Cash cuts hit native kids
October 15, 2009
Tanya Talaga
QUEEN'S PARK BUREAU
Ontario children's aid societies say agencies working with First Nations children and kids in economically struggling communities are hardest hit by a province-wide cash shortfall.
"That we are seeing funding cuts to this population seems misguided and ill informed," said Catherine Moreau, board president of Native Child and Family Services of Toronto.
The association representing 51 of the province's 53 children's aid societies is pressuring the government to come up with more money to pay the bills for child-protection services.
The societies say 49 of their agencies face a total shortfall of $67 million this year.
The government says it increased payments to the societies by $30 million this year and has tripled support in the last decade to $1.4 billion.
The First Nations agencies say they are facing a shortfall of about $18 million.
"In almost all measures of toxicity and quality of life, our children score the highest and lowest of all children in Ontario," Moreau said.
One northern community has a suicide rate 28 times the national average, she said.
Despite this crisis, the three agencies in the north face a collective shortfall of $16.9 million.
Toronto's Native Child and Family Services is out $1.4 million, or 10 per cent of its annual budget, said executive director Kenn Richard.
"The system is used to a roller-coaster funding approach but it doesn't serve anyone well," Richard said.
The agency has seen the number of children in need of protective care rise from 165 last year to 220 this year.
Cash-strapped agencies will have difficulty responding to high-risk child abuse allegations within required timelines because staff will have to be cut at societies throughout Ontario if funding is not improved, the agencies warn.
"If they don't like the press, the stories about native kids today, wait until we erode the services and see what kind of stories they'll have tomorrow," Richard said.
Children and Youth Services Minister Laurel Broten agreed the problem is more acute this year because the province faces its own financial struggle with an $18.5 billion deficit.
"The difference this year, in light of our current fiscal circumstances and realities, we are not able to cover shortfalls to the (children's aid societies)" as the government has done in the past, she said in an interview.
In Guelph, Premier Dalton McGuinty said helping agencies remains a priority for his government.
"I want to recognize that they just perform a very valuable service on behalf of all of us to help kids who find themselves in particular need," McGuinty told reporters. "We have increased their funding ... year over year every single year."
The premier said it was "not unusual" for publicly funded agencies to express alarm halfway through a fiscal year. But he was vague about whether the government would be able to help the CAS by the end of the fiscal year on March 31, 2010.
A commission has been set up in order to get officials from both sides – the ministry and the agencies – to work together to iron out the funding dilemma.
The problem, agencies say, is that the complex model used by the government to determine cash flow is not equal across the province and historically there simply has not been enough money allocated to child protection services.
The board president of the London-Middlesex Children's Aid Society said the agency, which has 900 children in care, is facing a budget reduction of $3.9 million. London's unemployment rate is one of the highest in Canada at 10.9 per cent.
"The government has said there is no more money for child welfare, yet statutory services for children cannot be compromised," Ken Heslop said.
"What is the government going to do when (children's aid societies) run out of money in the next several weeks or months and cannot afford to pay their staff or, more importantly, their foster parents?"
With files from Robert Benzie
Toronto Star