in a limited classroom, limited in size with limited amount of opportunity for children to move about and have active learning, physical education is recognized by a number of classroom teachers, as well as providing an important break in the day, as providing students an opportunity to develop in a very hands-on experiential way, learning about their body in a very hands-on experiential way, learning social skills, teamwork, and I think that that has to be recognized. There are many other subjects, as well, that can allow for this, especially in the arts and other hands-on programs. We have also been asking questions about home economics or human ecology. So I just want again to emphasize that for the minister, and I invite her again to comment or show any kind of research that would dispute that that her department can make available.
Mrs. McIntosh: I am aware of the member's background. I believe you can have a varied background and still have a special interest, and I think it is fairly clear from a wide variety of personal experience that physical activity is a special interest of the member's, and there is nothing wrong with that.
I also agree that the members opposite would like all of those special interests to be addressed as specialty subjects in the schools, and we agree the child should be well-rounded, well-educated, well-versed in a variety of things. That is why we have introduced more options, more ability and choice for parents, so that if they are in their community having a lot of emphasis on a particular area of endeavour outside of school, they can then choose more of an option in school for those things they do not get outside of school. That is why we are giving them the choice.
As I mentioned before, the 4-H experience has provided a lot of students with skills that the parents then say, why do we bother to reteach them in school? Why can we not have more time on band, for example? So we are opening up those choices, and I think that is very important.
The opposition still has not indicated how they would address the side effects of their desire. Their desire is to have each of the specialty areas covered in depth in school. While that is a laudable goal, the only way it can be achieved, if you do not do it at the expense of language arts and mathematics, is to extend the length of the school day or extend the length of the school year.
I still keep asking the opposition–and they are very, very, very reluctant to take a stand–in order to accomplish me putting into the curriculum everything that the opposition wants me to put into the curricula, does the opposition plan to (1) increase the length of the school day or (2) increase the length of the school year or (3) take away time from math and language arts. They will have to do one of those three, and I really hope before we are done here they will tell me which of those three will be their choice in order for us to be able to teach everything to everybody everyday.
The member is wrong when she read her information from the physical education teacher. The member, again, should take a little time to do her research before she comes in because I indicated to the member that the physical education people had misinterpreted and did subsequently apologize. We have an agreement with the physical ed people that we will move to–I cannot take time to breathe because I will lose my time. I cannot take time to cough because I will lose my time.
We did agree with the physical education people that the curriculum would be 75 percent physical education and 25 percent health. They misinterpreted the current level. We are still working on the current system and will be until the new curricula comes in place which will give them what they want, about which they are very pleased. We and they agree 75 percent phys ed, 25 percent health.
I explained that the letter indicates how they can achieve in the time between now and the new curricula–how they could make it work in their schools. For now and for 1996-97, until the new curriculum is available, phy ed and health can be, at local choice, combined, and to do so, looking at the relative split on topics, it would be 60 to 65 percent on phys ed and 35 to 40 percent on health, because those are the current relative topic loads, or, of course, they could have 100 percent phys ed and zero percent health since only the phys ed component is compulsory.
This is not a change. Maybe she could read it in Hansard if she is not interested in listening now. The member may be interested in knowing if she would care to listen, stop talking and care to listen, this is not a change from what was announced in terms of physical education-compulsory, health-optional, and a good move to a physical well-being curriculum. We announced this in January '95 and, as I say again, it is not a change. As soon as the physical education people realized they had made an error and they had written to my deputy a letter that was accusing him of breaking a promise essentially–-that is the letter I believe the member was reading–and when they realized their mistake, they phoned and apologized.
So for the member to now read that letter into the record as if it were fact and had never been corrected after I had just explained to her that they had misunderstood, thinking that we were talking about the future when really we were talking about the period up till the new curricula come in place, the new curricula giving them exactly what they want–perhaps the member would like to stop talking and listen because I do want the record to know that she has asked the questions but is not listening to the answers.
I am expecting she will read them in Hansard to acquire the answer. If the questions are important, Mr. Chairman, then I would think that she would like to hear them, especially since she indicated it was important to her. Maybe it is important enough that she can wait three days till the Hansard is printed to read it then.
In the meantime, if she continues to indicate that there is the kind of misunderstanding that she says exists and she keeps wanting to say it is fact, she has got three days to read Hansard to know that for the next three days she will be promoting misunderstanding if somebody does not tell her what I said here this morning.
These are current relative topic loads; 100 percent phys ed and zero percent health would be another option since only phys ed is compulsory now. As I indicated, it is not a change, and the physical education teachers are aware of that and have apologized for their misunderstanding that the member talked about.
Back to the continuation of my answer to the questions that were asked in the previous set of questions on special needs. I will answer the questions in order so that I will come back to address the questions she put on in her immediate last 10-minute session. I am currently now responding to the questions that came in the 10 minutes before that.
She asked the committee membership for the–what was she asking here? She has asked for the names of every committee member for the last two years who have been involved with the Child and Youth Secretariat. We will table that for her. You have asked for the staff. We have had seconded from our area Dr. Neil Butchard. He will be returning to us in January 1997. We will table the committee membership because there are a lot of people involved. We do not have those names here.
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She asked what are the educational benchmarks prescribed as provided by Child and Youth. The educational benchmarks are not the subject here. Maybe the member is not aware of the purpose of the Child and Youth Secretariat. The purpose of the Child and Youth Secretariat is not to deliver education. The Child and Youth Secretariat is there to ensure the development of the whole child. The member may recognize that under the NDP government a child at risk was assigned up to as many as nine case workers–very, very confusing for the child, overlapping jurisdictions, highly expensive, a lot of problems associated with it where you would have a child at risk.
The Child and Youth Secretariat has brought together Health, Education, Family Services and Justice and, laterally, we have included the Native Affairs because of the high number of aboriginal children at risk. This secretariat looks for areas where crossovers occur and attempts to avoid duplication and overlap, attempts to provide the child with one central focus as opposed to the scatter-gun approach.
In that regard, for example, you will see the Health department providing funds for medically fragile children who exist in the school system, because to date that has been a cost that has had to be borne by school boards, that they would have to hire a physiotherapist, for example, a full-time medical practitioner, to work in the school with the medically fragile children and use dollars that were slated for educating as opposed to health.
The Health department is now providing money for medically fragile children for that purpose. We are very grateful for that; that decision has made some $450,000 for that purpose. That is the type of activity that we are looking at, not just in funds but also in approach to the raising of a whole child and treating a child at risk as one unit as opposed to a child cut into 15 pieces, each dealt with by a different department.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. Item 2.(a)(1).
Ms. Cerilli: Mr. Chairperson, I want to just spend a little bit more time asking questions about this Department of Education's involvement in the Child and Youth Secretariat. I am wanting for her to answer specifically the questions I asked with respect to the financial relationship. I understand that there are five departments that have been involved. The minister is now saying that aboriginal affairs are now involved. I have information in front of me that says that there is 2 percent of existing funding to be identified from the departments and that the departments are responsible for identifying this money and any departmental source may be utilized.
I am wondering, has the Department of Education gone through this process to identify its contribution to the Child and Youth Secretariat and where that is going to be coming from or how the money will be allocated for the Child and Youth Secretariat?
Similarly, I just want to follow up for clarification on the other issue that I raised, which was with respect to the benchmarks that the Children and Youth Secretariat are to be setting. I want the minister to clarify if this is not occurring at the secretariat, if they are not looking at goals and benchmarks or targets for the way that the co-ordinated services are supposed to impact in the community, in our schools and in providing services for children and youth.
