News
This morning's article in the Herald.
Braid: Little time for disabled on Tory agenda
By Don Braid, Calgary Herald, March 26, 2010
Fifteen minutes. Nine hundred seconds. That's how much of their precious time Calgary Tory MLAs have scheduled for agencies that deal with the developmentally disabled.
The meeting, set for McDougall Centre today, explains a lot about the crisis erupting among Alberta social care groups.
This collision between political promises and scarce cash has already jolted foster care in Edmonton, and could soon spread to other areas of support for the needy.
Tory politicians, with lots of time to check the mirror between short meetings, will see who's responsible.
It's them.
The government has constantly repeated the fiction that this year's budget won't bring service cuts to needy individuals.
They're setting an impossible, illogical task for non-profit groups that actually help the needy, and for provincial officials who oversee the programs.
A top official in Edmonton named Rick Semel lost his job over this Wednesday, when his officials tried to impose foster care cuts his minister said wouldn't happen.
"This man was a wonderful, exemplary civic servant who worked extremely hard to help the disadvantaged," says Wildrose Alliance MLA Heather Forsyth, who worked with Semel for two years when she was the Tory Children's Services Minister.
"His leaving is bizarre. It's tragic. And what kind of message does it send to the rest of the staff?"
The message is, don't cut. But the dollars say, "start cutting."
The official on the spot here is Dr. Alex Hillyard, the CEO of developmental disability programs in Calgary.
Hillyard has a "shortfall" of $4.8 million in his budget this year. He must find that money while making little or no impact on support for some of Calgary's unluckiest citizens.
He might do it. Of course, he might also walk across Glenmore Reservoir in sandals.
"We're looking first and foremost at making cuts in our own operations -- about $1.3 million," Hillyard says gamely. "There have been some layoffs.
"The point is that we're taking savings here before we ask for any savings from the agencies."
That's reasonable, but many non-profits aren't mollified. They say they've been virtually forced to sign new contracts with reduced funding.
Hillyard has at least been direct, although delicate, about the
prospect of service cuts.
"There may well be some impacts to people, although some may be minimal," he tells me.
But here's what Premier Ed Stelmach told the legislature March 18, when he was asked a question by Liberal Laurie Blakeman.
"One of our commitments, of course, is to ensure that we support the most vulnerable.
"PDD, persons with developmental disabilities, are a part of that group, and we're doing whatever we can to ensure that the services that they have will continue to be provided."
No talk of cuts there.
Blakeman then went after Seniors and Community Supports Minister Mary Anne Jablonski.
She said the regions are being told to seek "efficiencies" (current Tory lingo for cuts).
"And I believe that the regions are asking the social agencies that work with our PDD clients to help us find those efficiencies with little or no impact on our clients."
Notice the suggestion that any cuts will be the fault of non-profit agencies that didn't find efficiencies.
For Ryan Geake at the Calgary SCOPE Society, efficiency is a 14-year- old office carpet.
"It is absolutely disgusting," he says. "But we can't afford to change it."
Hillyard acknowledges that "the agencies run pretty tight ships.
"At the end of the day, though, the providers and ourselves have the same goal -- to get the best results for the individual.
"We're working with the allocation we have to do that."
It's a tough situation because the premier made a promise, and nobody can admit it has to be broken.
dbraid@theherald.canwest.com
C Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
