HALIFAX, FRIDAY, MARCH 7, 2025

 

COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

 

11:07 A.M.

 

CHAIR

John White

 

 

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The Committee of Whole House on Supply will come to order. It is now 11:07 a.m. The committee must rise to report to the House before the hour of adjournment, which is 6:00 p.m.

 

The honourable Deputy Government House Leader.

 

MELISSA SHEEHY-RICHARD: Chair, would you please call the Estimates for the Minister of Opportunities and Social Development, Resolution E18.

 

Resolution E18 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $1,676,809,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Opportunities and Social Development, pursuant to the Estimate.

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable Leader of the Liberal Party.

 

HON. DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: I'm ceding my time for now to the honourable member for Cumberland North.

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cumberland North.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I look forward to being able to ask some questions of the minister. I have to say I love the new name of the department, Opportunities and Social Development. First of all, I want to say I was really pleased to learn that intake has gone back to local offices.

 

It's always challenging when people are going through a hard time and a stressful time, similar to mental illness when they have to call the central number and go through this phone thing of pressing these different numbers to talk to a real person. I'm really pleased to see that intake has gone back for this department to the local offices.

 

I know the minister can't share any kind of information that could be tied directly to individuals for confidentiality reasons, but I'm wondering if the minister is able to share: Are the numbers down for the number of people requiring income support from the government from this department? If the minister is able to share that kind of information - I am actually looking specifically for Cumberland County or Northern Zone if that's the closest - if the minister is able to share if the numbers are up or down, is he also able to share some demographic information?

 

The reason I'm asking that is I've been working with some stakeholders in the community and we've been trying to brainstorm on initiatives and strategies that we could undertake to lift people up, to empower people, and to try to find the root causes why people are in need, with our food banks, for example. To do that, it is important to better understand who those people in need are. What I am hearing anecdotally is that there are more and more people in the younger demographic than ever before requiring food bank assistance or requiring support through Income Assistance through the department. If that is the case, want to help people when they're in need, but ideally, we want to lift them up and empower them so that they are able to have a job and have a purpose and improve their self-esteem. I'll start with that question for the minister.

 

HON. SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I want to thank the member opposite for her question. She and I spoke yesterday. I was hoping she was going to get to ask me questions yesterday because we both share a common friend in politics, who has somewhat recently passed away: a former Premier of Nova Scotia, Roger Bacon. He was a political mentor to both of us. Before he passed away, he gave me this tie, so I wore it yesterday in anticipation of the member. Then I knew she was going to be asking questions today so, despite my wife's protest, I wore the same tie again in honour of Premier Bacon, who we both have a great fondness for.

 

We don't have the breakdown today by zone, but I can say province-wide, over the last five years, Income Assistance intakes have gone up by 0.5 per cent. It's not a huge amount but up is still up. My guess is that when we pull those numbers for the Northern Zone, they'll probably be going down a little bit. I'll tell you why. I remember when I was a principal in Tatamagouche. I lived there for 10 years. We were one of the highest areas of poverty in the north shore of Nova Scotia. The member knows it well. She's from Linden, and my family's mostly from Tatamagouche. It had one of the highest incidences of poverty - particularly child poverty - but the north shore has seen a bit of a resurgence.

 

The town where my family's from, Tatamagouche, is booming, quite frankly. We've also had huge investments. Of course there's the Fox Harb'r development. There's great action on the Amherst shore. My guess is we would have seen a bit of a decrease in intakes in terms of Income Assistance, but times are tough across the province.

 

The member talked about food banks. Our department is a strong funder of food banks. We talked about food security yesterday a lot during estimates, and we talked about how we're funding the umbrella organizations, like the Glace Bay Collaborative Food Network and many others that fund a lot of local food banks across the province. Anything we can do to support people who are currently struggling, whether that's connecting them to employment, whether that's providing them safe healthy meals, whether that's providing supportive housing or transitional housing - all that helps. A lot of that runs through my department, but our government takes a holistic approach that we talked about yesterday. Part of that holistic approach is to work with several different departments and to work together to provide support for people when they need it the most.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I'm wondering: How much of the money in the budget from this department is given to food banks in Nova Scotia? Does the minister have a breakdown by zone? How much is given, say, to Cape Breton versus Northern Zone and the HRM? I'm looking for that information. Has it increased, has it stabilized, or has it decreased?

 

[11:15 a.m.]

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I was waiting there because we had a correction. I said it was up 0.5 per cent. It's actually down 0.5 per cent across the province, so that's good news. It's relatively the same, so we haven't seen a huge uptake. In terms of our department's support for food banks across the province, the Glace Bay Collaborative Food Network receives $2 million in this budget. Feed Nova Scotia received $1.5 million in December. Those are umbrella organizations that support food banks across the province.

 

Other departments also support this initiative. The Department of Education and Early Childhood Development, for example, started the Nova Scotia School Lunch Program this year and over 75,000 elementary students have been engaged in that. In January, they eclipsed 2 million meals served for children in schools. That's expanding and will expand ahead of schedule to junior highs, middle schools, and then subsequently, high schools. It's gone very well. We talked a little bit about it yesterday, but it's a success story, and I know all of the elementary schools in Cumberland County are using that program. There are still some bugs to work out, in my opinion, but it's coming and it's moving in the right direction, so credit goes to a lot of work that's been done by the Department of Advanced Education and Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and that minister to get that program up and running and out.

 

The Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage has the Community Food Access and Literacy Fund; that's called CFAL. This fund provides funding to programs to improve access to healthy food and to build food literacy, including meal planning, budgeting, and community gardens. CCTH supports the Farmers' Markets of Nova Scotia, Nourishing Communities Food Coupon Program for over 422,000 - the minister was talking about that today in Question Period. The Community Food Security Initiatives Program also provides funding to other community groups on an application basis and funds initiatives like meal distribution, food pantries, drop-in lunch programs, and other community-based meal programs. That's through the Department of Communities, Culture, Tourism and Heritage. The Department of Health and Wellness provides the following operational funding: $200,000 to CCTH for the Community Food Access and Literacy Fund and $275,000 to CCTH for the Nourish Nova Scotia grant.

 

The Department of Agriculture is, I think, a key department when looking at food security. The Department of Agriculture has multiple initiatives and grants for agriculture awareness, climate change, and improving production and access to local food. As you can see - as I've talked about - there's a collaborative effort across several departments to try to increase food security across Nova Scotia.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: It's such a big topic, and in a perfect world we wouldn't need food banks. The minister shared all those different initiatives. I don't think - but I could be wrong - we have an actual food strategy for Nova Scotia, an actual plan. If we were to have that, could it go under one department so that it's not piecemeal? In a perfect world, I do see this department leading the way for trying to help people up so that there's less dependency on things like food banks and Income Assistance.

 

The reality is - and I'm sure it's the same province-wide - a lot of the people that have come to me looking for help literally have no money left over if they're on Income Assistance after they pay their rent. For some, their only source of food is through the kindness of others and the food bank. Our food bank has sadly become such an integral part of our communities for people just to be able to get their basic nutrition.

 

I know one thing that food banks have asked me for is for the government to consider capital program funding for them, so they could buy a new freezer or new fridge or cooler to put the food in. They've shared with me that sometimes they get food, say, from Feed Nova Scotia, but they don't actually have the capacity to freeze or keep it cold, and so sometimes they have to refuse it. I'm wondering if that's something the government - maybe they already do, and I'm not aware of it, but if not - if it's something that the department would consider because that is something that food banks have shared with me.

 

I want to give a shout-out to two people since we're talking about food banks. One is to Lee Weir, who's a business owner in Pugwash. He builds tiny homes, and he has several businesses under an old industrial building that the minister would be aware of because he used to be our MP. It's in the old Seagull Pewter industrial building there in Pugwash. That entrepreneur gives the Open Hamper Food Bank in Pugwash space for their food bank, free of charge. Any entrepreneur knows they can always find a way to fill space and keep adding to their business, but he has continued to keep this space free of charge. He doesn't charge any rent to the local food bank in Pugwash, so I want to say a shout-out to him and thank him for that.

 

Also, I want to acknowledge someone else the minister would know - Dale Fawthrop. Dale is former town councillor of Amherst. He served many years, and he recently came up with an idea to create a club. He called it Club 180. The Amherst Food Assistance Network Association was having trouble coming up with the money to continue operations because their rent had gone up, so he started this thing online - on social media - asking people to commit to $10 a month. He's got hundreds of people that each give $10 a month, and it helps cover the rent. I think they have rent covered for the next six months or something like that. Anyway, it's people like Lee Weir and people like Dale Fawthrop who really make a big difference in these organizations, so I want to say a shout-out.

 

I'm wondering: Would the department consider making funding available for capital costs, such as fridges or freezers or coolers, for food banks throughout the province?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I know Dale well - he's a great community volunteer. If there was a problem in the community, that's the exact type of person who should get up and solve that problem because, like the Premier likes to say, He's not a problem-stretcher, he's a problem-solver. He does a lot of work in that community, not just in terms of supporting the local food bank. He does a lot of stuff behind the scenes in Cumberland County. I know the member is really focused on food. I know that this is a passion that she has - she's a farm girl from Linden. Food is everything for her - not everything, but food is a big part of her life. She has a great story about a battle she had with a bull when she was a child, which some day she'll tell again. So I understand the narrative that she's talking about today in food, and I appreciate that.

 

As I said, our department funds the collaborative food networks and Feed Nova Scotia. Those are the umbrella organizations. Those funds are distributed by those umbrella organizations to individual food banks. They work with the local food banks to see how that money can be applied and how it's best served in individual situations. I think that's a good process.

 

In terms of a province-wide food plan, I know the Department of Agriculture has previously done some work in in food and beverages; supporting local producers in Nova Scotia. It's not managed through our department. If I start talking about details I don't know about, I'm going to get myself in trouble here, so those questions might be better targeted toward the Minister of Agriculture.

 

A lot of the issues really are attached to a larger issue, which is affordability. I think our department has been very active in trying to take steps to make life more affordable for Nova Scotians. Our government has also done the same thing.

 

I'd just like to highlight a couple of things. We passed the first HST reduction in 14 years. As I mentioned in the last answer, a new School Lunch Program is in public schools. We've increased the Nova Scotia Child Benefit twice. We've set up a new disability support supplement, up to $200 per child, to help our IA clients with school costs in September and August. School supplies are very expensive. We've invested millions in partner organizations like Feed Nova Scotia. We've done historic funding in public housing and policy changes that tie important programs like Income Assistance and disability support to inflation, so those have been indexed. That's something that people across the province that are stakeholders in these groups have pushed the government to do. We were actually able to achieve that.

 

So there's been a lot of work done to try to make life more affordable across the province for Nova Scotians, particularly those who struggle, and food security is a big part of that. As I said, we have a holistic approach, but some of those targeted investments we made should help individuals across Nova Scotia achieve more food stability and more housing stability.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Certainly, the HST reduction is welcome. I will follow up with the Department of Agriculture on a food strategy, for sure. That's good advice. The minister is right; it's always been a passion of mine to try to improve local food production and ensure that every person gets food that is in this province. I am focusing on it with the minister's department because a lot of the residents that have come to me who don't have a lot of money to access food, a lot of them are Income Assistance recipients. So there is a definite group of people who are food insecure in the province and who are living in poverty. Trying to find ways to make sure that they can get food is really important.

 

I won't share too much information because I don't want to do anything that would identify the person - but recently I worked with someone, and they had been a victim of intimate partner violence. They were at the local transition house, and the local housing team found the person a place but had no furniture. They were sleeping on the floor and were put in the place. This person is a recipient of Income Assistance as well, but they were given the place on a Friday night. The person had no food and wasn't going to be able to eat until the food bank opened on Monday at noon. So there is a real challenge. It's a real issue for people in the province.

 

I'm wondering if the minister can share with us what initiatives the department has to help people - whether it's connecting them with Nova Scotia Works to find employment or training programs to help them once they're able and ready to integrate back into the workforce. I remember my first year as an MLA, transitioning from being an entrepreneur into this position of public service. I know it's changed somewhat, but if someone was on Income Assistance and they started a small business, if they made any money over $100, it was clawed back. So there was really no incentive - it was actually a disincentive for someone to start a small business and try to get back on their feet.

 

[11:30 a.m.]

 

The other part of that - and I believe we helped to get this changed, but I will bring it up, just to make sure - is that the department probably didn't have a lot of business people in it, and when they were looking at the revenue that someone on Income Assistance was earning if they had opened a small business, they were looking at the gross revenue that the person brought in, not the net. So if somebody brought in an extra $1,000 a month, and, their product costs were $800, they technically earned $200 net income. The department at that time - in 2017 - was looking at their gross income, that they earned $1,000.

 

The reason I'm bringing this up is that there was a definitive disincentive for people to be able to get off Income Assistance. I believe now people are allowed to earn up to a certain amount of money before it's clawed back. Could the minister share with us what that number is today?

 

Are there any programs in the department specifically geared for entrepreneurs or people who are a little entrepreneurial? The reason I ask this is because I can think of several people - residents who have come to me in my role as MLA who have certain skill sets, whether it's sewing, whether it's carpentry - they may not be able to start and run a business and be able to pay for all their costs of living, but they'd be able to make some money by starting a small business, and it would sure do a lot for their self-esteem and their self-worth.

 

I'm wondering if the department has any programs specifically - almost like micro-loans of some sort - to really incent people who are currently on Income Assistance or disability supports or both, to be able to tap into their entrepreneurialism with the ultimate goal that maybe they wouldn't need assistance; but more importantly, that their mental well-being would be improved.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: People complain about omnibus bills; I complain about omnibus questions. There was a myriad of questions there, but I'm used to the member. I'm going to try to answer them all. We'll see how we do here. This may take some time. She started out by talking about intimate partner violence and some of the issues that we've seen - a devastating increase in the last several weeks. Across government in the budget, there was about $103 million in various programs and supports for service providers across the province to approach decreasing and hopefully ending intimate partner violence in Nova Scotia. Our department had about $66 million of the $103 million flow through different programs that our department supports.

 

This morning, the Premier and the Minister responsible for the Advisory Council on the Status of Women made what I think is a landmark announcement, supporting transition houses across Nova Scotia - $17 million now. There's an additional $5 million-plus for some of that. I think $1.9 million also goes to transition houses, and the rest goes to other programs, like men's programs and other things. This is an additional appropriation that's been made because of the epidemic crisis we're facing now.