I know that there are a few examples here of some benchmarks that have been proposed. For example, there could be a goal to give high school graduates the essential skills for success in life, and then the benchmark would be to increase the number of high school students who meet the standards for certificate of initial mastery. That is an example of what I am talking about that is from some documents from the Children and Youth Secretariat.
I am wondering if the Department of Education has gone through this process as part of the Children and Youth Secretariat and if the minister can tell us what the results are and what the benchmarks are for the Children and Youth Secretariat in the area of education.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. When we started today, it seems that we were so anxious and on the job that we started before the Assembly finished. I would just like the minister to read into the record officially the documents that she tabled, if she would just note them.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I am tabling the agreement between the Manitoba Federation of Independent Schools and the government of Manitoba.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Thank you. Now the honourable minister for her answer.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I will continue providing my response to the questions in the order in which they were provided, so I will add her latest question to the list of questions and continue with the response to the questions that came to me initially on special needs.
The member should know that the budget for the Child and Youth Secretariat comes from the government, and the details of that are provided through the Minister of Family Services (Mrs. Mitchelson), because the funding does not go directly from the Department of Education although education personnel and monies are involved. The Youth Secretariat continues to play a strong co-ordination role with the human service sector. So we play a strong co-ordination role with the human service sector. We meet regularly with the ministers involved in the secretariat and with the director, Dr. Reg. Toews.
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The activities to date that the secretariat have been involved with that affect the education area include the medically fragile, technology dependent support to schools and for that, as I indicated earlier, with the medically fragile, technologically dependent support to schools, we will see the Department of Health providing funding for nurses and for medical interventions in the schools. So if you have to have a nurse in a school for medical intervention purposes, money now comes from Health to Education for that purpose, and those nurses may be hired by the school division. Again, I think the member wants to hear the answer although I am beginning to think that, with the constant dialogue, she does not want to hear. [interjection] The member says I am being petty.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. While each person on this committee is asking their questions and/or giving the answers, would the other members please show the same decency that is shown to them.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I do not believe it is petty for a minister giving a response to a question that I thought was a serious one for which an answer I thought was desired to be heard, I do not think that it is right to call such an expression of concern petty. I think we are here for a very serious purpose. I think we are here to exercise the democratic right of the loyal opposition to ask questions of government. Government is here to provide answers. We have much, much real work to do downstairs in our offices, but we come here instead to provide information to the opposition, because they have the right to it and they have the right to ask questions, so we are here for a very lofty purpose. So when the member asks questions and takes time from the minister's day, it is very, very rude not to listen to the answer, and it shows disrespect for the whole democratic process to be dialoguing and carrying on conversations and not listening to the answer for which she has asked.
The member asked very pointedly very serious questions, said they were serious, said she had to have the answers, said it was very important, then talked all through the answer, and when I asked her to please listen to the answer, told me I was being petty to be concerned that she was not listening to the answer. I submit, Mr. Chairman, the very heart of democracy is at stake when the member does what she does. It is putting a question into the record so the question is on the record so it shows that it looks like she is interested without at all being concerned about what the answer is. First of all, I think it shows great disrespect for the system. Secondly, I think it is just plain rude.
Having said that, Mr. Chairman, I will continue with the answer, and the member can choose to listen or not. As I say, in three days she can read Hansard if she cares to, and maybe she does not care to.
We talked about the medically fragile, technologically dependent support to schools, a multisystem referral system to review high-need cases and to allocate supports and resources, the EBD protocol for emotional, behaviourally disabled students, a review of the services and programs of the Seven Oaks Centre for Youth, participation of staff in the steering committees to review the five major target groups, to provide recommendations to the departments for the provision of services, discussions with many stakeholders about the provision of services, providing a good base of information about interdisciplinary approaches.
I would indicate to the member–and I would appreciate as well if she could table the document from which she was referring when she first asked her question. She was reading from a document, but I do not know which one it was, and, if she could table it so that we could see exactly where she was gleaning her information from, it might help us to better answer. So I would appreciate it if she could do that, and then we can better provide a response to her for that.
The interdepartmental protocol agreement, which I think may assist the member in understanding this issue a little better than she does, indicates that the Ministers of Education and Training; Family Services; Health; and Justice have mandated the interdepartmental service protocol for increased service co-ordination at the local level for children and adolescents with very severe to profound emotional, behavioural disorders. Each of the departments has specific responsibilities for facilitating the delivery of a continuum of services in context of specific mandates. This protocol formalizes a shared interdepartmental multisystem case management approach, very, very important, to enhance good practice and to maximize the effective use of available resources, and I stress “the effective use of available resources” because we have found often that departments were actually duplicating costs as they attempted to fragment the child and service the child from a whole series of perspectives rather than as one whole child.
So we want to maximize the effective use of available resources to address the service needs for this high-risk population. We have protocols surrounding the profiling of children and adolescents with severe to profound emotional and behavioural disorders. We have the multisystem approach to case management, as I indicated, and we have details on any of those, which I would be pleased to detail for the member, should she desire.
We also have the unified referral and intake system called URIS. That system is an initiative of the Child and Youth Secretariat that came out of the Child and Youth Secretariat itself. It was announced on March 17, 1995, and the Department of Family Services has been delegated lead role. URIS functions as a centralized intake system with responsibility to provide overall co-ordination of service to children with developmental disabilities and/or technology dependance, for example, medically fragile children who require complex medical procedures, and their families.
Five hundred thousand dollars was transferred from the Department of Health to the Department of Education and Training to provide additional funding to school divisions that were required to hire registered nurses to work with students who require complex medical procedures in schools. That is a fact. That has been done.
We do not, as yet, have therapists covered, but that is something that is also being looked at. But, in the first stage, we have the registered nurses in there to perform complex medical procedures to schools.
Again, this leaves education money to be spent on education. Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was transferred from the Department of Health to the Department of Family Services to provide training and ongoing supervision of health care routines which may be delegated to nonhealth care professionals or paraprofessionals working with children in the community.
Teachers are not required to or expected to carry out health care routines in schools. I think that is an important point to underscore, because teachers have been worried about that for some time, and we understand why they are, and we acknowledge the rightness of their concern, and this government has addressed it. It is a concern that was there when I was on the board with the NDP government, but we could never get the NDP government to listen to us when we would bring those concerns to their attention. I remember Minister Maureen Hemphill flat turning me down in my request as a school trustee for some assistance in this regard. So it has been a long time coming, and I am very grateful we have been able to start doing this for the teachers and for the divisions; most importantly, for the parents and students in those schools.
School divisions are eligible to access this fund directly from the Department of Family Services, Children's Special Services. This is a move that this government has made that has been roundly applauded and approved of by the people in the field. They are very grateful, and I am very pleased and proud that we are able to start on these kinds of initiatives, and I will continue on with my answer in the next 10 minutes.
Ms. Cerilli: I am going to turn over to the member for St. James. I just want to clarify for the minister that I am willing to provide her a copy of the document I was referring to, and I will do that through a letter.
Mrs. McIntosh: Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, in wanting to respond to that concern, it would be helpful if I could have the document today so I can respond to it. As long as Hansard shows I could not respond to it because she is not able to provide the document which she has in her hand; she has got it in her hand, but she is not able to provide it because, I do not know why. So some day I will get it, and at that time then I will respond.
Ms. MaryAnn Mihychuk (St. James): Mr. Chairperson, I would like to pursue the Youth Secretariat and some of the initiatives of co-ordinated delivery of services. This is a goal that educators have been requesting for many years, and it is true that many other jurisdictions have some sort of co-ordinated delivery, and I am pleased to see that the department is moving towards some sort of protocols. I know that it has been very difficult as there is a certain amount of turf and money involved and these types of negotiations are not simple.
