Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I’d like to talk about support for grandparents who are caring for their grandchildren. I’m a grandmother and I know that if I had to go to sleep at night or for one minute had to wonder whether my grandchildren were being properly cared for, I would necessarily have to rearrange my life and make sure that I stepped in and became involved in that. Thankfully, I’ve been blessed with daughters-in-law and sons that are probably better parents than their parents were, but I understand the heart of grandparents who do step in and raise their grandchildren.
This issue has been raised to me by constituents recently and also by aunties and uncles that step in, also thinking of the couple that went to the media that are from Ndilo that were raising four of their grandchildren and without financial support from our government. When asked about this recently, the Minister of Health and Social Services confirmed that in cases where children are apprehended through the system and placed with grandparents, grandparents are eligible for remuneration at the exact same rate as regular foster parents, but when grandparents foster their grandkids informally, they don’t qualify for remuneration, and this is because it’s happening outside of the formal child and family services system. In these cases, the Minister stated that income support is an appropriate avenue for help. But what if the grandparents caring for these grandchildren aren’t eligible for income support? Then what is their recourse?
I have reviewed the department’s pamphlet on voluntary support service agreements. These agreements come into play when parents can’t take proper care of their children and when “there’s no other available help from family, friends or other community services.” What does no other help available mean? Does it mean grandparents have already stepped in with their own resources? Some grandparents are penalized because they have had the compassion and the sense of duty to step in before their grandchildren are formally apprehended by the system. Then they are expected to go to income support, and if they don’t qualify they’re expected to provide for their grandchildren from their own resources.
It seems that there may be a way to improve the system here and there may be a break in the system here. I would rather that we could come up with a way of recognizing those situations and work collaboratively with the social services to determine…
May I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement, please?
---Unanimous consent granted
We all know that for children who are apprehended by the system it is a very big upheaval in their life, and ultimately, they may end up with family members or grandparents, but if there was a way to avert that apprehension process, and if it were possible for family members to work collaboratively with a social worker to ensure the best course and plan of care for the children in question, I think it would be a better system. No doubt, homes do need to have to be qualified regardless of whether they’re relatives or not, because we’ve heard the stories from southern Canada where grandparents have sometimes been looking after children and weren’t really qualified to be doing so.
I’d just like to further ask the Minister of Health and Social Services questions about this later today in question period to find out if there’s a missing piece here that we need to think about and address.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