 

I was part of a meeting with the Premier, the Minister of Health and Wellness, the Minister of Justice, and the Minister responsible for the Advisory Council on the Status of Women in January, where we met with transition houses and their representatives. They submitted a proposal. Today, our government is very proud of the leadership of our Premier to meet every aspect of the proposal they sent to us. It's a four-year funding program. It's over $4 million of stable funding they can count on for the next four years, allowing them to project forward and plan for future years, instead of being on year-to-year funding. That's a huge initiative that was announced this morning. I'm very proud of the role our department played in that. We're very hopeful that will help support women in particular who suffer from gender-based violence and intimate partner violence. So that's good news.

 

Moving forward to supports for people who are on IA who are trying to get employment: One of the things we're trying to do is shift our focus to encourage people to get back to work. Currently in Nova Scotia, there are about 36,000-37,000 people who collect Income Assistance. There are probably roughly 16,000 or 17,000 people who, we believe, would not ever be able to work because of the disabilities they suffer from - think of someone who is severely autistic - but that leaves about 20,000 or so people who currently are on Income Assistance. Given the right supports, the right training, and the right mentorship, they could connect to employment.

 

One of the goals of our department is to support those people who are currently on Income Assistance to gain meaningful employment because the best social program - as I said yesterday - is a job. But in order to achieve that job and achieve that employment and achieve the ability to support your family, you need support to do that: you need the training opportunities; you need the mentorship; you need the connections; you need the confidence, quite frankly. There are numerous programs across the province that support that.

 

The other thing is, if you're currently on Income Assistance and you do get a job, we want to work with those people so they don't get that claw back that the member talked about. She asked what the figure would be. Currently in Nova Scotia, you can work when you're on Income Assistance and achieve income in addition to your IA of up to $350 a month. Now that's rough because there are some other factors that impact that, but we're working to try to remove any disincentive there would be to go to work. Because why would you risk taking a job if you're going to lose the consistent funding you have from IA? We recognize that. We're taking some steps to remove any disincentives. It's one of the roles as minister with the new name of our department - it's about opportunities. It's about getting people employed. So we're getting them off social assistance and getting them on the confidence and the ability to work in their own job.

 

I'm going to talk about a few programs that we have where we support employment services. These are Employment Service grant programs. There's Ability Works; Skills Work; Career Seek; employment programming; Move to Work; Work Activity Programs; youth programming; a great program I talked about yesterday called EDGE on Employment - I can talk more about that later - Education Works bursaries; Youth Development Initiative - that's a wage subsidy program; Career Rising; and the Youth Entrepreneurship initiative. I know the member talked about entrepreneurship, so that's for youth who are just starting up. It's some entrepreneurship training and connecting them with mentors - I've seen that program at work.

 

There are Indigenous youth development programs, African Nova Scotian youth development programs, youth development programs for children who are experiencing poverty - when we know that Nova Scotia experiences a troubling level of child poverty that we're working on - and newcomer youth projects for new Canadians who have come here from other countries. There will be some language skills training and some other opportunities in there to connect them to employment and give them the skills they need. I can read off each individual allocation of money, but all those programs together are an $18 million investment in employment services for various components for people looking to get off Income Assistance.

 

I'm going to talk now about a series of other programs. First, these are initiatives to attach people to the labour market, and I've talked a lot about that in the last five minutes. One of the long-term goals of Income Assistance is to support individuals to attach to employment and achieve financial independence. There are some recipients, however, who are living with a disability or a serious medical condition that may pose a challenge to attaching to employment and earning income. In recognition of this, we have introduced a disability supplement in November of 2023, providing eligible individuals with $300 a month, and the federal government is putting a program together that will probably be an additional $200 a month. We're expecting that to come. We're not going to claw back the $300. So that $200 will be in addition to the $300 Nova Scotia already provides, raising that total amount between the federal and provincial government to $500.

 

We have the Income Assistance program, which recently changed its earned income exemption regulations and policy to enable Income Assistance recipients who are working to retain more of their employment income, but who will see a reduction in their Income Assistance. As they earn more, their benefits continue to be reduced gradually, but not all at once. The recent enhancement enables clients to retain more of their income before their Income Assistance benefit begins to reduce. We also have the Employment Support Services. This provides employment and programming to Income Assistance recipients and their spouses and dependents to support them in achieving strength in employment skills, labour market attachment, and increased self-sufficiency.

 

Programming strives to reach individuals near, at risk, or living in poverty as a targeted whole-family approach to respond to systemic barriers that make exiting poverty challenging. Think of a mom with three children at home. We're trying to support people despite whatever home challenges they have or whatever their family situation is.

 

Employment programming is delivered through community-based service providers that receive funding from ESS. Examples of some of these are the post-secondary supports. These help Income Assistance clients with their dependents achieve meaningful long-term employment through post-secondary education at university, community college, and private career colleges. We also have Employability Enhancement Programming, which strengthens the employability of Employment Support and Income Assistance clients by providing pre-employment assessments, skills development, work experience, and wraparound supports to enhance their movement toward sustainable employment.

 

For example, I know that in Canada, over the next five to seven years, we're going to need 350,000 truck drivers. Think about that. We know that truck drivers run the economy. We have to have transportation of goods in this country. Truck driving is a big part of that. We have a huge country - huge, geographically, for a relatively small population. So transportation is a key factor in terms of managing our economy. This is a crucial cog in that wheel of our economy.

 

Of the 20,000 people I talked about who are currently receiving Income Assistance, who we believe with the right training, mentorships and supports we can connect to a skill like truck driving. There are many others: it could be electricians, you could work as an office clerk, or you could work in a movie theatre. But in order to do that, we have to build their confidence, build their skill set, build their employability skills. If they're going to go into a trade or a specific certificate program, we have to provide them support for that. So you're going to see that role in our department expanded - trying to support people and connect them to employment - because the jobs are going to be there.

 

We all know we talk to employers, and I know in Cumberland County the member is talking to employers up there. I talked to several of them. We know one of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs in Nova Scotia and across Canada are having is trying to get good, dependable labour in their businesses. It is very frustrating for them. Recently, the federal government was limiting immigration into the country because of the housing challenge and the pressure on health care system. But for a lot of our entrepreneurs, that was the labour pool they were using, so they're quite frustrated in that. I believe that, with the proper supports and proper training, we have that labour force to meet those needs right here at home.

 

When you look at the new name for our department and you look at the aspirational nature that we're implementing there. We're going to do a lot of work and put a lot of programming in place to connect people to employment and connect people to jobs because, as I've said several times, the best social program is a job.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I think we agree, and sorry for asking so many questions at once. I just have a couple of comments, and I'll try to not ask so many questions in this one.

 

The minister mentioned a youth entrepreneurship training program, which is great. I did want to mention to the minister - his department may already be aware of this - in Amherst, for the last say, seven years, there's been a board of directors for an organization called In the Works - A Social Enterprise Network. The mandate of that organization, which is really getting up and running now, is to help train youth, defined by this group as, I believe, 16 to 30. If they're struggling with addictions or mental illness, to give them the supports they need and to help integrate them into the workforce. It's perfect. I will mention that, and I'll mention it to the board members to look into this program, because there may be some funding there for them.

 

We have a lot of great people and a lot of great organizations, like In the Works. I want to mention Ericka Caissie and Terri McCormick. Those two women, both mothers who have very personal stories of their own children, saw this need in the community and put it to work. It's actually modelled after what's called the REACH Foundation in Prince Edward Island, which has very similar effective social enterprise helping our youth, so I want to mention that.

 

[11:45 a.m.]

 

Is there anything similar through the department for someone who may not be a youth? The reason I'm focusing on this - and I want to just drill down a little bit more - is because I see a lot of people who are not youth who have entrepreneurial skill sets, who may not be suitable to go out to a nine-to-five job or be in the traditional work force. It could be for many factors. It might be because they are a mom at home trying to raise four or five children, and they need something that is flexible.

 

I will say as a former employer and businesswoman for 20 years, my staff and I brought in people on several occasions as a co-op or on work terms who were trying to reintegrate back into the workforce. And the Number 1 issue that I saw people struggling with that was a barrier for them for being successful was mental illness. I don't know if that is something that is integrated into some of these training programs; I haven't had a business now since 2018, so there's been a lot of change since then. Are some of these programs that the minister is talking about, of helping people to reintegrate back into the workforce - Are there mental health supports integrated into these programs?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Specifically on In the Works, I'm not sure that our department funds them directly. However, we can have our ESS local staff members reach out to them, or they can reach out to those members, to see if they would be eligible for grants that we currently provide, because that might be an avenue for funding. We do fund programs like that or at least what you've described in other parts of the province so there might be an opportunity there for In the Works. Maybe if I was up in the Cumberland County, I could drop in and see them and see some of the good work they're doing.

 

Some of the programs attaching people to employment that we're talking about are very flexible - I'm thinking the EDGE on Employment program. I talked about the EDGE program yesterday. I might talk about it later to answer a specific question. We provide wraparound services for many of these programs that are flexible enough to meet the needs of the individual clients.

 

A person might need a specific skill training or the person might need some basic employment skills, like how to show up at work, how to interact with the public, and how to work at a front desk, and some of that has to do with some mental health challenges - nervousness, anxiety, and others. The programs that have been put in place have that flexibility. There's a focus on making them nimble enough to adapt to the needs of the client who comes to them.

 

The programs are not designed so that a person comes in and that won't work for them because of this. The programs are designed to have the flexibility to meet individual needs, and those individual needs involve things like mental health training, confidence, and other issues to overcome, like anxiety. There are programs in place that will support those needs.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I'm going to move on and talk about something that's very important to us up in Cumberland County, and also important province-wide, that's going through some big changes. The minister, of course, knows about The Sunset Community residential facility and the changes that are going on there. I don't know if he's here in the room - not everyone is supportive of the changes - and I'm sure the minister knows that - in particular family members. Sadly, one of the residents there recently passed away from probably old age, but his mom had requested a meeting with the former minister and was refused.

 

I'm wondering if the minister is willing to meet with any concerned family members. Rightly or wrongly, what's happening - there are differing views - but for the residents of The Sunset Community, this is their home. This person who recently passed away there had been there about 50 years. This was his home, and everyone else living there are his family. It's a big change and a big disruption of people's lives. Some people are excited about it. Other people not so much.

 

I am a little concerned that families aren't necessarily having their concerns heard. Not by the local people: The administrator there, Julie Hoeg, is incredible. You couldn't find a better executive director. She's incredible. She cares about her staff. She cares about the residents there, and she has taken this on. The minister probably knows Julie and probably knows this. She has taken this on 100 per cent. It's moving forward. She knows that this is going to happen, and she's doing her best with housing projects and so on. I had met with her a few years ago because she was concerned about what's going to happen with all the staff. There were concerns amongst the staff that some of them may lose their jobs. I think they've all been assured that won't happen.

 

The minister can correct me but I think that their people will not lose their jobs. In fact, they are probably going to need more employees and more staff to help ensure that there's 24-hour care, or services and support for these individuals. I wonder if the minister would like to talk for a few minutes about the transition that's going on at Sunset Community residential facility.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: As the member knows, I've been to this facility several times in one of my previous roles. This is a court-ordered human rights remedy. It was a human rights challenge. I talked a bit about this yesterday, but I'm going to say it again. It's a transition, and it's change, and change is tough, and I realize that many of the residents in these institutions have been there for the bulk of their lives, and that's their home, but the government is mandated to make this change. I support the change, and I think in the long run, it's going to be good for everybody involved, but it is a change.

 

In terms of the executive director of that facility, the top person in charge of the remedy met with them as early as last week. There is constant communication between departmental representatives and people in these institutions that are being closed down over time. There are 43 residents at The Sunset Community now. We are not taking any new people into the institutions. That's the stage we're at, and slowly, those people who are currently living in these institutions will be able to go out in the community.

 

Most Nova Scotians who suffer from disabilities already live in communities - 78 per cent of them - and there's a myriad of options they have. I guess those options are really what I want to talk about. For the first time, many of these people who suffer from disability will have choice. Choice is at the centre of the remedy, and the funding that will now be attached to them goes to them directly. Each individual person who's moving out into community can choose to live where they want, with whom they want, and how they want. This is something that didn't exist beforehand. They had limited choice and limited options. We've had to add a large number of staff to be able to facilitate the transition so that we comply with the remedy.

 

We've added 120 new staff members who are in four different zones in the province. One of the roles they're fulfilling is to meet with individual people with disabilities or their families - depending on the severity of the disability they suffer - and design an individual living plan. They might go live in an apartment. They might live with a roommate. They might go back home, but the funding to support that follows them directly. We have day programs throughout the province that are looking at their business models as well, to try to match the challenges of the new system.

 

This is a five-year program. We're in Year 2. The first year was laying the groundwork. In Year 2, we started to see people moving out into community. We established the funding bans. One of the challenges that we've had as a department as we move forward with the remedy is the availability of the workforce. We just talked about that in the last several questions.

 

As early as last week, I announced a new subsidy program; it's a bursary program to cover tuition for people who are going into programs to take social work. It was a partnership we had with the Nova Scotia Community College. There's a couple of other groups as well. We are taking necessary steps so that we have the people trained and certified to work with these people who suffer from disabilities as they set up their life plans and their living arrangements, moving into being in compliance with the remedy.

 

As I said, we're in Year 2. We have three more years to go, but we believe we're on track, and we're going to meet the challenge of that remedy. But I want to be clear: This is transformative change. This is a change in the way we approach this system. The people who are currently in it, some of them are going to struggle with that change because sometimes they're going to be removed from the place they think is home. I talked about this yesterday, and I'm going to say it again: I think 25 years from now, when we look back at this transformative change we're going through right now, we're going to see the benefit of it throughout society.

 

When you've looked at it in the past, when we've closed down institutions before, and I think of - I talked about orphanages yesterday, we used to keep children who lost their parents in an institution. We called them orphanages. Now we have a great foster system, and we have other supports for families to take in children - whether they're biologically related or whether they're socially related - into their houses. It's a much better, supportive, and loving system than we had before when it was institutionalized.

 

I don't even want to get into the disaster and the generational damage that was done by the Residential School Program. I'm not saying that the structures that we have currently supporting people with disabilities are like that, but any time we have closed down institutions and put people in community and set up the supports and structures, it's been a benefit; it's been positive. I really think that, once we get through the transition part of this program, we're going to see the benefits throughout society of how we support people who have challenges in the future.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: The minister may not be able to speak to this today, but I'll ask because it's on the minds of a lot of residents, as well as community members. Has the department started any conversations with regards to what's going to happen to the facility, as it was not that many years ago - I don't have the exact date - but around $14 million of provincial money was spent upgrading that building? I believe it was literally a year or two before this decision was made. It's a good building - a large building - and I'm wondering will a certain number of residents continue to live there for several years, depending on their needs, or what is the department planning for that structure?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I can't talk about specific plans for that structure because that's not at my fingertips, and probably that's not been set yet, but I can tell you that there's a lot of interest in these buildings across the province. From a government perspective, with the Department of Health and Wellness being involved, we're always looking at our department for social housing and shelter space. We're looking for transformation housing; we're looking for supportive housing. So I don't think there are going to be any challenges in finding a very suitable role for any of these institutions that we're looking at right now.