The minister's comments were, at first $400,000 was being provided for medically fragile, I believe was the terminology, and then $500,000. Is Education receiving close to a million to provide services, or what is the actual number? I am a little confused. Can the minister clarify?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, as I indicated, I am taking these questions in order, so I will continue with the answers to the questions the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) put because I do not want her accusing me of not answering the questions, as she implied that might occur. So I will continue answering the questions in the order they were put to me, and I will answer them all thoroughly.
Point of Order
Ms. Mihychuk: Mr. Chairperson, I ask you to rule whether the minister should be responding to my question. My question is fairly specific, and I would ask her to respond to my question. Perhaps other questions could be responded to in tabling a report or providing the information.
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Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, on the same point of order, we have had this discussion before, and I thought we had it clarified. The members are asking questions in their 10 minutes, sometimes 15, 20 questions in the 10 minutes and want answers to them all.
I said to the member yesterday I did not have time to respond to them all, and she said, put them in writing, the other ministers do that. I said I would do that. I have since found that the only other minister in Estimates right now is Mr. McCrae, and the other ministers are not doing that. The answers are to be read into the record. So I then will answer all the questions. I made it quite clear that to make it accurate and fair, I would respond to all the questions provided to me in the order in which them were given, and I would answer–
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.
Mrs. McIntosh: I am just wanting to make my–why I am trying to say–the point is that the members ask the questions. I am answering them in chronological order, and I will respond to each question in the order it is given. I will try to do it as quickly as I can, but her question has come after a whole series of questions provided by the other member.
If they want the questions to be the same length as the answers, then they may take their questions a little more timely.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable member for The Pas, on the same point of order.
Mr. Oscar Lathlin (The Pas): I really do not think it is–yes, you can wave me off if you want, but I am still going to say my piece anyway.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The point of order.
Mr. Lathlin: The point of order, I think it is the responsibility of the minister to answer questions as they are being asked here. Otherwise, it throws–
Mrs. McIntosh: I am answering questions being asked here, in the order they are given.
Mr. Lathlin: Could I finish, Mr. Chairperson? Otherwise, it throws a monkey wrench into the process whereby if this is how she wants to conduct the committee hearing we may as well fax her questions and she can respond in kind. Otherwise, I think the minister has a responsibility to answer the questions as they are being asked here, not later.
Mrs. McIntosh: You do not want me to answer her questions, Marianne's questions. You are asking me not to, so put that on the record, so long as that is clear.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Once again, and I have done this in previous days or times in this committee, each member has the right to ask those questions as they see fit. The minister indeed has the right to answer those questions as she sees fit. Right now we are on 2.(a)(1). The questions asked by the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) and/or by the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) are indeed on 2.(a)(1), so indeed there is no point of order. Simply–[interjection]
Order, please. I have explained this I think quite clearly. You have the right to ask your questions as you see fit to what questions you would like answered. The minister has the right to answer those questions. She, and so are you, and all members here dealing with 2.(a)(1) in the Estimates book of Education and Training.
The honourable member for St. James, to continue her questions and comments.
Mrs. McIntosh: She asked a question. I was about to answer it.
Mr. Gary Doer (Leader of the Opposition): Maybe we will just keep you an extra couple of hours. If the people will not answer–
Mrs. McIntosh: Gary, you find out what has happened before you come to that conclusion. Investigate it because this is going to go to the Rules committee if you do not smarten up.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please.
Mr. Doer: That is right. If we do not get answers to questions we will just keep the minister on as long as we want.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Would the honourable member for Concordia (Mr. Doer)–
Mrs. McIntosh: You had better find out what is going on before you jump to that conclusion.
Let us go to the Rules committee. This is a deal breaker.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. Would the honourable member for Concordia look for a point of order or, indeed, if he wishes to speak, acknowledge the Chair, and he will be acknowledged.
Point of Order
Mr. Doer: Yes, the minister began a major intervention in pointing and responding. I just wanted to merely point out what our options were, and I apologize for responding to the Minister of Education and letting her know that we have options and we need–Estimates are a period of time to ask questions and get answers.
Mrs. McIntosh: My point exactly. They will not let me answer, Gary.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. I will ask once more to all members here, including the minister, when I call for order, that means that people stop talking.
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Mr. Deputy Chairperson: The honourable minister, to finish her answer.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, for the benefit of all committee members, including the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer), who might need to know this for his information, I have been asked about 25 questions here, and I have been trying to answer them in the order in which they were given. I cannot answer in 10 minutes that number of questions, so I am behind schedule in terms of the chronology. The members have just told me not to answer the questions that I was given by the previous member, and yet the previous member has insisted that I provide an answer.
The 10-minute restriction on answers works very well if the questions could be answered yes or no, but when the questions are in the venue of how do you make an airplane, or why is the sky blue, and you expect the minister to answer in a one-word sentence or a sentence as short as the question that was given, it is impossible.
So the minister is now in a dilemma, and an abuse, I feel, has been put forward here. The minister is in the dilemma either to not answer the questions given by the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) or to answer them in chronological order, so that I am fair to all the questioners. The member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin) has made it clear that I am not to answer the questions from the member for Radisson but to carry on answering the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk). The Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) has said I am to answer all questions. What am I to do as a minister?
The Leader of the Opposition said that the minister is to answer all questions. The Leader of the Opposition said that just now, so I will take him as giving advice that overrules the suggestion of the member for The Pas which says I should not answer the questions of the member for Radisson and carry on and answer the member's for St. James. So I will carry on, answering the questions in chronological order, so that the member for Concordia cannot accuse me of not answering questions, which is what the member for Radisson was planning to do if I did not answer them all.
Now, because I only have 10 minutes, I cannot give answers to all of the questions given at once, so I will carry on with my response to the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) and then follow it with my response to the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk). Maybe in the answer to the member for Radisson inherently will come the answer to the member for St. James, who, in fairness to the member for St. James, did ask a question that could be answered in 10 minutes. The member for St. James is the only one in the last two days who has done that, and I appreciate it very much, asking a question that can be answered, and the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski) did the same thing. The member for The Maples has been very courteous.
The $500,000–I had said 400 earlier, 400, 450, because I did not have the figures in front of me. The figures indicate $500,000. That is the total amount. I believe that answers the question for the member for St. James at the same time I complete the answer to the member for Radisson, who asked many, many, many, many, many questions. So teachers are not required to do this anymore.
A URIS policy committee has been created to provide leadership to the system of human services, to develop provincial policy for the prevention of developmental disabilities, design and operate a centralized system for intake and referral, develop and disseminate standards for case management and other human service interventions, designate an appropriate case manager, design and implement a database to record, track and evaluate human service utilization, and develop appropriate regional subsystems including appeal procedures.
Participants in the URIS policy committee include representatives from hospitals, community health and social service agencies, government departments, school divisions and parents. Children's Special Services, Department of Family Services, has been delegated to chair the URIS committee.
That, I believe, although it may not completely answer the questions of the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli), is sufficient to address the substance of what she was asking.
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I wish the record to show that I have made every human effort to answer the questions I have been given in as full and complete a fashion as was indicated was desired, and because of the limited time allowed for answers, I was not able to answer the great number of questions in the detail that was asked. I realize the members of the opposition can do whatever they want, but I would be grateful that, if they really do want an answer to a question, they provide the question–that, if they are going to have a whole series of questions, they be questions that can be answered in as short a time frame as the question that can be asked. In other words, a short question. You know, “How much money?” is a short question. I can answer it quickly. But “How did you develop a policy?” is not a short question, and it is unfair to expect it can get answered quickly.
This whole process, I have found, to be extremely irritating. The new rules do not give time for sufficient answers. So I hope that ministers will not be accused, as I just was, of not being willing to give the complete answer. If any member of the opposition tries to imply that I did not give the complete answer when part of the whole problem here is that I have been endeavouring to do just that, the member for The Pas (Mr. Lathlin), the member for Concordia (Mr. Doer) would be well advised to count up the number of questions the member for Radisson (Ms. Cerilli) asked and then ask themselves if they could have answered them in 10 minutes in a full and complete way that would not then reek of accusations of the minister did not answer the question.
If the member for Concordia wants to keep me here extra hours, I am most willing to stay. I am one who has never complained about staying, and if it gives me more time to answer a question properly, I will gladly stay. So the member for Concordia may wish to note that. I will stay till I answer all the questions, and if the opposition does not want to give me enough time to answer them and they want to extend the time so that they can stay here and listen to the answers, I will gladly stay. The only condition is that I ask them, please, to remain and listen to the answers instead of doing something else while the answer is being provided.
Ms. Mihychuk: Mr. Chairman, my question was fairly direct and, I am sure, was framed in less than a minute, and historically I have tried to be fairly direct and to the point and give the minister the opportunity. Unfortunately, in both cases where I have had the opportunity to sit in committee, I have felt like I have been part of a much longer experience that the minister has been involved in, and, unfortunately, our time schedules are very limited. I do ask, I do have a series of questions that I will try to make fairly brief, and I would appreciate that the minister would respond.
I do hope that concludes the answers to the previous member and that we can get on with our questions. Maybe I will just ask that straight out: Has the minister concluded her answers to my colleague's questions?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, in all honesty, I do not believe I have answered all her questions. I have answered all that I can remember and all that I had time to write down, and I want to indicate for the record that the member for St. James (Ms. Mihychuk) has, indeed, been one of the few opposition members who has had the courtesy, along with the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), to keep their questions framed in such a way that they can in fact be answered. So I thank you for your courtesy, and I will do my best to reflect that courtesy back to you.
Ms. Mihychuk: Mr. Chairman, just continuing briefly on the co-ordinated delivery of services and the funds that are being moved from Health to Education, the minister indicated that half a million dollars has been transferred, and that is a step towards covering the medical needs. I am familiar with Winnipeg No. 1 and know that we took a fairly strong stand in terms of the physiotherapy services provided which amounted to, at that time, $800,000 and had remained frozen for many years. Actually, the amount of service provided was not to the level that we had hoped, but the total cost of that was Education dollars, not Health care dollars. The minister did indicate in one of her answers previously that there was some movement on that. Can you give us an update? Are those services going to covered by Health, and we are talking about substantially more money than half a million when you look at the whole province?
Mrs. McIntosh: I first of all want to commend the Winnipeg School Board, because they have been working very hard in this area being proactive and doing what needs to be done in some very challenging circumstances in certain instances. The Winnipeg School Board, of which the member was a member at one point, and the St. James Board, of which I was a member at one point, have both been instrumental in bringing this matter to the attention of government. It is one of the reasons that government is taking a look at it. I think that is, again, to the credit of the Winnipeg School Division Board and the other boards that have done the same thing.
I should backtrack just a little bit and indicate that the occupational and physiotherapy components–and we are aware that there are students who require pummelling and that type of thing in the schools–is an area that is going to be examined; it has not yet. I have mentioned we have got the registered nurses in there; I thought we were getting the physiotherapists in there now. They are not in there yet, but it is being looked at, and it will be examined in the Child and Youth Secretariat as well as through the special education review which has not been announced but which we hope to have announced before too much longer. The protocols for medically fragile children have been based on the work of MARN and Winnipeg School Division No. 1 that has been instrumental, as I say, in trying to get some protocol and funding around this whole issue.
I indicate as well that indirectly, as I say, indirectly, not through Education but through Family Services, the direct impact will be felt in schools of this initiative that we are undertaking where $250,000 has gone from Health to Family Services. I made reference to this in my earlier answer, but what that will be doing will be training non-health professionals or health paraprofessionals to work with children in the community, not teachers, although I suppose teachers could if they wish to, but we are thinking more along the lines of a health care worker type person who would be trained to work with children to do things such as pummelling and those kinds of tasks that are required, therapy-type tasks. That is going on now, the training. The money has been transferred. The training may not have yet begun. It has begun? Staff informs me the training for that has begun.
You will see those people ultimately available for the school system to assist teachers in the classroom, and boards, again, will be instrumental in deciding what types of assistance they require, just as they do now, except that they will not have to take it out of their education dollars anymore. If they have $50,000, they can use it for a teacher instead of a health care professional. It is in its infancy. It is not all there yet. We do have some components in place, others coming. This is an area, I know, that the member has some knowledge here, that her advice would be welcome and utilized because, having been a former chairman of that particular board, you have a very strong sense of where the problems lie within that division.
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I wonder if the members would mind, I had indicated that somewhere between 4 and 4:15 I would return a call today. I meant to ask at the beginning if it would be possible to have a 15-minute recess for me to make that phone call and resume. It might be time for a little break anyhow?
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Is it the will of the committee to take a 15-minute break?
An Honourable Member: Agreed.
Mrs. McIntosh: I can be back maybe within that, but that allows me time to get it complete.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: At 15 minutes after four, we will resume.
The committee recessed at 4:01 p.m.
________
After Recess
The committee resumed at 4:15 p.m.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. The honourable minister had been speaking and had five and a half minutes remaining that she finish.
Mrs. McIntosh: I think I am finished.
Ms. Mihychuk: There is just one more area I wanted to pursue in relation to the co-ordinated delivery of services. Is the Department of Education receiving money from the Department of Justice, as this is another whole area where we are seeing children and young adults coming into the education system that are either serving a court sentence and sometimes they have compulsory attendance at school, others that are waiting to go through the court system that have had charges? There are numerous situations in public schools where students are there, mandated, and not necessarily in a condition to be learning. They are not only not in a learning mode, but sometimes their safety is in jeopardy because of charges pending or as a result of actions that they have taken.
Are there supports in the schools from Justice for this? How much money has the Department of Justice moved toward serving these children that are really the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice?
Mrs. McIntosh: The member asks a very good question. At the moment, no. There is no money being transferred from Justice to Education. There are some joint programs that take place between Justice and some school divisions, but there is no transference of money at this time, although the points she raises are good. In the discussions we are having, we are talking, as I indicated before, about the whole child, and we are starting from birth. One of the things we are doing is taking a look at the child from the moment of birth through that whole growing up time and hoping, if we can start when they are little, to offset some of the problems that might occur when they hit school, so they will not be picked up in as large measure by the educational system as they have to be now.
Even going back a bit further than that, which sort of brings the circle right around, I visited at David Livingstone School recently, and the member is probably aware of the high incidences of FAS children in that school. This year, in kindergarten, a large number of FAS students who live in the catchment area have been registered there for kindergarten. Part of the problem that we can identify is the young pregnant female who needs education as to how to treat her body during the gestational period, the period of pregnancy, which brings us right back then to some educating that could be done through a variety of circumstances. These are not always women who are in school, unfortunately, so they cannot always be helped in the school system, but that whole circle.
So, while we have not yet seen any money transferred from Justice to Education, we see the interaction, and we are talking about ways in which we can co-ordinate that kind of activity.