 

It might be private sector, or it could be public sector, but I don't think there's going to be any issue. I don't think you're going to see these buildings left derelict, especially with the housing crisis we're facing now. I really have no worries in that area. I can't say specifically what will happen to that facility, but it is a good facility. I have been there several times. I think you'll see a lot of interest for a positive use for that facility after we get through this transformation and people are moved out. I have no doubt that there will be a very positive either public use or private use for those buildings.

 

[12:00 p.m.]

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I'm sure the minister has a number of how many people with disabilities would be living in an institution province-wide. Out of that number, does the department have an estimate of how many people will need to continue to live in a facility or an institution? I will share one of my concerns with this all along as a nurse is the fact that there are some people that need supports. There are some people that just don't have the ability to live independently, and we sadly had a situation, and they've shared this publicly, so I will reference them.

 

They have a son living in a facility. It's not in Cumberland County, but they live in Cumberland County, and they kept warning people that their son was not able to be moved out. They warned several times, several situations. Unfortunately, he was moved out and almost died - went through a second-storey window, but that person is non-verbal, needs two people 24/7. There are some people living in our institutions that I personally don't see how they could be moved to community. I'm wondering if the minister could speak to that and what's the plan for those individuals?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Specifically answering the numeric part of her question, between residential care facilities and adult residential centres we call ARCs, there are about 700 people currently in these institutions. That's been reduced by 20 per cent, and those institutions aren't taking any new intakes as of January 1^st this year, so it's about 700. Each one of them, as they move out of the institutions, the funding follows them directly. There are funding bans that were announced this year for how much a resident can be entitled to as we transition them, and for people that have intense and huge challenges, there's a high-level funding ban for that. In a case like you're talking and were describing there, we would be able to - those are not rare, but there are fewer of them. We would be able to meet their needs and structures individually.

 

As I said, we have additional staff throughout the province. Their job is to meet with families and people that have disabilities and design an individualized plan so we can meet their needs. The funding that we used to spend on other parts of the program supporting disabilities has been reallocated to support people directly.

 

The message to that family would be that change is tough, and change is scary, but the funding is going to be there, and we have staff that work directly with them to make sure any safety concerns or medical concerns are addressed as we move forward with the remedy.

 

THE CHAIR: With three minutes remaining, the honourable member for Cumberland North.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I'm wondering if the minister has spoken with the Minister of Health and Wellness. Since there's no intakes to know how many people are taking up - I say taking up - in an acute care bed right now in our hospital system that are there chronically because there's no place for them to go. I know of some, so I'm just wondering, because there is now a gap of people that maybe did go to hospital, family couldn't take care of them at home any longer, and there would be a transition to admit them into one of the facilities, and now that there are no intakes, there are some that are in our hospitals and in an acute care bed but they're long-term.

 

I'm wondering if the minister is aware of this and, if yes, does he know how many there would be in the province? If he's not aware of this, is this something he would be willing to speak with the Minister of Health and Wellness about?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We currently know of about 50 people who are in hospitals that would qualify for the remedy, but just like some of the institutions we talked about - hospitals are institutions too, so they will not be there. They'll be moving out in the community as well, and any person with disabilities who needs medical attention is currently getting that medical attention through the Department of Health and Wellness, so this isn't going to cause additional strain on the system. There are going to be resources that will help them set up in community so they'll be able to move out of those hospitals.

 

This is part of that transition and part of the wraparound services we're able to offer people with disabilities now as we move forward with the remedy, so you're going to see services in place to support those . . .

 

THE CHAIR: Order. The Liberal time is up now. It's now the NDP's turn.

 

The honourable member for Fairview-Clayton Park.

 

LINA HAMID: I will stick to questions on the remedy because after last night, I found a lot of emails from folks saying: Hey, go and ask this question. So I have some of that. First, again, I'm sticking to information or questions about the remedy.

 

The human rights remedy legally requires that a total of 110 folks under the age of 65 currently living in long-term care be offered community-based living. I may be repeating some stuff that was already said. Since the remedy came into effect in February of 2023 through to the end of December 2024, the province's data shows that a total of only six younger people have been moved out of nursing homes compared to the 110 offers of spaces that the remedy requires by March 2025.

 

Given the Premier's historic apology made to persons with disabilities in November 2023, what's the reason for things not moving as fast? What's the delay?

 

HON. SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Just to backtrack to the start of this remedy, there were two experts that were appointed to design how the Province of Nova Scotia would respond to the human rights remedy, and the Disability Rights Coalition as well as the Province of Nova Scotia agreed on those two. The plan is there. It's a five-year plan. It ends in 2028, and we believe we're on track to meeting all the requirements of the remedy by that date. Now, there are some components of that we're probably a little ahead in and some we're a little behind in, but we have an external monitor that we report to twice a year. We do an annual report which will come in May. I'm sure the member will want to access and take a look at that report in May.

 

One of the challenges that slowed us down on a couple of areas was being able to find the workforce to meet the needs we had to support. That's why we have a workforce strategy that we unveiled a couple of months ago. Now, this workforce strategy is going to give us a plan so that we can have the people in place that are certified and qualified to provide services to the clients who are - some are leaving institutions and some are moving out in community. We are moving forward as fast as we can with the resources we have, keeping in mind that we have to do this in a way that we're empathetic to the people that we're working with as we transition. So, we are firmly convinced that this third year, you'll start to see some real progress in where people end up more permanently.

 

The first year was laying the groundwork and working with service providers, providing supports for them as they change their business models, communicating the remedy, and hiring staff. I would have to say that probably the most important thing is the funding we've allocated to this - it's $120 million this year - so this is not something we're trying to do on the cheap. Our financial resources are clearly there for us to achieve the requirements of the remedy. The challenge we face in terms of workforce, we have a plan and a strategy to address that. I think you will see the external monitor, when we make our annual report here in May, will note that some challenges that they identified last year have now been taken care of and are achieved.

 

So, this is not linear. This is not going to be something where you hit every single benchmark, but any time we face a deficit of where we should be, we will allocate the resources and the plans we need to keep us on track so we can achieve all the aspects that are required by the remedy by the deadline of 2028.

 

[12:15 p.m.]

 

LINA HAMID: My understanding is that between the period of April 2024 and December 2024, there have been zero younger individuals being assessed through the Disability Support Program or moved out. That's a big chunk of time for there not to have been any movement of folks. I'm sure there may be a reason why something internally that was not known to the public. Is there a reason for that?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I'm just going to ask the member to maybe clarify that question because we're trying to get the right information to her quite sincerely. So, when you're talking young people moving out, can you maybe just clarify - is it hospitals or is it institutionalized clients? Maybe just answer that, if you could.

 

LINA HAMID: Absolutely. That would be assessing folks to be moved out of institutions. I'll rephrase the question, and I apologize if the way I'm saying it doesn't make total sense. I'll do my best. Between April of 2024 through to December of 2024, there have been no folks institutionalized under the age of 65 assessed under the Disability Support Program or moved out. I hope that makes more sense - folks in institutions.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We think what you're referring to - the information you have - surrounds people moving out of nursing homes. Is that accurate? Okay. We're on track now. I understand. That's some intensive planning there, and some of that goes back to some of the staffing challenges we were facing. We have now 14 people who are on transition plans to move out of some nursing homes. Again, people who are currently living in nursing homes who have disabilities typically have some more intense challenges, so they take a little more planning and a little more care to make sure that the services that they require are being able to be provided, and they would have been impacted by some of the workforce challenges we've had, and that's one of the reasons we developed that workforce strategy. So we're already seeing the benefits of that, and this being the third year is kind of when we would have targeted most of them.

 

The big number, though, for people moving out in the community, we've already reduced it by 20 percent, and 78 percent of people who are receiving benefits are already in community, so I think you'll see those numbers spike up tremendously this year because this third year is when we anticipated that to happen anyway. So stay tuned, and I think the report we see in May will reflect that.

 

LINA HAMID: I appreciate that. I do look forward to seeing those updates. I would actually like to go into the staffing challenges a little bit. Obviously, when the remedy was introduced two years ago and became a legally binding order in June of 2023, I imagine that there would have been some planning for staffing at that time, maybe not to the extent of what's actually needed because I recognize that when there's a new program being launched, you might not know how many people are actually needed, and as you dive in, you realize there's more need for staff.

 

Going back, in June of 2023 when it became legally binding, there was also requirement specifically that the province must have hired and trained 50 local area coordinators and 65 intensive planning and support coordinators. However, based on data that was released, I believe, in 2024, only 26 LACs or local area coordinators were hired and 20 intensive planning and support coordinators.

 

With nearly two years to hire the 115 staff needed to carry out the remedy, can the minister clarify or elaborate on what the challenges have been specifically in terms of staffing? This might have been something covered by my colleague previously, but if that can be elaborated to me, that would be fantastic.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We talked to the very dedicated and excellent public servants who are working on the remedy, particularly the ones working on it full-time. They will tell you that they're kind of building the plane as we try to fly it, and the remedy required us to create ten new classifications of jobs to achieve what we needed to do, and a lot of times, these new classifications of jobs, once we get them set up, they're drawing from other people from other parts of the department, so I'm going to give you a specific example.

 

Your IPSCs, we have 23 right now. In order to meet the challenges in that classification, you have to have a health care certification. Currently we're investing billions in health care, and sometimes we're in competition with ourselves in different departments in Nova Scotia. So, getting people to be certified to be the IPSCs is a challenge, and that's why we've implemented this workforce strategy because we need people to be able to move into these certifications so they can be qualified to deliver what we need them to deliver to support the remedy and the clients that we're currently moving out. You're going to see us continue to work on that.

 

There are some recruitment practices going on. There are retention practices going on because, remember, once these people get health care qualification, they're then eligible and certified to do other roles, maybe not just in Nova Scotia. They can be approached by other provinces. We're going to work very, very hard with implementing this workforce strategy so we have the workforce available to meet the challenges. That's been identified. We're taking very, very quick action to try to make sure we have that.

 

One of the things I've talked about as minister is - with my background in education - we need to recruit more social workers in the province. We need to recruit more people earlier to fulfill these roles. What I would like to see is work done in our schools, and this is something I talked to the Nova Scotia Community College about when we did our announcement last week about the bursary program. In every school in the province, or most of them, there's some sort of support set up for students they have that have disabilities. There could be learning centres, or they might be fully integrated into a classroom, but we have students right there in that building that might be really good candidates to go in and get these certifications, be social workers, or even try to achieve higher levels of certification.

 

I think a great program would be if our high schools could actually offer course credit for young people to go work with students who have disabilities, develop some of those skills. That work is very challenging as a career. It's not for everyone, but some people are - we had some today. These are born social workers who have it in their heart to do this really difficult and challenging work, but it's also rewarding work. I think we could give young people - and I'm a cheerleader for young people. People criticize young people today. I really think it's not them, it's us. We have to adjust to a new generation, and I think that the workforce is there. I think if we start early enough and help young people see the opportunity they might have to work in this field when they're still in school - and the best way I think to do is give them course credit. In a four-day rotating block system that most high schools in Nova Scotia have, you might get a course credit for going into a learning centre and working with a very qualified and excellent learning centre teacher or a teacher in the classroom who's great at diversifying instruction and support a student in there, and you would get course credit for doing that. I think we have to take some out-of-the-box thinking if we're going to have the workforce we need and attract that workforce to support things like the remedy but social work in general.

 

We celebrated Social Workers Month this morning. We did the announcement in the House. We had social workers here. All the social workers out there who are working every day in a very challenging job, I want you to know that we hear what you're saying. We know how challenging that work is, but we also respect and thank you for the work you're doing and realize how rewarding it can be as well.

 

Those are just some ideas we have around workforce, but workforce is a challenge across government. It's across the public sector and private sector. I think if we had some out-of-the-box thinking, we could attract a lot more people to take on this very challenging yet rewarding work.

 

LINA HAMID: I will take a moment to also throw in a quick plug about social workers. Absolutely amazing human beings; one of my really good friends is a social worker and so yes, a shout-out to social workers. Obviously, there have been some challenges, and that's always expected when new programs are being rolled out. There were some recommendations made, I believe by the independent monitor's report that was released last year, saying that there may be some additional supports needed to carry out this program or to carry out the remedy.

 

Taking the issue with staffing or the struggle with staffing into consideration, can the minister elaborate: Do we see us hitting the five-year target to address those goals? I guess I'll leave the question there.

 

[12:30 p.m.]

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I can talk about the remedy all day long. I think it's going to be a great change in supports for people that will be living in community that have disabilities. I've read the report, I've also been briefed on the report, and I get weekly briefings on the progress on the remedy, and we're seeing great progress. We're convinced that we are on track to achieve all the requirements of the remedy by 2028. The next two years are going to be pivotal and key. You're going to see a lot of actual movement now because, as I said before, the first year we were laying the groundwork. The second year, we started to see some action in terms of hiring and getting people in place to manage the remedy as we implement the actual transformative change.

 

Part of that report was the external evaluator was looking for some more information and some more data, which we did provide. I think you'll see when they make their annual report coming up here in May that there was a huge effort in the department to make sure we achieved the suggestions - it wasn't really a recommendation, more suggestions they made as we move forward. I think those gaps have been closed, and I think the report in May will show that.

 

LINA HAMID: Very excited for the report in May. I know that the minister just said that he'd love to talk about the remedy, but those are all the questions that I have about the remedy for now. I want to stick to questions regarding folks living with disabilities. I'm going to actually ask a very, very specific question from a constituent that sent an email saying that there seems to be something in the regulations for employment support and Income Assistance around cohabitation for folks living with disabilities where - sorry, I guess when somebody with disabilities is living with somebody else, so cohabitating or getting married or what have you. Then I guess it's a household income that's taken into consideration and therefore, the person with disabilities who even - yes, they are in a situation where there's another income in the household, but their needs are still there.

 

Can the minister clarify if there is a stipulation in there that folks who are receiving disability but are cohabitating with somebody are no longer eligible to receive disability? Some clarification on that would be great.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We're just going to seek some further clarification on this individual case. Are we talking about two individuals living together that are currently on ESIA, like the Income Assistance, or is it one of the cohabitants is getting support directly from the Disability Support Program? There are very different requirements and different regulations governing each of those, and it even could be someone's on Income Assistance and the other person is on the Disability Support Program, and there's different regulations affecting those, so it's hard to give the answer to the question until I have a little more clarity around the circumstance.

 

LINA HAMID: On that note, maybe if it's all right, we can talk about it separately outside for this specific - like you said, obviously there seems to be a lot of variables, so I'd love to maybe have a further chat about this for my constituent.

 

In January, there was a Disability Support Workforce Strategy that was released by the government, and at the time eight of the fourteen actions intended to be completed by 2024-2025 were currently in progress, and so six have not been started yet.

 

Can the minister provide an update on this? When will all the actions be completed?

 

I should also say that this maybe is something that is more interdepartmental than just under OSD. I'm not sure if there's maybe some involvement with the Department of Labour, Skills and Immigration, for example, but just some updates on the progress on that would be great.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We only recently released the workforce plan, the workforce strategy, and we're very excited about it. We think it's going to show great benefits. We have the funding to implement it. We have a strategy there, so we're quite confident that we will achieve all of the recommendations as we implement this strategy, but the strategy isn't designed to be implemented immediately. There's going to be a lot of work that has to be done with other services providers - like the community colleges, like other post-secondary institutions - to get people certified. It's not something you can snap your fingers and implement across government because we have some partners we have to work with, but the strategy is sound. I think most people have said that the strategy looks like it'll be effective. If there are components of it that don't have the positive results that we want to see, we'll adapt and make changes to it.

 

It's not a static document. We'll probably make some additions and some subtractions if some programs aren't working. I mean, you can start a program, but you only have two people sign up when you thought there'd be 40. So it's going to be flexible, but the goal of it is to make sure we have the workforce available to meet the requirements of the remedy, and I'm fairly convinced after looking at the strategy myself, the meetings we had, and the new program we announced last week with the community college, we're going to be successful in that recruitment because we're providing tuition support, for example. I think that will be very, very attractive to people who want to get into this field.

 

LINA HAMID: I'd like to jump into children and youth. I believe the minister has mentioned before that the office is something that's being worked on. Recognizing that a lot of work goes into anything that comes out of - anything new again, but can the minister maybe give us a timeline? If not a timeline, is there a percentage of how much we are to the finish line? Any sort of update on that would be greatly appreciated.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I was able to address this yesterday when talking to the Leader of the Liberal Party, so I'll just reiterate what I said. This is an office that I am personally committed to; it's something that I was waiting for before I became a minister. All three political parties in this house - recognized parties - have put forward legislation supporting this type of office previous to taking government over. Our party is the one that actually passed the legislation, so our department now is currently setting this up, so we're at the stage where we're developing regulations. It's within the department. I get regular updates on it.

 

We're also working with some stakeholders and some providers to give us some advice on how best effectively this office could be established and also jurisdictional scans that see offices in other provinces and what was effective and what wasn't effective. The direction I've given them is that we'd like to see this as soon as possible with the caveat that it has to be set up well because you don't want to implement an office like this and have to go back and make changes later on.

 

So this is something we're going to establish. It's something that I think there's some emphasis on within the department. That said, however, we're not going to establish something just to establish it. I want to make sure it's done well because this is an office that should support children for future generations, and we have to take the time to get it right. That's what the direction I've given is, and I'm hoping it'll be sooner than later, but when we do it, I can guarantee you it's going to be done right.

 

LINA HAMID: I do appreciate that. That's something I definitely do also care very deeply about because seeing the flipside where children who are very bright and don't have the opportunities to them or things are not set up appropriately for them, how that could have a negative impact.

 

Can I ask: Is there money in the budget towards the planning or anything going towards the setting up of this office?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: There's not a specific budget line, but the work is ongoing in the department. I get regular updates on it, so there are staff within the department who are working on this and working on these regulations. We're also in contact with stakeholders who will give us some advice on this. I met with them as recently as last month. So, although there's no specific budget line, there is work ongoing within the department under other budgets.

 

LINA HAMID: I wanted to go back to something that we touched on yesterday regarding children living in food insecurity and recognizing that there are lots of great programs and supports at the schools, but when they go home, that's not available. I actually heard last night from an amazing person that works with SchoolsPlus saying that they are technically, based on the rules, not allowed to provide any sort of additional take-home foods for the children. A lot of them still do it because a fed kid is a kid who can learn and grow and thrive. Can the minister elaborate: Is this, in fact, a policy? Can we try to look at that?

 

[12:45 p.m.]

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I guess the specific question on policy would have to go to the Minister of Education and Early Childhood Development and Advanced Education. However, what I will say is I think what the member is referring to is the actual budget SchoolsPlus may have to support the students in the building who they're assigned to, but SchoolsPlus acts more as coordinators than they do as service deliverers. If there's food left over at lunch that hasn't be eaten and it's going to go sour, it could be a teacher, it could be an educational program assistant, it could be an administrator, or it could be SchoolsPlus who will bag that up and often send it home to students who need it.

 

Makes sense, doesn't it? It happens every day. There are also food drives that happen in multiple schools across the province. Probably almost every school in the province, one way or another, does food drives, where that food is then distributed out to needy families with students in that building.

 

I can tell you that one of the biggest changes I saw as an educator from when I started - probably before the member who asked me the questions was born - in schools was the amount of connection between home and school and the support the schools are giving to the home. And SchoolsPlus does a lot of this now. They're a great resource for schools. If a student needs glasses, for example, or administrators and teachers in the school think that the student needs an eye test and they haven't had one, SchoolsPlus can set the appointment up. They can actually transport the student if the family can't do that. So, they fulfill a lot of roles in the building to support wraparound services for students that we couldn't before.

 

If they have a location in the school - and many schools have enough space in Nova Scotia, particularly rural Nova Scotia - it's a little harder in urban areas, where there's no space at all because of the population growth of schools - there's food that can be provided through SchoolsPlus to that room, so students will be more open to coming into that room and using the other resources that the SchoolsPlus workers have. The only reason I can really talk with any expertise about this is because I was in schools.

 

These are questions more for the Minister of Advanced Education and Education and Early Childhood Development, but I can tell you that no one should - with the resources we have in place - go hungry while they're at school. And in many cases, houses where students have food insecurity at home, the schools are working with other resources in the community to help facilitate supports for those homes, as well. Many times, you'll have local grocery stores, like Masstown Market - in the Chair's riding, by the way - provide schools in the local area with apples, oranges, and other healthy things. They will pull up and drop off food, and that can be distributed during the school day or sent home with students. So, we have many people across Nova Scotia showing extreme generosity, particularly, in these tough times. I guess I should congratulate Laurie Jennings and the Masstown Market for the work they do to support schools.

 

I was principal of a couple of schools they supported. I can tell you, at Great Village Elementary School with 47 kids, there was more food coming there from Masstown Market than we could possibly give out. I could have shipped it to other schools. So, we do have people in communities who know that students in the school are suffering from food insecurity, who support those families, but they do it through the school.

 

There's a lot of good work being done, but I'm a huge promoter of SchoolsPlus because, when you have really effective SchoolsPlus personnel in your building, it relieves a lot of the work that teachers were doing before to support students, in terms of what the school is doing to support them when they're out of school and when they're home.

 

THE CHAIR: I thank the minister for the recognition of a great business and a great family in Colchester North.

 

The honourable member for Fairview-Clayton Park.

 

LINA HAMID: Yes, the SchoolsPlus staff are wonderful people. Even in my brief time as MLA, I've met a bunch in my constituency. But even working in non-profits, particularly, when I was working with the Halifax Refugee Clinic, those are kids that obviously needed a lot of extra support, and the staff - remarkable, amazing people.

 

I am actually sticking to food insecurity. At the end of the fiscal year last year, there was $2 million that went out to address food insecurity to community organizations. It went to United Way Halifax to be distributed to organizations. I guess United Way Halifax was advised that family resource centres were not eligible to apply to this funding because they were already receiving funding to address food insecurity.

 

But we heard from some family resource centres - particularly ones that are in more rural areas, where they may be the only community service provider - that they were not able to use the funding that they're receiving as a family resource centre for food insecurity to help seniors living alone or other single individuals if they weren't a family. And so, they weren't able to apply to United Way Halifax funding to be able to support those seniors or single folks living with food insecurity. Also, the reason they weren't able to apply to it is because they already have funding, but the funding could not address, again, this very specific group of folks who actually tend to be impacted by food insecurity more.

 

It's not really a question but just something to put out there. Again, I can talk over and over about how amazing family resource centres are because they really, truly are, but where they may be the only community organization in some communities that are able to provide services to community members, not being able to provide food supports to folks who are not a family does leave a lot of people falling through the cracks. So can the minister maybe explain or elaborate on whether funding to more rural family resource centres or anything of the sort can expand to be able to be accessed by others?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Again, this came up a bit yesterday, and I've talked about one of our family resource centres - the North Grove in Dartmouth. They received $357,485 from our department. Family resource centres across the province are funded to the tune of $6,515,450, and they are throughout Nova Scotia. The funding you're referring to last year, at the end of the year, was for the collaborative food networks. It was a $2 million funding they received at the end of the year last year, and they distribute that funding to food banks and other things in their areas. Food banks were probably the first priority for that funding, and that's the umbrella organization over them. So they're separate from the family resource centres, who have their own funding line.

 

If there is a gap in an area, where, let's say, the collaborative food network doesn't have a food bank, and people are over-relying on the family resource centre - because family resource centres offer a myriad of services, where the food banks are more just for food - then that's where the family resource centres should contact our office. And we can see what we can do to support them in doing that, but we do know that food banks are now throughout Nova Scotia. As minister, my goal is to have a day when we don't need food banks. That would be the overall goal. We're not anywhere near there yet, and we're going through some tough times now, but hopefully, as we move forward and provide services throughout Nova Scotia, we'll be able to provide the funding necessary to support families. If there's a gap where we don't have services being provided by a local food bank and the family resource centre is being overwhelmed, that's something they should talk to us about, and we'll work with them collaboratively to try to see what we can do to provide supports for that particular geographic area.

 

LINA HAMID: Going back to our conversation yesterday, a good friend of mine who works in housing support reached out to me last night to tell me a bit about HIFIS. My understanding is that while HIFIS is there to support them in case management and being able to get a sort of picture of what's happening in terms of homelessness, they did identify that there are big groups of hidden homelessness that are being missed out in HIFIS. That would include, for example, women staying in an unsafe environment - a big one - and folks staying who are couch surfing. Larger newcomer families are missing from that, as well.

 

A better count, it seems, is the count of unsheltered folks done - there's a rough sleeping survey done by community groups. It might not be directly connected to OSD, but non-profits a lot of times try to figure things out themselves. This might not be OSD, but there seems to be a rough sleeping survey that's being done by community groups, and that's what's giving the most accurate picture for the service providers as to what's happening on the ground.

 

Maybe I'll leave that with the minister because, again, I'm not 100 percent familiar with HIFIS. If I can get some clarification on: Do we know there are gaps in terms these people identified missing from HIFIS, and is there anything we're doing to close these gaps?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We think what you're probably talking about is what we call a PIT count, or a point-in-time count. That's counting people, and that would include if they'd been identified to one of the service providers who's collecting that data - anyone who is hidden homeless. The HIFIS is a case management program, and people who are hidden homeless can be part of that if they've been identified to that service provider. You'll never catch everybody because if you don't know, you can't count them, but there are processes in place.

 

One of the challenges we have is that this is more of an art than a science because we can't tell you tomorrow exactly how many people are homeless because there are some who are hidden. What we have to do is estimate a lot, and the more data we can get, the better and closer that estimate will be so we can allocate resources appropriately. We're always looking to gather data in the department, but the HIFIS is a program that we can use across the board to manage the cases. We'll look at other ways to collect data. In fact, we're always looking for the best ways to collect data.

collect data.

 

[1:00 p.m.]

 

One of the problems we have is that we have different service providers using different methods: some people were counting tents, some people count individuals, and some people count people sleeping on couches. That's a hard one, because they might sleep on a couch tonight then find there's a family reunification, and they're back home tomorrow.

 

When you're making analysis, making government decisions, and putting programming in place, your decisions are only as good as the data you have. AHANS has taken this on. They're working hard to provide our government with good data. We have a lot of faith in them. They're one of our greatest service providers. We work closely with them. The point is that the more data we can have and the more accurate data we have, the better the programming we can put in place and the better budget allocation we can make.

 

LINA HAMID: I will get some clarification because the way they worded it, I didn't think they were talking about the point-in-time count, but now I'm thinking they might have been talking about it. I'll get some clarification on that.

 

This is someone, again, who works in non-profit. You can tell non-profit is near and dear to my heart. They wanted to say kudos on the recent online intakes for income assistance. It's been helping community groups a lot - a shoutout to a big positive change that was made. As well, the Nova Scotia Provincial Housing Agency for seniors and families - it seems there's some work to become more efficient there, so they did want me also to bring that up.

 

With the rental subsidies now being under the Department of Growth and Development, which seems to be causing a lot of issues for community organizations that are supporting people. It seems, from the email, that OSD workers - frontline workers - might agree with this sentiment. There's a giant clog in the pipeline of homelessness, and community organizations are doing their best to support that, but there's still a big lack in staffing and wait times. This is not just the rental subsidy but also in terms of the homelessness supports provided by OSD.

 

Is that something the minister has heard from frontline workers in the department, that having that housed under Growth and Development is showing any sort of issues for frontline workers?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: As she knows, we don't administrate rent subsidies, and the issues around that are for the Department of Growth and Development, so it's more a direct question for that minister and that department.

 

What our department does have is diversion funding. I want to make sure people are aware of this. We get great support from our stakeholders, our service providers, and our non-profits. I didn't mention non-profits before. I want a shoutout for them too. We have great non-profits in Nova Scotia, supporting people suffering from homelessness and suffering from food insecurity.

 

One of the programs our department has is called diversion funding. Let's say you're renting an apartment, and you're having trouble making ends meet. Then you have a car accident, or your boiler goes down, and you have this huge cost. That's where diversion funding can come in and support people when things like that happen, so they can make their rent and make those payments.

 

If you know someone who is housing insecure - they're in a home, but sometimes they can't quite make it, and the landlord's putting pressure on them - we have a program that will support them with one-off funding to help them make ends meet so they don't become homeless just because they had something happen. It could be an injury, where someone has to go to the hospital, and they're out of work and don't have Workers' Compensation or EI.

 

We do have a program to support people when they have a financial crisis like that so they don't become homeless. As we know, if you become homeless it's awfully hard to get back into a home. This diversion funding keeps people in their homes, it allows people to make their rent in an emergency situation, and that's something our department steps up and does. In terms of the rent subsidies and that program, those questions are better targeted toward the Department of Growth and Development.