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Ms. Mihychuk: Has the minister received letters or concerns from divisions in regard to disruptive students? I point out that I was recently speaking to a superintendent from an urban division who said that she felt this was one of the leading issues in schools today.
Years ago, when we were looking at mainstreaming, it was how are we going to deal with children with medical needs. Now we are seeing highly disruptive children that are in our schools, and it seems like the justice system is dumping those children now on schools. I know that the minister is concerned about this and ask that some type of review perhaps could be conducted as to the seriousness of the problem, perhaps then Education could facilitate a quicker response from Justice.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, yes, I have received concerns from the field about emotionally disturbed children or behavioural problems in the schools. About two years ago the Department of Education and Training allowed EBD children to be allocated Level II funding in recognition of this, and just reading a small section here from the interdepartmental protocol might give a brief answer to your concern. The child or the adolescent requires–this is a protocol that would apply to children with this particular profile, a child who is receiving or requires a combination of the statutory and nonstatutory services from the child and family, education, mental health and/or justice systems as defined within The Child and Family Services Act, the Young Offenders Act and The Mental Health Act.
So a child with that profile in a multisystem approach to case management always seem to require services from more than just one service system, and those factors that precipitate that kind of disorder, or that kind of behaviour, are often highly complex. I know the member is aware of this. So to initiate the multisystem process, all children or adolescents referred to in this process must demonstrate service needs consistent with the profile of emotional and behavioural disorder.
When you talk about accessing special funding or funding support and resources, when the multisystem team identifies the need for special funding or for programming support or for both, in the low-incidence support from the Department of Education, inclusion in an intensive probation supervision program, special rate for foster home care or intensive community mental health services, the designated team can apply to the appropriate department according to established procedures and, certainly, the EBD protocol can be utilized in this type of situation. That indication that there can be an application, I point out to the member, is being one way which we could begin sourcing some support for this type of activity in the classroom. As I indicated, it has not yet from Justice to Education, but the vehicle is now there for a proper method to look at those kinds of issues.
Ms. Mihychuk: Mr. Chairman, a couple of days ago, I had the opportunity to meet with the teachers of Stevenson-Britannia School in my riding, and it is a wonderful school. The teachers are very, very committed to providing services for children and for families. They have approximately 50 programs that offer additional services for the community, all offered by the staff, and very little recognition of those innovative things are asked for by the teachers.
I wish we could more publicly announce how much educators do. They tend to be very modest actually in what they provide for our communities. But one of the concerns that a teacher there raised was that children are coming in with more and more needs, and it is difficult to access services. The waiting list, for example, to see a psychiatrist or a psychologist is over a year at the school. The minister knows that a year is a very long time in a child's life. A lot of things can impact both emotionally, socially and educationally. It is, I believe, an intolerably long time to wait for that child to receive service.
Can the minister respond? Clearly, the needs for these children are intense and is she willing to look at the allocation of resources?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, the member is absolutely correct in indicating that a lengthy wait is not a preferred situation and the very best scenario would be to have an early identification with immediate follow up. We are trying to move closer and closer to earlier and earlier identification and more and more swift and timely intervention. We have provided additional services of a consultant to the northern region to work on strategies and local skill development but, clearly, the needs of schools respecting EBD and other students are growing, and we are going to have to work on this further through Child and Youth and any other vehicle that we can identify for working in this area.
I mentioned to the member earlier that we are planning to have a special needs review or special education review. It has been in the works since–it was pointed out correctly in Question Period the other day–for a year or more, close to two years, I think, in the planning. I think as we see the types of children entering the system changing and as we see more behaviourally disturbed children living, existing in the world–and the fetal alcohol syndrome children I think being one of the best examples of the way things have changed–we have children now who at one point in time did not survive birth who are now surviving birth. We have children who, if they had survived birth, were institutionalized and kept apart from the world and they are now entering the world and those strains on a system that was not designed originally to accommodate those types of people are real and tremendous.
We do need to have a better picture of our current situation. We need to have a snapshot, so to speak, which would probably take a long time to develop. When we talk about a special needs review, we are talking about a review that would take 18 months to do thoroughly and do well to do several things. One, to identify what is in that snapshot, like, what is our current situation? How does it differ from the past, but more importantly, how will it evolve in the future? Do we have in place the things we need to have in place so that as this evolution occurs we are not scrambling along behind it in an ad hoc piecemeal fashion where it grows like Topsy?
The EBD protocol, as it gets implemented and each community-based service moves to full use of the protocol, we can anticipate the better use of existing resources. We are quite confident that the better use of existing resources will be made through that protocol. Right now, we are at the beginning stages of this, and we still have much work to do.
Ms. Mihychuk: At the same meeting, another question was raised, and it involved the recent decision to look at a different model, a structure of Pharmacare, and as the minister is probably aware, that community is relatively low income, generally working families, and it will be impacted by the new Pharmacare plan.
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Teachers have already noticed that children are coming to school without their medications. They are coming without their antibiotics to deal with an infection. Some children are not coming to school with the Ritalin that they need to control some of their behaviours and acting out. These impacts of decisions by other jurisdictions usually result in schools having to handle all of the problems.
I am asking the minister, is there some sort of monitoring as to the effect of the cuts to Pharmacare on the school system, and is she aware that we are already feeling the effects of that in our schools?
Mrs. McIntosh: We do not have a formal monitoring system per se in terms of specific issues such as the one the member has raised, although I do have an advisory committee on education that has been extremely good about providing me with feedback from the field, and that advice is very helpful, very welcomed. They are particularly good at providing me with advice on the implementation of educational change. This issue you refer to is not specifically Education, but you are indicating you have picked up some information from the field that leads you to believe there could be some impact on Education.
I know that the Pharmacare changes were designed so that low-income families would not feel the impact. It was felt in some cases that very low-income families would actually see more of a benefit or receive more monetary compensation for their drug costs than they did under the old system, so it should not be happening, that because of low income they are not able to purchase their medication.
It should be the reverse according to the design of the Pharmacare program, which would be that the lower the income, the more assistance would be provided and vice versa, income-related versus age-related. However, certainly, with the issue having been raised, it is something that I will inquire about with my colleagues and with the Child and Youth Secretariat to see if there is a problem, and if there is, if it needs to be addressed in some way.
Regional managers do meet regularly with the special education co-ordinators and would be in a position to hear those kinds of concerns from divisions, and I would expect, as is usually the case, that if they become aware of a problem in the field, that this does get relayed back to the decision makers, so that they are aware of it and can take any appropriate action if it is required.
I know from time to time, unfortunately even under the previous system, that sometimes medications would not be available when they were supposed to be, and I do not know that you can monitor each family's progress in that way, and I am not suggesting that is what the member is suggesting I do, but I appreciate the feedback and we will take a look into it.
Ms. Mihychuk: I would like to move a little bit away from the area of co-ordinated delivery of services. We could spend a lot of time on trying to improve the whole system, and I am pleased that there is some movement however modest, but we are moving towards that, and that is a positive thing for schools.
We received a document–the minister tabled the new agreement with independent schools–and I wanted to ask some questions of clarification. Would this be an appropriate time to deal with that?
Mrs. McIntosh: I will leave this to the member's discretion. We can at this stage, with the staff that I have here, speak in sort of broad, general terms. If you are looking for detail along the 16.5 line, I do not have the schools funding people with me today. So if it is detailed questions on dollars going here and there and everywhere, I do not have the appropriate staff; but if it is generic about broad principles, that I could certainly answer for her today.
Ms. Mihychuk: I will leave that area of questioning, because I did want to get into some of the details of the formula itself, how that would impact on the grants that are going, per pupil, whether they are home-based or not, and how that is going to define as a formula for private schools. So I will leave that and I am going to move on. I have a specific question on home schoolers.
Last year, I had the opportunity to ask a series of questions about home schoolers. One area that I, frankly, missed was clarification as to the resources available. Do they receive any provincial grants?
Mrs. McIntosh: No.
Ms. Mihychuk: Are they eligible to receive the curricular grant, the $50 for material?
Mrs. McIntosh: Technically they are eligible, but none of them ever claim it, and we have never paid any of it out.
Ms. Mihychuk: Are the home schoolers eligible for tutorials? Are educators available for specific educational needs that may arise in the school year? That is my question.
Mrs. McIntosh: The short answer is no. I can enlarge upon it slightly. I will not go over the 10 minutes. The home schoolers, by the nature of their decision, tend to want to do it on their own. They have for the most part very strong committed feelings about education, and they want it done through the family. So they do not ask for, nor do they receive, special services. They can make arrangements with local school divisions. In some few cases, there have been arrangements made with home schoolers, and their local division to have some sort of working relationship in one area or another because home schoolers reside in a school division somewhere. So those arrangements do occur from time to time, but for the most part home schoolers choose to be at home to provide for their own materials and special services.
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We did have one situation that I found quite interesting in northern Manitoba of a family where they had, I believe, it was seven children or so being home-schooled in an isolated setting living in the bush. The parents had educated the children at home until they reached about the Grade 9 level, and then were finding it quite difficult just because of the level of the content of some of the courses. They made arrangements with the local school division in which area they resided who then sent out, I believe it was three days a week, a tutor. But at that point then the students registered with the division. Now they were still living in the bush with their family, receiving learning from the family, but they did have that arrangement with the school division for the more complex content. Their situation was caused by isolation, and I believe the school division felt that it was for them as a school division more economically feasible to meet their needs that way than to get them into a school.
Ms. Mihychuk: That is interesting. Would that family for instance be eligible to access some sort of distance education programs? Would those costs be covered by the department?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I do not know all the specific details about this particular family, but just painting a scenario, I can describe circumstances. This particular family, I have been informed, as the parents did the home schooling, were working with a teacher-mediated program through Winkler, Manitoba, where they were receiving similar to the old correspondence courses, but upgraded because we do now have technologies. So your question is very appropriate. They could and have in that situation used telephoning or satellite to communicate with educators outside the home where they choose to do that. The courses that can be purchased through the teacher mediator branch are about $80 a course and the parents pay for them themselves. Some home schoolers will use that as an assistance in ensuring that their children are getting the access to teaching and learning that is a good resource for the parents who then teach them.
The possibilities are definitely there for distance education techniques. We have mentioned already the telephone and the satellite that have been used, I believe, with this particular family, but as well right now very easily VCRs and videotapes are tools that are quite easily and cheaply obtained. The more sophisticated technologies would involve more costly and expensive equipment and that, at this point, is not provided to those who are home schooling. Most home schoolers making that decision will pick up the costs, the $80 for a course or whatever. The onus is on the parents to provide the education in a home schooling situation. So some do use, as I say, the teacher-mediated programs for course materials, others will provide their own. Because they have chosen to opt out so to speak of the system, the onus is on them to provide the education, but we stand by ready to facilitate and make sure that the child gets the learning.
Ms. Mihychuk: I have one final question in the area of home schoolers. Can the minister share with us what the enrollment is this year?
Mrs. McIntosh: Nine hundred thirty students.
Mr. Gary Kowalski (The Maples): It seems to become an annual whine from myself that unfortunately because of my many critic roles, I cannot be at the table every minute. When I last left we had been on 1.(b)(1) for five days, and I went away and came back and all of a sudden you were leaps and bounds ahead. Unfortunately, there were some questions I had in some earlier areas, but I did make one commitment to the minister, and during this Estimates process we have continually asked questions to get the minister on record about her views on a number of points. I made a commitment that she asked a question of me about, I think, if I can remember it correctly, it was, did I think that the school trustees' concerns in regard to bargaining were valid? This was in response to our discussion about the document Enhancing Accountability and Ensuring Quality. So I wanted to make sure I fulfilled my commitment. Yes, the trustees' concerns were and are valid, and, as we have discussed many times at this committee meeting, a number of us were school trustees, and, over the years, the bargaining process, as all bargaining processes, quite often becomes adversarial. In that role, as a school board member, the concerns about the ability to pay and scope of bargaining were a concern.
When I and my colleagues from the Liberal caucus met with a representative from the MTS, I did not try to play both sides. I said that I had heard from school trustees that this was a concern, and the lack of ability to have discussions that bore any change over the years was one of the elements that resulted in the resolution at MAST, that was part of the instigation of this document.
But I know the other role of a school trustee, the other concern that is very valid, is working together with teachers and educators, and also to advocate for them, because it does not matter what sphere of the public sector, public-sector employees are always subject to criticisms. If the employers are not their advocates, any defences they make to comments about their working conditions being overly favourable, their salaries being overly generous, whether it is as a police officer, whether it is as a teacher, whether it is as a civil servant anywhere in the provincial government, a home care worker, in any of those concerns, there is a certain responsibility for the employers to defend their employees because they cannot defend themselves. So, yes, the trustees' concern about the bargaining process and some of the issues raised in the document were and are valid, but so are the teachers' concerns about how it has affected the public perception and that they have become the whipping boys or whipping girls of society, quite often being easy targets for criticisms about the length of days they work, the length of hours, the pay they get, and they need employers, managers, ministers of Education to also be their advocates. So that is just as valid as the concern about the two issues that I still think were required to be brought forward: scope of bargaining and ability to pay.
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But it is always a lot more difficult to bargain when you are under the gun, and I believe this document did have that effect, to make many educators feel that they were under the gun and that their advocates, the Minister of Education, the school boards, the school trustees, who should be advocating for educators because of the discussions over this document, have not been fulfilling that role lately. I just wanted to put those comments on the record and answer the minister's.
I did have questions about an earlier line in the budget, 1.(c), about the changes in the communications budget and that, but I know I could either write to the minister or phone the minister's office and get those questions answered in the future. I did have questions about the Pan Canadian curriculum development team and some questions from Hansard, last Estimates, about mobility, how mobility was being addressed; inventory of divisions that had done testing in Grade 3 prior to this latest one that came out of last year's Estimates debate; pilot testing by Western Canadian Protocol; professional fees and reports in earlier lines. Again, I think these questions that I have missed, I will not tramp on the committee's good graces here and take up valuable Estimates time asking those questions of lines that we have already passed. So I will draw some of my remarks now to the question at hand then. I believe we are on 2.(b)(1). Is that correct, Mr. Chair?
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: 2.(a)(1).
Mr. Kowalski: I have a question in regard to last year's Estimates. There was some discussion about meetings that the minister had with a school trustee from Winnipeg School Division about a separate aboriginal school division. I know that person is no longer on the school board since there has been a school board election. I am wondering if since the last Estimates debate we had in Education, if there was further discussions and if anything further developed from when we left off in last year's Estimates.
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I first want to indicate that I sympathize with the member. I see him hurdling back and forth between committee rooms, and I know it is difficult with only three people to cover the full range of critic duties. So I appreciate the dilemma in which he finds himself in having to be in two places at the same time.
With any of the points that he has mentioned, if he wishes to follow up, I invite him to please feel quite comfortable to contact either me, my assistant or any of the staff for those answers. Probably if you called me or the assistant, we can guide you to the right person to obtain the information.