 

LINA HAMID: For housing support - there seems to be a huge housing support deficit in certain pockets around the province, and quite a bit seems to be folks who were initially sponsored by the government to come to Canada. They're being housed in places and supported for a year under the sponsorship program - the Private Sponsorship of Refugees Program. They'll be housed in houses, but then once the one year of support is done, a lot of times folks can't make the rent in the houses they've been placed in for that one year.

 

That doesn't totally fall under OSD, but is the minister aware of any pockets of a lack of housing support workers around the province, and is there a plan to address that?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I'm jumping up here for a full briefing because there's only 38 seconds left, and I want to try to answer the question as much as I can.

 

Newcomers to Canada do qualify for the ESIA program. They do qualify for income assistance. If they're in a situation where they become income insecure, they do qualify for those same benefits that others in Nova Scotia do.

 

We also have a good relationship with ISANS, and we provide some funding and some partnerships through them as well. Our department is active in supporting newcomers to Nova Scotia. We welcome them, we need them, and we're there to support them in times of need.

 

THE CHAIR: Order. The time for the Official Opposition has expired. We're moving to the Liberal Party. Would the minister like a break? A five-minute recess - 10? We're adjourned for 10 minutes.

 

[1:08 p.m. The committee recessed.]

 

[1:18 p.m. The committee reconvened.]

 

THE CHAIR: Order.

 

The honourable member for Sydney-Membertou.

 

HON. DEREK MOMBOURQUETTE: Chair, I'm ceding my time to the member for Fairview-Clayton Park.

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Fairview-Clayton Park.

 

LINA HAMID: Wonderful.

 

Talking about homelessness, the minister mentioned yesterday the continuum of support, and I may get them wrong: temporary shelters, transition housing, supportive housing as well, and then permanent housing. A lot of the solutions we're looking at right now, in terms of permanent housing, are increasing the stock of private housing.

 

We talked about the 700 units out of the 1,085 that have come up, but it still doesn't seem to be addressing the issue of homelessness.

 

A great example of non-market housing solutions - I believe this is a permanent housing option, I'm not sure - but the tiny homes in Sackville. That's a great option of how, when we get organizations that are already doing the work of supporting folks who are experiencing homelessness and have amazing ideas of how to address that come together with policymakers, and we come up with a great solution like that.

 

My question is: Beyond the 1,085, are there conversations or discussions happening about what other non-market housing could be introduced to the market, and considering the situation we're in, sooner rather than later?

 

HON. SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I'm going to reiterate what I talked about yesterday in terms of the continuum because the member knows it well, but people at home may not. There are people who are unsheltered, and we need them to come in. Then we have the sheltered system, which is very short term. Sometimes it can be a little longer term than we like.

 

Then we have in the wintertime, when it's really cold, and there are more people possibly out on the street, emergency shelters. They can move into transitional housing then supportive housing. Supportive housing, like I talked about yesterday - The Rose, where we had 18 families that were able to move in. Many of them had been in hotels before; many of them had children. They still have to pay to rent their space in The Rose and in supportive housing, but it's 30 per cent of their income, so the amount they pay is based on an analysis of their income. Then from the supportive housing, hopefully they can get permanent housing. With the wraparound services we're able to provide - and the transitional housing and the supportive housing - we're seeing more and more people able to secure more permanent housing.

 

The thing that's not in that continuum I talked about yesterday is the public housing because it's not in the role of our department - it's in the Department of Growth and Development.

 

This government, under the Minister of Growth and Development, has made the largest investment in public housing in 30 years in Nova Scotia. It's up to 500 over the last two years - I think it's 515 new units. You can say it's never enough, but the government continues to invest in all levels, through our department, with the continuum I talked about, and with the Department of Growth and Development, which is investing with the largest investment in 30 years in public housing.

 

We're responding in those two departments alone to the housing challenge, and we're starting to turn the corner in housing. The recent numbers we have and the data we have are showing good progress. We're not all the way there yet, but we believe we've turned the corner. With the federal government's changes to immigration right now, that should take a little pressure off this.

 

It's hard to judge and hard to evaluate what's going to go on with tariffs and what effect that could have on our economy, housing and other things, and incomes of people. That could affect us too. It's awfully hard to predict what's going to happen when it changes almost on a daily basis.

 

The 1,085 number the member referred to is our supportive housing action plan. We've already created 700 of those units, so we're ahead of schedule in that. There were houses already available - supportive housing - in Nova Scotia. When we're finished the 1,085, when we achieve that goal we set in most recent program, and the most recent analysis we did through the supportive housing action plan, there will be between 1,500 and 1,600 supportive housing units in Nova Scotia.

 

We develop these numbers and these targets; we do it from data. We talked about data in the last session of questions. The better data we have, the more predictive analysis we can do, and the better we can target programs. It goes back to saying that you have to have good data if you're going to make good programs and good targets.

 

We believe we have pretty accurate data. We're working with AHANS in particular, which is doing a lot of work for us in this area. We've shown that our department is willing to put the budget forward and the resources forward needed to meet the challenges and the needs of today, but we can only do it with the data we have.

 

If the data drives that particular number, we get that in place, and it's not enough, we'll adjust. We'll have some new data sets and some new research coming from our service providers, but we're making efforts with them to make sure the data they collect for us and give to us are accurate and help us plan effectively.

 

LINA HAMID: AHANS is a great organization doing a lot of great work. I'm happy to see there is collaboration there.

 

Yesterday, we had talked about how many families are supported in hotels, and I believe it was 212 - the number that was provided. Does the minister have information about how long those families typically stay in hotels before they're transitioned into permanent housing? Additionally, is there a trend in terms of what obstacles those families are having to transition into permanent housing?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: It's not 212 families, it's 212 people. That's a pretty small sample size. We have service providers that work with each individual who's currently in a hotel to try to support them in moving into some other form of housing because living in a hotel is not acceptable. They can't stay there very long. It's great for a few days if there's some sort of emergency. The goal is to have people not living in hotels at all, but the factors that put them into the hotel are so individualized, and it's not like you can judge big trends from 212 people.

 

The fact is that we have people working directly with them. One family that moved into The Rose was a single mom with a baby, and she had been in a hotel for 14 months. She had a baby while she was in the hotel. The establishment of The Rose allowed them to move out of that hotel. Can you imagine raising a baby in a hotel room? There's no kitchen. It's not the facility you need to raise a newborn.

 

Some of the work being done by our service providers, in conjunction with support financially from our department, is providing places to go for people who didn't have them before. I'm not sure what factors led to that individual case, where someone was in a hotel for 14 months. I imagine that's a unique set of experiences that caused that, but the fact that that could happen shows the need for places like The Rose and for us to continue to establish more opportunities for supportive housing in Nova Scotia.

 

LINA HAMID: I appreciate the clarification. It definitely makes a huge difference in my mind now, seeing that it's not 212 families but 212 individuals.

 

I want to take a moment to talk about my experience with that a bit because I've seen - I think I mentioned this last night, but I was working with the Halifax Refugee Clinic when 160-some folks were brought here from Quebec. They had crossed over through Roxham Road. It was an unprecedented situation, where suddenly you have these 160-some folks who need to be housed somewhere, so they were placed in hotels. Quite a few of them were families expecting.

 

[1:30 p.m.]

 

One comes to mind particularly. They had travelled from Asia to South America and then either on foot or by hitchhiking rides made their way all the way up. That woman was pregnant the whole time on that journey, then coming here and finally having access to some prenatal care.

 

There isn't a question coming after this, but these are experiences that need to be publicized. I'm so happy to finally have the stage to be able to talk about these things I've seen. After some time, you started seeing the folks living in the hotels. The unfortunate reality is that they were there for a long time - some for two years - and they didn't stay in the one hotel. They also had to move hotels, and that was a whole other issue.

 

You started seeing people trying to make the best of it. They rallied around each other; some people started watching other people's kids so they could go to job interviews. It's an unfortunate situation. People try to make the best of it, but it's not ideal. I echo that the minister is absolutely right about that. Thank you for listening to my TED talk.

 

I'd like to go into income assistance, if we can. I recognize that this is not the solution to being able to lift folks out of poverty. Sorry, I lost my train of thought.

 

It's not the solution. I recognize that. We absolutely want to see people - and people on income assistance themselves do want to see themselves transition into being able to work. A lot of times, there are particular cases where it's hard for people. Also to emphasize that - seeing a lot of folks who had been unhoused or experiencing homelessness - it's something that takes up a lot of mental capacity, to be living in that situation. Being able to think about going to get employment support and so on is second hand to surviving. I recognize that it's not the solution, and people don't want that to be their lives. They want to be able to get out. I also recognize it's hard to get out of that cycle.

 

We mentioned yesterday with the market basket measure being the measure being used by the Province as the poverty measure. With that being said, how is that applied, or is it applied to OSD or income assistance in any way? Is it something that's considered when these rates are put into place?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We do use the market basket measure as one of the factors we use to help calculate things, but there are several factors that are involved in income assistance. We've indexed the rate of income assistance, so that way we know the value of the money they're getting now will still be the value in 10 years. If you don't do that, and there's inflation, then you'll see people suffering from a gap and a decrease in the terms of the buying value of the money they're getting.

 

Since 2021, income assistance has grown by 44 per cent in Nova Scotia - the amount of money we're investing in it - to the tune of $603 million. Now what we'd like to see is that number decrease, which would mean there are fewer people getting income assistance. The way to do that is to connect them to employment. That's why we call it Employment Support and Income Assistance - that's the name of the program. There's a balance there.

 

There are other programs we're putting in place to try to make sure life is more affordable, which will support people on income assistance as well. We want to make sure income assistance - the money they're getting from the government to support them in a time of need - doesn't provide a disincentive for them to get employment.

 

That's why we've established they can get up to $350 per month on top of their income assistance where they don't get anything clawed back because we don't want them to feel they're risking their income assistance to get a job. We don't want that disincentive to sit there. You'll probably see us take more measures and more steps like that, so people do not have a disincentive to work.

 

I've talked about the numbers a couple times, but I'll reiterate them today. Right now, we have 36,000 to 37,000 people in Nova Scotia currently on Employment Support and Income Assistance. Probably 16,000 to 17,000 are disabled to where they can't have a job - if you think of someone with some large challenges - but there are probably 20,000 people who, given the right supports, could work. As they get jobs, get employment, develop those work skills and the competence they need, and feel the reward they get from working, contributing, and supporting their family, that will lower the number of people who require income assistance.

 

Income assistance should be a stop gap, in my mind. It's a support, and it's a safety net when people are struggling, but the goal is for everyone on income assistance who has the ability to secure employment to get the supports they need so that can develop the skills, develop the confidence, and get the reward of having a job and supporting their families. That's the goal.

 

The goal is to lower the number of people who are on income assistance and connect more people to employment. To do that we've got to put more of a focus on connecting people to work and developing those work skills and confidence. Hopefully then we can drop the amount of money being spent on income assistance and invest more and more in terms of employment services.

 

LINA HAMID: We have a FOIPOP recently that shows the number of individuals receiving income assistance over the years has been increasing. In terms of recognizing that the amount invested by the government has been increasing, that very well is attributed to the number of people receiving income assistance increasing. In terms of the rate itself increasing in 2021 - under the previous government, I believe - a $100 monthly increase in the standard household rate per adult was introduced. Then the indexation to the CPI is huge and something the NDP had been pushing for for years.

 

I do see these steps, but what I don't see is the rate being increased by the government - by this government. Can the minister elaborate. While we see that the amount invested is increasing, the rates are not, and the inflation - the cost of living has risen exponentially. When will the next time that the rates - is there a plan to review these rates any time soon?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We're going to talk some numbers here, so we know we're all on the same page. My thought is your FOIPOP started in 2021-22. Do you know that? Okay. We know that, during that period of time, we were in the middle of the pandemic. That had a drastic effect on people getting income assistance because they were getting CERB in the federal program, which lifted a lot of people out of income assistance.

 

I'm going to go back to the year before. In 2020-21, the number of IA cases in Nova Scotia was 24,659. Then it dropped down, primarily because of the pandemic, to 21,368. There was a drop there, but it was because of the federal supports that rolled in. Then in 2022-23 it was 23,105; in 2023-24 it was 23,561; and in 2024-25 it was 24,543.

 

When you compare it back to 2020-21 - pre-pandemic - it's dropped down by 0.5 percent. If you can see, there is a sort of static number of people in the province collecting income assistance. There was a little dip down, primarily because - I believe, and I'm sure if we investigate, it would show this - it was because of the federal benefits that came into the province then.

 

That 24,543 number now is the raw number of people collecting. When you compare that to the overall population - because Nova Scotia's population has gone up by 55,000 over that same period of time - the percentage of population has dropped down by 3.4 percent. We're heading in the right direction, when you take a look at the real, raw numbers. That's not to say we shouldn't be investing and shouldn't be adding to the programs or connecting people to employment. All that is still true.

 

If one person's on income assistance, that's one person we should get off income assistance if we can support them in the right way, but when you're looking at numbers, you've got to look at the effect of the pandemic. When you look at the overall trend of where income assistance is and the number of people who require it in Nova Scotia, we're moving in the right direction, although slower than I would like to see.

 

LINA HAMID: This is a question that was on the top of my list, but I saved it a bit. As we're getting closer to the end, I'm going to put it out there.

 

There's been a big change in the department - the name. I'm wondering: What was the rationale behind changing the name? It's always been known as the Department of Community Services, so I'm wondering why the name was changed.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: It hasn't changed since I got there. It was already changed when the Premier called me and asked me if I'd take this on. I didn't know what it was because the Department of Opportunities and Social Development - Community Services had the history behind it, and it's been called that - is more aspirational.

 

[1:45 p.m.]

 

Community Services means we're out there serving people, plugging gaps, and trying to provide supports, but the word “opportunities” is aspirational. We want to give people the opportunity to build a better life for themselves and provide the supports so they can do that. As for “social development” - I worked in the federal department, and it was called Social Development - that means we're putting together programs and supports for the greater society.

 

When you focus on the first word - the first name of our department, opportunities - we want to not just provide people with supports but give them the ladder so they can climb up and build a better life for themselves. That's what Canada's all about. People have come from all over the world to Canada and built better lives for themselves, but that's a challenging thing to do if you don't have other people in your community supporting you. That's one of the roles government's trying to fulfill here.