We have not really done anything at all with the concept of a separate aboriginal school division. We did have a meeting with Mr. Bill Sanderson who was at that time on the Winnipeg School Board. We have had no further discussions since that time. I do not personally favour a separate division for a lot of reasons. I think that public divisions can accommodate within themselves, as Winnipeg No. 1 has done for example with the Children of the Earth School, the setting up of alternative schools. They have the ability to do that and if they see the need, knowing their own people, they are able to do that. I note, with interest, that Winnipeg No. 1 has the Children of the Earth School, but it also has a lot of aboriginal students attending other schools in the division where integration rather than segregation is the preferred climate.
I find that with separate divisions–we have seen this with the Francophone School Division–there inevitably do seem to be extra costs. The French School Division I understand in terms of the constitutional requirement, it is much like the private school issue or the independent school issue. There are historical things that have occurred there and linguistic–[interjection]
Well, the member for Wolseley (Ms. Friesen) says, no, they are not. But, I think if she looks at history, she will see that you can definitely draw parallels between the French school rights and the denominational school rights. I believe she will find, if she searches back, that denominational schools and Catholic and French schools do have existence in history at the beginning of the settlement of the province of Manitoba.
Having said that, however, there is no such distinction with aboriginal backgrounds. The aboriginal people have their own constitutional understandings, and they are mostly with the federal government as opposed to provincial governments. The efforts that I have seen school divisions going to to ensure that aboriginal students have a place in the system I find very heartening.
They do not have a religious or linguistic central focus the way the French or the denominational schools would, although they do have both religious and linguistic components of their culture, but the central focus would be more than just those two things for aboriginal students. So I would prefer to have school divisions move to alternative schools for students of aboriginal background.
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I would prefer to see aboriginal students have a choice of one or the other milieu, and I would like, as well, to have other students have a better understanding of their aboriginal classmates. That is why our new history curriculum when it comes out will also deal with pre-European Canadian history, something that has been lacking in any measure in the current curricula. That is part of our history update and renewal and a more relevant curriculum.
The choices that have been developed to date allow choices to be made within the governing structures that now exist. We also will now have the school councils, the advisory councils on school leadership and school plans, something else that would enable schools to reflect the character of the students in the catchment area. As the federal government makes its changes, there will be changes in other choices available for Status aboriginal people as they move towards self governance.
There are going to be, I believe, a myriad number of ways in which the needs of aboriginal students can be addressed, ways that I expect would meet their needs and have them feel that those needs have been met, because part of meeting the needs is the sense that the needs are being met.
I just wanted to respond briefly to a comment made by the member for The Maples (Mr. Kowalski), and I appreciate what he said. I want him to know that I agree with him, and I believe that that has been happening, albeit it has not been in the newspaper or in pamphlets that are being handed out, and that is a reference to the comment he made that teachers need to know that they have an advocate.
In many, many ways that have not been the subject of 30-second news clips or six-word headlines, this minister has been an advocate for teachers. A lot of teachers know that; a lot of teachers are quite aware of the things I have been doing to help them with the types of challenges they are facing in the classrooms these days, to try to accommodate the many problems they face in going through their days, to try to adjust the circumstances so that they can function better, to promote the things that they do for students and the system with parents and all kinds of people, and those are not things that I feel the need to have a press conference on, because I believe over time they will come to be known and understood, but, for the member's comfort, I wish him to know that I have great respect for those good teachers in the schools that are doing some very extraordinary things for our students.
That is not to say that I am unaware of the problems with collective bargaining or the procedures for compensation that may be causing trustees difficulty. I am fully aware of them and, like the member, am not going to duck the issue, but I think to say that, because I am aware of those problems, there is no advocacy coming out of this minister or my office for teachers is to draw an incorrect conclusion. Teachers and this minister may not agree on whether or not changes are required to the way in which dispute resolution mechanisms are decided, but I think we are in complete concurrence about the role of the teacher in the classroom, the things they require to support them. The challenges they face and the things that need to be done to ameliorate the results of those challenges are known and understood. I have great empathy for those, and I am pleased the member does too. I am also pleased that he did not duck the question that I asked and that there is at least one opposition member willing to state his opinion on that, and I appreciate that.
Mr. Kowalski: I do not know where it would be in the Department of Education, in FRAME or where, but to talk to about aboriginal students. Is there any identification, self-identification, that of aboriginal students. I am looking for what percentage or a number of aboriginal students within the public school system. Do they make up 10 percent? Do they make up 25 percent? Do they make up 50 percent? Is there anywhere or any way for us to get that information?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, we do not have statistics such as the member has requested because we do not register the children by ethnicity or racial background, so we can identify with broad provincial demographics trends in population. We try to tread a fine line, and it is difficult. We know that our aboriginal children seem to be at risk in a higher proportion to the nonaboriginal children, and, looking at provincial statistics, we know that Manitoba has the highest aboriginal population per capita in Canada as a province. I am giving a very rough estimate here. I believe it is around 10 percent of our population. I may be off, and I would suggest that that figure has to be verified because I am speaking from memory. I may be slightly off in that statistic. We are also aware that it is projected that at around the year 2000, at the turn of the millennium, it is expected that one in four people ready to enter the labour market force will be of aboriginal descent in Manitoba.
So we could probably extrapolate from those two concepts or those two pieces of information what the numbers might be. We know that we have areas of the province where we have a higher percentage of children of aboriginal descent than in other areas of the province. We have, through linguistic understandings–because we believe in the importance of supporting children with language needs, we do supply a language grant to both aboriginal children as well as English as a Second Language students. So it may be possible to find some indication from that grant that is given for language purposes to aboriginal children for English as a Second Language.
(Mrs. Shirley Render, Acting Chairperson, in the Chair)
I think it is fair to say that in the inner city of Winnipeg we have a very large number of aboriginal students. Visiting at Greenway School not long ago and indeed at David Livingstone School that I made reference to earlier, where again there are large numbers of aboriginal students, we saw the teachers in that school, through the arts, making dreamcatchers as part of their art project. They were making actually some very beautiful dreamcatchers in some of the places. They were making ceremonial masks as well for, again, art purposes but drawing on the culture of the students in the school who were predominantly of the one culture. So they were resourcing through regular channels, materials and projects that had emphasis on the child's experience, culture, traditions and were building upon that pride and sense of self-esteem.
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Staff indicates the only statistics available might be the First Nations children who, by tuition agreement, are taught in provincial schools. That would be significant in the Frontier School Division and, to a degree, in some other divisions such as Winnipeg No. 1 that I mentioned, places in Brandon, Dauphin, Turtle River and so on.
I am afraid I am not able to answer the exact statistic that he requested.
Mr. Kowalski: I was interested in the minister's comments about her support for Children of the Earth School or–I forget the name of what used to be Aberdeen School now, Niji Mahkwa, indicating her support for that and at the same time indicating concern about a separate aboriginal school board. I have concerns when we break society up into different solitudes–you know, we should be celebrating our commonalties, not our differences–but there are special needs in the aboriginal community that I recognize.
That is why I ask this question, and I ask it with no hidden purpose or no hidden agenda or anything else, because I am not sure in my own mind which is the best way to go. Within the Department of Education, are there separate branches, separate directors, separate projects or separate people that are concerned specifically with aboriginal educational issues?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chair–Madam Chair. Sorry.
The Acting Chairperson (Mrs. Render): We are all alike.
Mrs. McIntosh: Are we all alike because we are women, or we are all alike because we are Tories or we are all alike because we are–
The Acting Chairperson (Mrs. Render): All Chairs are all alike.
Mrs. McIntosh: All Chairs are the same and all members are honourable.
The Acting Chairperson (Mrs. Render): Just here to keep order, decorum.
Mrs. McIntosh: Madam Chairman, we do have a small directorate–it is called the Native Education Directorate–which reports directly to the director of programming. We also have–because we at one point had just the Native Ed Directorate and everything seemed to focus through them if it was for aboriginal students, we are trying to take a broader approach than just that so we now have, as I indicated, the small–We still do have the Native Education Directorate. It is just a few people. It reports to the director of programming. Pardon? To the assistant deputy minister, I am sorry. It reports to the assistant deputy minister.
But we also have dispersed throughout individuals who are working, and we are attempting to integrate attitudes and approaches throughout the department so that we do not have a little segregated directorate that just does that and nobody else. We are trying to permeate and have that integration flow through in a variety of ways.
I mentioned the new curricula that we are putting together for history, an improved and more relevant history program that will include pre-European Canadian history, that type of thing.
The Native Education Directorate is sort of the lead entity that ensures that this focus does get through in our educational endeavours. They have a purpose which is to strengthen overall division focus on aboriginal education. This move to integrate in all subject areas is a consciousness of two things: a consciousness of the aboriginal people, specifically, and a consciousness of racial discrimination and racial harmony, so that we capture the two.
The focus on aboriginal–as they do that, they are wanting to ensure that all division programs and activities do have an ability to reflect aboriginal perspectives. They provide leadership and co-ordination for departmental initiatives from kindergarten to the end of Senior 4 on aboriginal education. They support and monitor the implementation of native education policy recommendations across the division. They ensure a corporate approach to aboriginal education within Manitoba education. They also take over the previous Native Education branch, we used to call it, the functions of curriculum development and adaptation, support for school-based planning–and school-based planning in this regard, I think, is a very important aspect of aboriginal education–program implementation and parent involvement. This has been integrated into the School Programs Division's unit.
Aboriginal staff have been reassigned to Program Development and Program Implementation areas of School Programs Division. Their new role has an emphasis on brokering services, facilitating and monitoring school program and planning as members of the SPD interdisciplinary teams. The new emphasis is consistent with the Native Education branch's approach to aboriginal self-determination and SPD's broader goal of school-based management.
(Mr. Deputy Chairperson in the Chair)
The department is currently establishing a native education steering committee whose terms of reference will include: Acting as a steering committee for the development and integration of aboriginal perspectives in the provincial curriculum; to validate the process and content as developed by School Programs Division; to review materials and meet with subject area committees as required; to ensure that the diversity within the aboriginal population is reflected in the content perspectives; to act as representatives to the various stakeholders within the aboriginal community; to advise the assistant deputy minister of the School Programs Division in matters related to the development and implementation of aboriginal perspectives in the provincial curriculum. That is sort of a weighty explanation. Simply put, it reflects that we are now trying to move from a branch that focused into a smaller directorate, that would still focus in, but permeates the rest of the department as well.
Mr. Kowalski: Who is the person in charge of the Native Education Directorate?
Mrs. McIntosh: It is Juliette Sabot, and the ADM that they report to is Carolyn Loeppky.
Mr. Kowalski: The minister is making my job more difficult by integrating them throughout the department because now I will not be able to hold her accountable to see if she is decreasing the commitment to aboriginal educational concerns. I think it is the right direction to go in, the integration throughout the department into other areas, but it makes our job a lot more difficult. I cannot compare last year's line in the Estimates to see how much money and how many staff were in that directorate last year, and how much this year, because the minister has already given an explanation, if there is a difference, that there is integration throughout the department.
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But having said that, how many people are there in the directorate this year, what is their budget and are we on the right line on the budget for that?
Mrs. McIntosh: Mr. Chairman, I should indicate that, yes, you can still criticize, complain, compliment, condemn, condone, whatever, maybe not in terms of money, but you will be able to look at the curriculum when it is ready. These things that I just put on the record, if you feel that the provincial curriculum does not contain those perspectives or if we have not done some of the things that I just indicated, you can call me to task on it because those are measurable. You are right in terms of the lines. Permeating does mean that it is not going to be identified necessarily under aboriginal initiatives unless we did some pretty extensive cross-referencing.
We have right now in the directorate three staff members at the Native Education Directorate. The other staff members who were moved from that are in Program Development and in Program Implementation on regional teams. There is no reduction in the total number of people–I am going to give you an approximate, the total number was around a dozen, 10 or 12, I do not have the exact number–but of those people, three remaining to do the direct work and the rest have been branched out into those other areas. They are still there; they have just been redirected.
Mr. Kowalski: I know the amount of resources, the number of people or the amount of money spent is not necessarily a reflection of the percentage of students in the public education system who are aboriginals. It is more related to the tasks and projects that are to be done. Having said that, if we see a continuing trend for a greater percentage of the student population in the public school system being aboriginal, could we see a related change in the amount of commitment to the Native Education Directorate or persons integrated throughout the public education system as a result of an increase in aboriginal student population?
Mrs. McIntosh: There are two parts to the response. First of all in terms of students at risk, I heard in his question concern for those students at risk of aboriginal descent in terms of numbers and so on, is that right?
Mr. Kowalski: That was not in my thoughts. My thoughts were just about that they make a large portion of the student population. I was not relating it to risk in any way, but I would be interested in the information.
Mrs. McIntosh: No, I was just trying to clarify, because earlier in the questioning–I do not know at this point if it was the member or one of the other members when we were talking about special needs students and children at risk, and I may be just dragging over into this questioning that concern.
The native advisory committee that was making recommendations to the government made 37 recommendations, and very good recommendations. We have already acted on 29 of those 37 recommendations, and part of what we are doing in terms of integrating this thrust is as a result of putting into action some of those recommendations. One thing that we have come to understand and accept is that aboriginal students require, as all students do, being moved to high standards of achievement, and so there is the desire to have students, whatever their background be, reach measurable standards, to be given rigorous curricula, to be challenged academically, and in all of those other ways in school. It was felt that aboriginal children needed to be included in that and not excluded or treated any differently for those rigorous academic learning experiences, and so that is what we have done.
The other part of it is that as they are meeting those same high standards so that they can go out into the world–our goal is to have them go out in the world with the same level of achievement and the same confidence that high standards have been achieved, that we will raise any who need to be raised up to the curricula. Rather than bring the curricula down, we will raise them up.
But inherent in all of those learning experiences is the need then on the integration to ensure that they do things like what is happening at Greenway School, where they were making in their art classes dreamcatchers and masks. I am not just saying it is all dreamcatchers and masks. It is much, much more than that, but that is sort of a tangible example that you can touch. It is far more than that.
We also felt that the teaching of aboriginal issues should not be taught to just aboriginal students, so that, if you are going to talk about the history of First Nations peoples in North America prior to the coming of the Europeans, this is something that should not just be taught to aboriginal students. It should be taught to all students in the classroom so that aboriginal and nonaboriginal alike, at the same time, learn about that history, those traditions and that culture. That way you get a cross-cultural awareness, a better understanding.
Those things came through. We accept those, and I, personally, happen to agree with them as well. I also believe if people want a segregated setting or an alternative setting, that they should be able to have it, such as the Children of the Earth School, but then I do believe in choice for parents. I believe they should be able to have religious schools, or all-girls schools or aboriginal schools, but I do not think we need to have a whole new set of governance set up to accommodate those things.
Mr. Deputy Chairperson: Order, please. When we resume tomorrow, the minister will have five minutes remaining in her answer if she wishes.
The hour being 5:30 p.m., committee rise.