 

The name of the department is aspirational. We want to send the message out to all Nova Scotians that the department is here for them at the time they need it most, but it's also still there when a crisis is over. There will be supports and programs that are tailor-made to help them continue to progress so they can have the best life they can have and meet their actual potential, whether that be social, employment, or family. We want people to look at our department as something that's there to help them not only when times are tough but as they're progressing up after a crisis. We're still going to be there to make sure we provide advice, supports, and interventions they need so they can achieve their goals.

 

Much like the remedy we talked about is individualized and provides choice, Opportunities and Social Development provides choices and options as well. People can make choices, and we'll be there to support them, no matter what those choices are, and support them as they move through life on a continuum where they can better themselves.

 

LINA HAMID: That does seem to tie in well with the idea of investing in Nova Scotians. The minister had mentioned yesterday about The Bridge and what an impactful investment that is, regardless - not to say regardless of the cost, since we're here discussing the budget - but the results are real.

 

In the spirit of investing in Nova Scotians, I had asked yesterday if there has been any sort of review to see what it would cost to bring income assistance to a more manageable amount that people can survive on and not be in the constant mental struggle of, How am I going to make it through the day. I imagine an increase would likely get people out of that constant state of fight-or-flight.

 

As the minister mentioned, the best social program is a job. For people to be able to focus on things like getting a job or looking for a job, it's impossible to do it when living on income assistance. I won't say impossible - it is possible - but the struggle of surviving on that amount is, as I mentioned yesterday, all too consuming mentally.

 

Around that and around investing in Nova Scotians, I would love to see: Has the minister explored increasing this amount? Do we know what that cost would look like on the department? If not, tabling that before the end of the sitting would be fantastic.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I think what the member's getting at is some sort of universal basic income program in Nova Scotia or heading in that direction. Right now, what we try to do is strike the balance in employment, supports, and income assistance. We want to support people to cover their basic needs in a time of crisis and also provide them the supports they need to get back into the workforce and be able to provide for themselves and their family.

 

Working in the school system, particularly when I was in Tatamagouche, we saw generational effects of income assistance, where families that were receiving income assistance saw their children end up on the program and receiving income assistance. There was no connection to employment in the family.

 

We don't to set up a system where people lose that connection to work, lose that connection to being self-sufficient, and rely on others in society. We want to make sure we strike the balance between supporting people when they're in time of crisis and supporting them after. That's why we combine employment supports and income assistance.

 

We are constantly looking at where that balance is in terms of the rates for income assistance. This is why things like indexing have taken place, so inflation doesn't disrupt the balance we've established, but in reality, we want to make sure people are contributing members of society, if they have the ability to do that.

 

I've talked about the numbers, the 20,000 we'd like to see get the supports they need to move back into the workforce so they can support their families. I believe people on income assistance would like to do that. I believe they have the motivation. Once they get connected to work, they'll get the self-assurance, the confidence, and the satisfaction of doing a job - getting up in the morning, going to work - but sometimes income assistance, if it goes on too long, can become a cyclical thing that draws them down and holds them back.

 

That's why we want to make sure all the programs we put in place don't provide a disincentive to taking on training, taking on employment, and taking on work. We have to make sure we don't upset that balance by making income assistance a disincentive to getting into the workforce. That's why we have to focus on that balance and have both sides of the ledger: the employment supports and the income assistance. We want to make that balance.

 

To move to something more like a basic income affects all kinds of different programs across the board, far ranging beyond income assistance, because we have a lot of income-tested support programs across government, both provincially - even municipally - and federally. When you're looking at something like basic income, that is a huge discussion. We would need to communicate and collaborate with municipal levels of government, chambers of commerce, employment services across the country, and the federal government in particular.

 

That's not something we can do - just the one department. We strive every day to make sure we have that balance between supporting people in times when they need it and connecting them to work, so in the long term they can be more self-sufficient.

 

LINA HAMID: I wasn't talking about universal basic income, but since we're on the topic, any time I think about universal basic income, I think about a time I had gone to an information session where Dr. Wanda Bernard was there talking about that.

 

There's a quote she said, and I may be mixing up the words, talking about targeted universalism or universal targeted - I think it was targeted universalism - where having something like a universal basic income doesn't necessarily mean every single individual is going to apply for and receive that, but having that as something that is open to everybody removes the stigma of it being an additional support needed.

 

There might even be a discussion about how we can transform income assistance into a universal basic income program so the stigma around that is gone, and folks are not living in cycles of unmanageably low rates. There is an advocacy group in Nova Scotia - I'm not sure of the name right now, but they've been doing a lot of work around that and around what it would look like to be implemented.

 

I'm wondering: Is there any plan to look at what a basic income guarantee would look like in Nova Scotia?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The answer is no. That is a not a direction Nova Scotia is planning on going. In fact, it doesn't exist anywhere in Canada. There's no province in Canada right now that has that program in place. It is talked about, in terms of different groups putting it forward.

 

What we want to do is make sure we have programs in place that encourage people to be contributing members of society and give back. We don't want to put programs in place that provide a disincentive. That's why I talk about balance, and that balance is important.

 

A universal basic income is bigger than Nova Scotia. You would have to look almost nationwide with the federal government, municipal governments, and provincial governments. You'd have to change almost every income test to program we have across government and across the country. Right now, there's no plan in Nova Scotia to implement a universal basic income program.

 

We do have income assistance, and that's for people who are low income or going through a crisis. We have assistance for people who are struggling with making ends meet. We have programs in place to support them when times are tough.

 

The other side of that is that we want to make sure we, as quickly as possible, get them back to where they have employment, where they have the confidence to contribute, and where they can start saving for a vacation, start building a house, afford their rent, and maybe afford to support their family as they grow up and play things like hockey and other sports - choices they'll be able to make if they have employment and have income coming in, which they wouldn't if they're disconnected from work.

 

We want to make sure we don't put programs in place that are a disincentive for families to progress forward in their lives and supports for their children. We want to make sure the program has that balance between employment supports and assistance when times are tough. Right now, with the indexing this government has done, we've struck that balance.

 

We'll always continue to look at it and look at factors like when times are tough and affordability. Right now, when we're looking at the impact of possible tariffs - and it goes back and forth on a day-to-day basis now - we have to make sure we take strong steps to support the growth of our economy and looking for new trade partners.

 

We've got a lot of work to do as a government, and that starts with diversifying our economy, so we'll be able to provide the social programs like income assistance and the employment services we have in place.

 

LINA HAMID: My question, again, goes back to something we had briefly discussed yesterday: the poverty reduction credit. I'm not sure. Is this something that is going to be indexed to CPI, the same way that income assistance is? If not, is there a reason why not? If so, when will that be in place?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The poverty tax credit is a $500 credit to people who qualify. It was forecast in 2024-25 that 11,758 people would be eligible for it. Year to date, that's down 3.1 percent, so we're moving in the right direction. Right now, we haven't considered indexing that support as of this time. As I said, we're seeing a number of people who are receiving it start to decrease, but it's there for people who need it.

 

[2:00 p.m.]

 

LINA HAMID: With respect to the Affordable Living Tax Credit, which is a payable amount to low-income individuals or families with children in order to help support with the cost of their needs, the last increase was in 2012 - 13 years ago. That's when it was increased to $255 per year for an individual, couple, or parent and $60 per year per child. Have there been any discussions about increasing that amount? If so, when will that increase be implemented?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Tax credits are over with the Department of Finance and Treasury Board; it's a tax change. I may be wrong, because I'm not the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, but that would have to be part of the budget process. If you have questions about the Affordable Living Tax Credit, that's going to have to be directed more to the Department of Finance and Treasury Board.

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Halifax Citadel-Sable Island.

 

LISA LACHANCE: I'm going to hop in here and ask a few questions. I have not followed along minute by minute, so I'm hopefully not repeating too many questions.

 

I know my colleague asked about standing up the Child and Youth Commissioner, and I want to go back to that. When that was brought forward - the enabling piece of legislation in order to hire a commissioner - last year at budget time, we introduced a lengthy amendment.

 

I've done lots of work over the years with children's advocates in other provinces and territories - B.C., Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and New Brunswick - and connected with children and youth advocates internationally. They provide an essential way of transforming the lives of young people in communities.

 

For instance, when the Child and Youth Commissioner was introduced in the U.K. in the mid-2010s, there's quite a bit of research - and I'll have to dig it back out again from last year to table - demonstrating the outcome level impact that having a Child and Youth Commissioner can have. A lot of our proposals last year were in terms of the mandate, the role, the responsibility, the accountability, and who it reports to.

 

I know you said to my colleague that you wanted to make sure it was done right, but I am concerned there's no money in this budget to stand up that office. We had proved the ability to stand up the position last March, so it's surprising to me that there's still no money for the office. There's no money and enabling legislation to even get a little start has been around for a year. I'm wondering: What is in the work plan for this year in terms of establishing that office?

 

HON. SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I acknowledge the fact that the member wasn't here in person earlier to hear my answer.

 

Work is ongoing in the department to establish this office. It's something I'm personally committed to. It's something I believe in. There have been jurisdictional scans done - as they mentioned, the research they did. Our department's also done the same research. We've worked with some stakeholders to get advice and consult on how this office can be the most effective it can be.

 

Right now, although there is no budget line for this office currently in this budget, there's work ongoing in the department: setting up regulations, setting up staffing and hiring, and the scope of what that office is going to do. I've directed officials that this is something that's important to me as minister. I want to see this office established, but I want to make sure it's done effectively and done right because setting up an office like this, if it's not done appropriately and the regulations are not effective, can cause the office to be ineffective as it starts up. This isn't an office that will exist for a year, it's an office that will exist ongoing. We're going to make this happen as quickly as possible, but we're also going to ensure this office has the proper authority, power, and regulations that govern it so it can be an effective office for not only today's youth but future generations of youth.

 

LISA LACHANCE: Before we continue the conversation, I would ask that the minister use my pronoun, which is they, not she.

 

In terms of the Child and Youth Commissioner, I appreciate this idea that work is ongoing, but if you don't fund it, sometimes things don't get done. Also, I'm wondering what the timelines are. I'm wondering what the deliverables are, in fact, in this year. I'm going to leave that question for the minister to answer and add a new one.

 

I was quite involved in supporting some of the connecting with young people, for instance, in the early years - over two ministers, at least. I had the Youth Advisory Council for Halifax Citadel-Sable Island do research and make presentations to the ministers at the time. They had the chance to meet with the Youth Council in New Brunswick. They had the chance to review a lot of the research and had done a lot of university research on the issue on their own.

 

I'm wondering at this point: Has the department reconnected with the stakeholders that have already been engaged with this process? What have the stakeholders been told?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: First, I want to apologize to the member for misgendering. I was not aware, so I apologize for that. I'll do my best so that it does not happen again.

 

Work is ongoing, as I said, to try to make this office the most effective it can be. As minister, I get regular reports on this - how the work is ongoing in the department. I have met with those stakeholders; they came into the office in January. I hadn't met with them because I wasn't the minister the last time they had made a report. I sat down and heard what they thought this office could establish and could do. We are moving forward in this. It's something I care about, and it's something I put emphasis on as minister.

 

LISA LACHANCE: I'm wondering if the minister could outline what they see as the responsibilities of the Child and Youth Commissioner - with what they know thus far.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: As we progress and get more feedback from the department on the regulations and scope of what this office is going to establish, I'd be able to talk about that with more acumen than I can now, but it's safe to say this office will be representing children across the province, making sure they have representation to government from an independent body. That's something that's been done across the country. The structures are a little different, depending on where you are.

 

In the end, the role of this office is going to be to support children and to make sure government is providing the supports they need so children across the province can progress. We need to make sure there's an independent body - an independent officer who reports to this legislature and represents children - provides them a representation.

 

We have the ombudsman now, in the short term, but we need to make sure there's an effective officer of this legislature whose sole responsibility is to put forward issues and reports that affect children directly.

 

LISA LACHANCE: I'm happy hear the intent is to have a body independently reporting to this legislature. That is the most effective model for this. The ombudsman's office has been able to support children and youth around issues related to specific provincial services - children and youth in care, children in conflict with the law, that sort of thing - but it's been quite limited, and it hasn't been able to also then start thinking about systemic issues, issues around experiences of discrimination. I'm wondering if the minister can talk a bit about the scope. It sounds like it's not just going to be about provincial services but more broadly. Is there anything he can share at this point?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: This is exactly what's going on. The department is looking at the actual scope of what this office is going to be. I can't speak on details because that's information that I haven't gotten to come up yet. Work is ongoing within the department on issues like the member has put forward here.

 

As we move forward and progress in this, we'll be able to report back on that, but the information the member has brought forward here in terms of scope is exactly the type of work that's being done in the department currently.

 

LISA LACHANCE: I have one more question on the Child and Youth Commissioner. Is there a plan in place to have an ongoing youth advisory function?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: It's not something I'm personally opposed to as minister, but I'd have to go back and look at the recommendations that have been made. That's not something that was a focus of the discussion I had with stakeholders, but it's not something I'm opposed to.

 

LISA LACHANCE: The different offices I've worked with across the country have relied on having an ongoing youth engagement function. That's usually in the context of an advisory council, as well as youth employed and youth when they're looking at specific projects to be part of that. That's the best practice for this type of organization.

 

I know from the young people I've worked with over the years in Nova Scotia - everything from developing the One Chance to Be a Child report to the Halifax Citadel-Sable Island Youth Advisory Committee - this has been something people have been excited about and interested in.

 

I'm going to switch gears. I'm wondering if the minister could talk about where they see the mandate in the Department of Opportunities and Social Development for supporting people with autism in Nova Scotia.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Going back to the previous question, there was a recommendation for the office to provide youth advisory services. That's something, as the department continues to work on the scope of this, I will follow up on. As I said, I'm not personally opposed to that.

 

Our department doesn't provide support services directly for people with autism, that lies with the Department of Mental Health and Addictions. Questions around autism and support services for autism should be directed to the Minister of the Department of Mental Health and Addictions.

 

LISA LACHANCE: I wanted to ask that for a couple of reasons. One, more generally - and this is a discussion I would much prefer to take offline, but it's based on my own family's experience with a young person with autism and finding it difficult to access disability supports in the province. We'll take it offline, but it's near and dear to my heart.

 

We have heard from some families with young people with autism that the responsibility for a program called the Person-Directed Planning Program is coming to the Department of Opportunities and Social Development, and that's a program for autistic young people. Can you clarify?

 

[2:15 p.m.]

 

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The member is accurate in saying our department doesn't provide operational services. That would lie with the Department of Addictions and Mental Health. The Province did fund the provincial autism strategy. There's been a role for several departments, and our department was part of that consultation process and part of that overall process.

 

There are areas of the Disability Support Program that provide family support, so our department does have some role in that, but operational support for autism lies with the Department of Addictions and Mental Health.

 

THE CHAIR: Order, please. Before we ask the next question, I believe the remaining time is just under an hour, so we're going to reset the clock for that now, if that's okay.

 

The honourable member for Halifax Citadel-Sable Island.

 

LISA LACHANCE: What I understand is that families were informed this week that this program - the Person-Directed Planning Program - was coming to the Department of Opportunities and Social Development. It was a program that was previously run by Autism Nova Scotia and was coming to the Department of Opportunities and Social Development.

 

I want to clarify. I can go back to families and say we don't know what's happening with it, but that's perhaps not exactly what's happening with it.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The member is accurate in saying that. It was a pilot program that existed with the Department of Addictions and Mental Health, and that program is now going to be moving into the Nova Scotia Human Rights Remedy program. Our local area coordinators and ISPCs will be coordinating that on a regional level throughout Nova Scotia. That pilot project is now moving into our Remedy response for the Province of Nova Scotia, and there will be staff coordinating that program in the four different quadrants of Nova Scotia per Remedy's approach.

 

LISA LACHANCE: My understanding is that it was a pilot project funded by the Department of Addictions and Mental Health but implemented by Autism Nova Scotia, so I'm wondering why the decision was made to remove it from Autism Nova Scotia and bring it into government.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The rationale for moving the pilot project into the Remedy approach is because we have the staff in place that are already doing intense planning with families and clients. We have staff in place throughout the province that are doing that work already for people with disabilities. We want to make sure we use that staff the best we can. They have the training; they have the certification.

 

I talked earlier today about the workforce challenges we're facing. Because we have staff in place, and because we have those services already up and running, the pilot project was successful. We have the best resources and the best funding to be able to make that program meaningful to people who engage in it.

 

LISA LACHANCE: Perhaps the minister can clarify if it was a request from Autism Nova Scotia. Did they feel that they didn't have the workforce available to implement this program, or were they hoping to keep it within Autism Nova Scotia?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We didn't want to set up two streams of duplicate services. We have the staff in place to do this work. They're already located throughout the province. We believe the staff and the interaction with families - instead of having two streams, one stream would be much more effective. That's why the department is taking on and including that with the actions we're taking to support people who quality for the Remedy.

 

LISA LACHANCE: My concern is that on one hand, Autism Nova Scotia has been an incredible partner for all Nova Scotians, for the Government of Nova Scotia, and for autistic Nova Scotians for decades and has built the capacity to support the community. I would argue - not this government, but government has often left autistic folks and their families to flounder. There have been so few services.

 

My interactions - and again this is not this government but government - I was working in government when I had these interactions with government. My experience as a parent with a child with autism is that there was limited understanding in the department - at that time, the Department of Community Services - about autism and about what that looked like in terms of the need for disability supports.

 

Even at the beginning of this line of questioning, the minister said, “Oh, we don't have any responsibility in autism.”

 

The Remedy was essential in getting us on the right path in Nova Scotia, in supporting people with disabilities, but it was a specific issue and a specific court order. I am concerned that by moving an autism-focused program and moving folks with autism from Autism Nova Scotia, where the expertise is in this province, into a department that doesn't have a history of expertise and, I assume, has staff people hired for other areas of expertise - my concern is that it's not going to be as effective.

 

My question for the minister is: What's the plan for getting the department and its staff up to speed on working with folks with autism?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Autism Nova Scotia is a great organization and a fantastic partner for the Government of Nova Scotia. The pilot was operating in two of four regions. The Remedy's budget this year is over $120 million. We have local area coordinators and ISPCs who are trained in this specific type of activity to support these families.

 

We don't want to have two streams of people doing the exact same thing in the exact same region. We have expertise, we have training, and we have a budgetary support. The Remedy is a huge activity for supporting people with disabilities across Nova Scotia. I am absolutely convinced that the staff we've set up can do the job. They can do it effectively, and it provides us a single avenue to provide supports like this throughout Nova Scotia.

 

LISA LACHANCE: Like I said, I've only received a bit of information about the program, so perhaps the minister and I can keep talking about it to make sure the conditions are there for success for persons with autism.

 

Because I wasn't here through every minute - I presume some questions were asked about the Mockingbird program. Well then, I'll start with that.

 

The Mockingbird Family program was an evidence-based program brought Nova Scotia around supporting foster families and foster children. I'm wondering, at this point, what outcomes the minister can provide from that program.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I've been waiting for this question. This is a program I have been so impressed with, and the reason is, as a school principal - I often go back to when I was in Tatamagouche, because I was there for 10 years - it was an area of high needs.

 

I mentioned this last night; the school I was principal of in Tatamagouche was recognized by Today's Parent magazine as one of the top 40 schools in the country. That recognition was primarily because of the support we gave to students with disabilities.

 

Also in that school, we had the highest percentage of foster children in the province of Nova Scotia, and I'll tell you why. In Tatamagouche at the time, they had the lowest socioeconomic income per capita, of anywhere in the province, in the North Shore of Nova Scotia. The member from Cumberland North and I discussed that earlier today. This was back in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

 

The place was struggling economically. With the collapse of the fishing industry and several other factors over there, there was a lot of job loss. Because of that, there were several families in the area that took in foster children because it provided them an income stream. They could help support their family, and children who had some severe challenges. When you have a foster child who has severe challenges, the funding you get per day is increased. We had fantastic families taking in foster children, and they all fed into the school where I was principal.

 

I'm going to talk about some experiences I had as a school administrator there. I'm not filibustering at all. I want to talk about this because it's meaningful to me. I'm going to talk about one particular student - I'm not going to identify them by name - but the student, when they arrived at our school, had been in 26 different foster homes before he arrived with us, and he was in grade 5.

 

Think about that. He had been in 26 different foster homes throughout Nova Scotia - different communities. He'd been in every end of Nova Scotia in foster care. The reason he had been in so many is that he had something that was diagnosed as attachment disorder. He was used to being in chaos, and anytime he got to a good place that was really running well, he quickly disrupted that.

 

He tried to disrupt in school too. We just didn't let him. I told him, “No matter what you do, no matter what names you call adults here, you're not going home. You're staying right here with us. We'll find a way to keep you here.”

 

The respite needed by the foster parents to support a child like that was so challenging. That's why eventually he would wear out his welcome, and he would have to be moved, or he would do something to get himself moved.

 

I wish the Mockingbird Family program for foster children existed back then. I'm going to describe what it is - I'm sure the member knows what it is - but I'm going to describe for people who may be watching. You set up a constellation of up to 10 foster homes, which all work together as a team, and there's one main hub home. All those foster children and those families can gather at that hub home for celebrations and for activities, and they work together.

 

Many of you who do know about the foster system - when a child goes into a home as a foster child, there may be other foster children in that home. They consider themselves brothers and sisters. They're brothers and sisters forever - that's my brother, that's my sister - and they run into each other later in life.

 

A lot of times for children who are like this young fellow, they're in by themselves because the needs they have are so severe that you don't have multiple children in there. They don't have that connection. They don't have cousins. They don't have brothers. They don't have sisters in that home.

 

The Mockingbird setup allows that foster family to take that child in their house, along with other children if they have them, and they work together. It's kind of like if you were in a small town and you had brothers and sisters living together who had children, you had big family events and family reunions. You might have family dinners where the cousins all get together.

 

[2:30 p.m.]

 

The Mockingbird setup is reflective of that. If something happens in one of these homes - someone gets sick or there's an accident or a job loss - and there needs to be respite, they can go to the hub home. It's a place they're familiar with, with adults they're familiar with, with other children they're already familiar with, and they'll stay there until reunification can happen at their regular foster home.

 

This is allowing children to stay longer in homes because if they can't be there for a weekend or a week, there's a place they can go in that community. I can't tell you, as a school principal, the hundreds of foster children I've dealt with. When they move, or something happens, and they have to move, and they move out of your community, you might have things at that school really set up well. They might have been successful in that school.

 

That was the case for this child because we didn't let him not be successful, but he moved. One day he was there, and one day he was gone. We had so much good stuff happening. His behaviour was great. His academics were excellent. He was participating on sports teams at the school. Then something happened in the home, and boom, he was gone. I've never laid eyes on him again. I often wonder what happened to him. If this program had existed - this Mockingbird system had existed - he could have moved to another foster home in that family or the hub home in that community. He wouldn't have lost that connection to school. At least he would have had one connection.

 

This is a leap forward in terms of supporting youth in care and the foster system as a whole. From a foster parent perspective, you know you have that relationship to collaborate, call someone, and ask questions. You have a connection to other foster homes you wouldn't have had under the previous system. Talking to the workers who are setting this up - they are so positive about it. As a minister, it's something I've recognized. I see the benefit of it, and I'm 100 per cent supportive of it. It's something I'm going to continue to support in my role of leading the department.

 

LISA LACHANCE: The Mockingbird model has a lot of evidence behind it. I am wondering if we have outcomes, for instance, from last year, or what outcomes are being measured. Is it being measured in terms of - maybe you'll tell me - length of time people are able to stay or decreased number of placements for young people? The idea and people's review of it can be positive, but what is it actually in terms of better outcomes for young people, short- or medium-term?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: As the member said, it's a newer program in Nova Scotia. It's currently under official evaluation, but anecdotally, from talking to workers - and we've met with some workers in Nova Scotia - the talk about this is so positive that I can't imagine, when the report comes back, it's not going to be a full throng endorsement of what we're doing.

 

There may be some suggestions of how we can tinker with it to make it even better, but from talking to the people who are administrating this and some people who are engaged in it, it's all been totally positive. From my background and my experience, I can see why it's so effective. I'd be more than willing to share with the member the results of that evaluation when it comes back, but I can't imagine it's not going to be a positive evaluation of that program.

 

LISA LACHANCE: I'm wondering - there's also been a change to how foster families are funded. My understanding is that the funding was increased and that folks weren't necessarily required to provide the type of detailed accounting they had to before, per line item. They were given a monthly budget, but that was used to support the well-being of the children in their care.

 

I'm wondering: Is that program being evaluated? This would be the end, perhaps, of its first year. If there are concerns, or if young people have concerns that they aren't receiving the support they need, how can they bring concerns forward?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I apologize for the delay. We're trying to get accurate information here.

 

There are 798 caregivers across Nova Scotia. This is a 26 percent increase. We believe some of the changes the department has made in supporting families with foster children in them has led to this increase.

 

For anyone out there who's interested in opening your home and supporting a foster child, you will find it will probably be one of the most rewarding things you can do.

 

These people are valuable volunteers in our system. We've talked about what we're doing with the Remedy - moving people out of institutions. We used to have children like this in orphanages and other institutions, and for generations now, we've had the foster care system set up. We continue to support these foster families in supporting these children.

 

One of the components we'll be looking at when we evaluate the Mockingbird program is the number of family break-ups because of what I talked about, that individual example of the child I used - when the home explodes. We believe that metric will decrease significantly because of the additional support you have with the cohort of constellations put together.

 

In terms of funding, we have increased the daily rate a bit to support these families. We've required fewer receipts because we want to give them the flexibility they need as foster families. As anybody who's had their own children or worked with other children knows, different children have different needs. We want to make sure the foster families have the flexibility, in terms of funding, to support those individual needs, so we're requiring less documentation and less receipting and increased the amount of the daily rate a bit. We want to make sure we let these foster families know we trust them to make the best decision about how to support the children we've placed in their homes.

 

LISA LACHANCE: In no way do I want to undermine anything that I think about fostering. We've been temporary foster parents. I'd do it again, maybe once I get my own kids launched. My concern is: What are their rights, especially as children become adolescents and teens? How does a young person express any concerns they have about how they're able to access resources and how they're being supported - things like clothing, spending allowance, that sort of thing - within the homes?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Every child in care has a social worker attached to their case. A lot of times, even when they move from home to home through foster care, that social worker can remain consistent. We've had some incredible relationships between children, as they grow up, with their social worker. Sometimes that changes, and social workers move, but in a lot of cases they can have that connection with that one adult throughout their entire youth.

 

This is National Social Work Month. We had a number of social workers here today. We identified them here in the House. I want to send a message out to all the social workers in the province, particularly those ones - because we're talking about children in care now - who are working with children. The work you're doing is invaluable to the system. It's tough work, it's emotional work, it's challenging work, but it's also rewarding work.

 

It inspires me every day as the minister for this department. We have over 400 social workers in the province. Many of them work with youth and children in care. If a child is needing something - a pair of skates, hockey registration, basketball shoes, art lessons, music lessons - that's something their individual social worker can work on to try to get the budget to help support that. Their foster parents can do the same thing. Every child in care is attached to a social worker, and part of that social worker's caseload is to support that child.

 

One of the roles I had when I was in Tatamagouche was on the Children's Aid Society and Family Services board in Colchester County. We used to have volunteer board organizations supervising the activities of our department officials there. It quickly moved into a provincial association, so it's not done by volunteer boards anymore. When I left the board, it's because the board no longer existed. Back then, the caseloads social workers had was the number one issue they had in terms of labour. It still is. I'm talking to social workers now in my role as minister. We need to do more work to decrease the caseloads social workers have.

 

One of the things we've done this year is that we've added some administrative support in a new position that supports some of the administrative - the paperwork - social workers are required to do, freeing them up to do the good work like the member's talking about: supporting people in their caseload more directly, including children who may be in foster care. We're trying to take some steps to ease the burden of those jobs.

 

I would love to see a time when we can shrink those caseloads, but just like for teachers, sometimes it's not the caseload; sometimes it's the complexity of the caseload they have. You can have five difficult cases that are more of a burden than 20 less challenging cases. Case management and the role of the managers are also important in this case, but we need to make sure the social workers across Nova Scotia know they're valued and know we hear them.

 

I've met with them. We're taking action to try to look at what we can do to reduce their administrative burden and reduce some of the caseload, if we can possibly do it, so they can better support the people we've assigned them to.

 

LISA LACHANCE: I'm going to ask a couple more questions and then turn it back to my colleague.

 

I have an answer I'm hoping the minister will give because this practice has ended as we've built more capacity in the province. In previous years, there were times when we did not have enough advanced level foster homes available for young people with the most complex needs. Young people were sent to specialized facilities in Montreal, Alberta, and the States.

 

I'm wondering if the minister can indicate how many children in the care of the Province were sent out of province in the past year for specialized foster care.

 

[2:45 p.m.]

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable Minister of Opportunities . . .

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Thank you, Chair . . .

 

THE CHAIR . . . and Social Development.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: You're doing great, Chair. It's Friday. It's almost time to go to Cape Breton.

 

Currently, we have some medical supports in foster homes. We have some specialized foster homes. Currently in Nova Scotia, we have no children who are in our care placed outside the province, but I do know that in the past, this existed. From my own experience, I worked closely with a social worker in Truro. He's retired now. His name is David Pardy. I'll give him a shoutout.

 

We had two children - I won't say their relationship because I'd identify them - in the school who had a lot of interaction with justice. This is at the elementary school level, before they're 12 years old. They had challenging profiles, and every support possible in the province was given to them. There was no location, no support system, no foster family, and no group home that could manage this couple of individuals, so they were placed in group homes in Ottawa, finished their high school education in Ottawa, and returned to Nova Scotia. I'm still involved closely with one of them who does a lot of work with me around my home and volunteers in my political campaign, so this has been probably 35 years now since I had them as a student.

 

It was a shame when they were removed not only from their home, not only from their community, but also their province and were placed for years for specialized services in Ottawa. Right now, that is no longer the case in Nova Scotia, and that shows the evolution of the support system we built here and the services we built here in Nova Scotia. As minister, it's necessary for me to express my support for the social workers and the programs we put in place, so we take care of our own here in Nova Scotia, no matter what challenges they face.

 

THE CHAIR: Before I recognize the next member for questioning, I recognize there's 30 minutes left today, and I wanted to give both sides the opportunity so you'd know how many questions you have left. I assume we're doing closing remarks at the end of this.

 

This is the last hour of Estimates. Minister, do you have any idea how many minutes you need? A minute? Just for your questioning, so you would know.

 

The honourable member for Fairview-Clayton Park.

 

LINA HAMID: I would like to zoom in a bit on something specific. The Tiny Homes project in Lower Sackville, as well as some of the other Pallet shelters that are being put up there - I imagine this is something that was put in place before the minister became the minister of this department, but I would love to know and get some more information about this. The Atlantic Community Shelters Society is the one that manages those sites, and so I'm wondering how that organization was selected. How was that organization selected as the one to provide the wraparound services?

 

HON. SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We put a call out to our service providers and our partners to see who'd be willing to take this work on. It's been hugely successful - resoundingly successful. QUEST was a service provider that was adapting their business model to support people in the community. The Atlantic Community Shelters Society was sort of evolved from QUEST, and they're the service provider that's providing this. It was our department reaching out to our partners, and then some of our partners stepping up. QUEST and ACSS have been great partners in this, and we've been pleased to work with them at three different locations in Nova Scotia.

 

LINA HAMID: I'll have to rethink my follow-up questions because I wasn't aware that organization came up out of another organization. The public-facing side is that this was an organization that was registered in 2024. I appreciate that clarification because I have seen first-hand the great work a lot of these organizations are providing.

 

With that, I'm going to quickly jump topics. There's a question that came regarding OSD workers specifically. There was a Labour Management Review Committee meeting confirmed with the child welfare workers. What recommendations have come out of that, and what recommendations are being implemented? If that's not readily available, tabling it before the end of the sitting would be great.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We're getting down to operational details I don't have at our fingertips, and we can't just grab, so we'll seek to get that information and get it to you.

 

LINA HAMID: A follow-up to that is that we've heard from folks working in the department for several years that there is a problem with bullying within the department. Is that something that has been brought to the attention of management? Is that something that's being addressed, or how is it being addressed?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: OSD has 1,700-plus employees who work within a large organization. There are 35 offices across the province. We have a whole unit devoted to diversity, equity, and engagement. There's a lot of staff development, and any allegations of bullying or inappropriate behaviour by employees is dealt with by supervisors and managers. It's also a unionized environment. There's a union representing them, so there are labour practices throughout our department from one end of the province to the other.

 

To me, any acts of bullying or inappropriate behaviour to take place in the department are unacceptable. It's unacceptable to me, it's unacceptable in modern workplaces. To anybody out there who's working in OSD or in any other location, if you're suffering bullying or intimidation in any way, shape, or form, please, if you're a unionized member go to your union, go to your supervisor, or go to your manager. If that's not satisfactory, continue to go up the ladder because we would take any accusation seriously. It will be investigated, and it will be dealt with.

 

LINA HAMID: I do want to take a moment, now that we are nearing the end, to say how much I do truly appreciate the minister and the staff. I know that out of the three folks I see, there's probably a team of 10 others, so for the folks at the top, thank you. The front-line workers - everybody within this department - this is important work. I may be biased, but I feel like it's one of the departments that directly touches a lot of people in a way that's visible to them, as in this is OSD interacting with me or this is me interacting with OSD.

 

Any of the questions I've asked is because I see the potential that this department has in making such a positive impact on the lives of Nova Scotians, and I appreciate the minister's offer to be able to chat at a later date. I do look forward to that, and I've already started writing down notes about the things I would like to talk about. All that to say I do appreciate your time and the effort put into this and put into all the work that's being done by the department. I look forward to more collaboration, and I cede my time to my colleague from Cumberland North.

 

THE CHAIR: The honourable member for Cumberland North.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: We'll finish this off. As my colleague mentioned, it's such an important department. It does such incredible work. I know the staff at the office in Cumberland are an incredible team and care very deeply for their clients.

 

I'm wondering, on that note: Can the minister share with us how is the staffing - I apologize if this has already been discussed, and I didn't hear. I'm wondering how the department is doing with regard to staffing. Is there much of a shortage of staff throughout the province, or are the departments fully staffed?

 

[3:00 p.m.]

 

HON. SCOTT ARMSTRONG: Leave it to the member from Cumberland North to bring math in on a Friday afternoon at 4:00 p.m.

 

There are retirements, there are people changing jobs, and there are people moving within this department and other departments, but currently we're at about a 6 percent vacancy rate in terms of staff. That probably skews a little high when you say that compared to what it really is. Part of that is because of the Remedy. We've hired a 120 new people - 120 new positions - and we have to ramp up their certification level so people are qualified to apply for those jobs before we can award those jobs. Right now, at this moment, we're right around 6 percent, but in reality, it's probably consistently a little lower than that. The number I have for you is 6 percent, and I look forward to challenging math questions for the next 15 minutes and 47 seconds.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Sorry, minister. I realize it's late on a Friday.

 

That's great to know. I mean, it would be better if we didn't have any vacancy, but that's lower than what I would have thought based on the labour market right now. The minister made an announcement last week, with an incredible woman from Cumberland North, Connie Fisher, who works for NSCC - an incredible woman, a rock star. The minister announced funding for NSCC for more training, so that will help as well.

 

I did come in as the conversation was happening with one of my colleagues - foster care and adoption - and I am curious. Hopefully, it won't involve too much math, but I'm wondering where the department is at when it comes to finding homes for fostering, as well as adoption, here in the province. Do we have enough foster homes? Do we need more? If yes, what can we be doing as MLAs to help the department with that?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I have those numbers right at our fingertips, so that was a good question. We did have a question earlier about Mockingbird families and the constellation, which is a program we put in place in foster care.

 

The number of caregivers we have in the province currently is 798. People have opened their homes to have foster children move in. That's a 26 percent increase over the last couple of years. We attribute that to some of the changes and modernization we've made in the foster care system, some flexibility in terms of receipts and budget they can use more flexibly in their homes to be able to support those children, and the supports we've put in place in terms of the incredible work done by social workers and case workers that every child who's in care in Nova Scotia has been assigned to.

 

We're redesigning the foster care system, and so far, that's led in part to an increase in the number of people we have participating, but it can never be enough.

 

If anyone out there is interested in engaging in this - opening your home to a child - I can think of no more rewarding volunteer activity than it would be to open your home and your family to taking care of a child who's in need and taking care of a child who's in care. If there's any interest in that, please reach out to one of our service providers or one of our offices throughout Nova Scotia.

 

So far, the redesign and some of the restructuring we've done within the foster child care system has been beneficial, and we hope to see those numbers grow over the next year.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: The minister had shared a 26 percent increase. Does that mean there's a 26 percent - I don't think this is what he meant, but I'm curious of the numbers - in the number of children who need a home to be fostered or adopted? If not, where are we at with regard to children here in the province? Are we seeing an increase in the number?

 

I will share that, in our area, sometimes there are situations - especially if there are addictions - sometimes people aren't able to take care of their children and need some help there. Has the department seen any increase in the incidence of children needing foster placement?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: The math questions continue. Math class used to end in elementary at 3:00 p.m. on Fridays. Usually, it was art on Friday afternoons.

 

The 798 number is the number of caregivers we have who are willing to take children. The number of children is 765 who are in care in the province. That's down 7 percent over last year, so there are a few fewer children in care, but we have more caregivers to allocate them to, so the system's balanced right now.

 

Now, remember, some of those numbers are two caregivers - a family, there are two caregivers within that family - so we can always use more. Just because you have empty spaces in Bridgewater - if the child's living in Port Hawkesbury, it's better to keep them close to home and close to the same school they were already in.

 

We can always use more because the more locations and the more caregivers we have, the better we can match them to the children who need to be put in care or need to be put in those homes. Just because we have enough doesn't mean we have the right structures or the right geography to support those children.

 

If anyone's interested in taking this role on, it's rewarding. I can think of no better volunteer activity than opening your home and opening your heart to a child.

 

We'll always need more because the more options we have to place children, the better we can match the home to the child.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: I'm curious if the minister is able to share any information, like how often, when a child needs to go into the care of another family or another home, is it another family member who steps up? In those situations where maybe it's a case of grandparents, aunt and uncle, or a close relative, did they receive the same type of supports from the department as if the child was being fostered by a non-family member? I ask that question because there may be some people out there who are wondering that.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: There's some stuff to unpack here. We've been - as I mentioned before in this line of questioning - restructuring the framework we use to support children in care, so the first priority is that they never come into care in the first place. Once children come into care, it's increasingly difficult to get them out. We all know that connecting them to someone who's already in their family - whether it's a direct family member or someone I call a community family member, someone who loves and cares for them like a biological relative - is always the first option. Our social workers are highly skilled at first looking to see if there's a safe place with a family that loves them, and they already have a connection with. It could be a grandmother, it could be an aunt, it could be an uncle. It could be someone who's related to them, or it could be someone who's close to the family who opens their home up to them. That's not a foster child.

 

We've increased the budget for those situations, and it's called the Alternative Family Care program. That's $750. That's the increase. They don't get as much as a foster family would for taking children in, but it does provide a huge increase in the financial support for alternative family care.

 

Like I said, they could be a relative, so you have to look at that, too, but there is financial support for this program because we know the outcomes for children in care are not as strong as for a child who was raised in the home with their parents and their family. It's also because that home is probably closer to where they were born. They can usually stay in the same school, hopefully, or a school close by, keep their friends, keep their connections, keep their social group, and stay in the same minor hockey team.

 

We know the benefits of keeping children close to their home with someone close to their family are much higher than ones who are moved to a family they've never seen before, they don't know, and it's a foster care system. In our new framework, there's a lot of emphasis on that, and we're changing and remodelling our structure to consistently support that as the first option.

 

The last option is to take children into care. We're focused on having that happen as little as possible. There are circumstances where that has to happen, but we're hoping, under our new framework, that will be less prevalent, and we'll see more and more children able to stay as close to home as possible.

 

THE CHAIR: With just under five minutes remaining and one minute of that reserved for closing remarks, the honourable member for Cumberland North.

 

ELIZABETH SMITH-MCCROSSIN: Probably some of the people in my life whom I have the highest respect for are people who have brought children into their homes who are not biologically their own, but they're raising them. It's pretty much up there with sainthood in my books - people who do that.

 

My last question for the minister - I'm assuming it'll be the last question - I'm going to divert a bit.

 

He knows that in Amherst, we have this incredible place called the Bridge Adult Service Centre, and they iron a lot of shirts for Murray and me. They have a laundry service. They do a great job, but I do understand there's a significant wait-list to get in. I know persons with disabilities in Amherst, and having that job and having that place to go to every day builds their self-worth and builds their self-esteem. It's a great place. They're incredible people, honestly, who work there at the Bridge workshop, and Joanne Hopper - the Executive Director at the Bridge workshop - and her staff do an incredible job.

 

I'll leave that question with the minister: Are there any plans to look at increasing funding for places like the Bridge so they would be able to shorten the wait-list of people who are looking to be able to work there at this non-profit?

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: We talk a lot about the Remedy and the impact of the Remedy. More and more funding is being individualized for each individual as we implement the Remedy. Day programs like the Bridge in Amherst would have to look at their business models to make sure they attract people to come in because the Remedy is all about choice. People may choose to use the services, and there are great services at the Bridge in Amherst - I know it well.

 

[3:15 p.m.]

 

Individuals may choose to do that program, so the Bridge will be working with our representatives as they adjust to the Remedy. Their business model will adjust. All the day programs that are offered throughout the province of Nova Scotia to people with disabilities are going to have to adjust to attract those people to make choices to come through the individualized funding.

 

We're working directly with them. We're in constant contact. They know who they can call to bounce ideas and questions off of. All day programs - there's SummerStreet Industries in New Glasgow, there's STEPs on Arthur in Truro, there's the Bridge in Amherst, and there are many across the province - are working with our officials to make sure they can progress and change their business model so they can access the funds, as the funding model is totally being changed and transformed due to the Human Rights Remedy.

 

I have about a minute left, so with that, I can make my closing comments. Okay.

 

This is National Social Work Month in March, and I've said it a couple times today, and we read a minister statement today in the legislature celebrating social workers and the good work they do. There are over 400 social workers in the Department of Opportunities and Social Development. They do incredible work. As the member across said, they're like angels - “close to sainthood” was the actual quote she used. I would agree with that. They inspire me every day from talking to them, and we'll continue to get out. As soon as the legislature closes for this sitting, we'll be out talking to employees of the Department of Opportunities and Social Development.

 

The Department of Opportunities and Social Development has about 1,700 employees serving various roles. These are the people who provide the social safety net for people in need in our province, whether you're someone receiving Income Assistance, someone receiving employment supports, a person . . .

 

THE CHAIR: Order.

 

SCOTT ARMSTRONG: I apologize.

 

THE CHAIR: Order, please. The time allotted for considerations of Supply has elapsed.

 

The honourable member for Colchester North, Chair of the Subcommittee on Supply.

 

TOM TAGGART: I am pleased to report that the Subcommittee on Supply has met for the time allotted to it and considered various Estimates assigned to it.

 

THE CHAIR: Shall all the remaining resolutions carry?

 

The resolutions are carried.

 

The honourable Government House Leader.

 

HON. BRENDAN MAGUIRE: I move that the committee of the Whole House on Supply do rise and report these Estimates.

 

THE CHAIR: The motion is carried.

 

The committee will now rise and report these Estimates to the House.

 

We are in recess.

 

[The committee adjourned at 3:18 p.m.]