Performance Reporting — Continued

Core Business Area: Services for communities and First Nations

Goal 7: Equitable opportunities for all British Columbians.

Objectives

1. To provide intervention and prevention initiatives to stop violence against women.
2. To support the availability of child care spaces, providing families with child care options.
3. To help create a thriving housing market that is responsive to the needs of a wide range of British Columbians.
4. To improve programs and services for Aboriginal people.
5. To maximize the economic and social benefits of immigration.

Performance Measure	Target 2002/03	Actual 2002/03
Provincial inventory of transition houses, safe homes and second stage housing. • Conduct inventory	Complete	• Completed. As this inventory is confidential it will not be released publicly.
Safer community strategy for women in shelters and transition houses. This includes a province-wide perspective for the delivery of women's services. • Develop strategy • Cabinet approval • Implement strategy	Complete	• Strategy is complete and submitted for Cabinet review. • The strategy had not been approved by Cabinet or implemented at March 31, 2003.1
Develop long-term strategy for encouraging the expansion of safe, affordable child care services. • Develop strategy • Cabinet approval • Implement recommendations	Complete	• The strategy was completed. • Cabinet has approved the strategy. • The key recommendation implemented was the introduction of the Child Care Operating Funding Program. It replaced the Compensation Contribution Program, the Infant/Toddler Incentive Grant Program, and the Out-of-School Care Transition Funding Program. Implementation of recommendations will continue in 2003/04.

Discussion of variance:
1	The Safer Community Strategy was completed later than planned because the scope of the project grew over time. The new target date for implementation is 2003/04. Cabinet direction on the strategy is expected in 2003/04 pending scheduling by Cabinet Operations.

 

Performance Measure	Target 2002/03	Actual 2002/03
Complete Provincial Housing Policy. • Cabinet approval • Develop implementation plan • Develop performance measures/deliverables	Complete	• Underway. • Cabinet had not yet approved the policy as of March 31, 2003.1 • A preliminary implementation plan was developed and some pre-approved components of the policy have been implemented. • Performance measures have been developed. Final confirmation will follow cabinet approval.
# of Aboriginal businesses started or expanded with assistance from the First Citizens Fund.	130	1952

1	The adoption of the Provincial Housing Policy depends on approval by the Core Services Review Committee (CSRC). The ministry worked with CSRC through 2002/03 but, due to the policy's complexity and a need for further analysis, the process was not completed. CSRC did approve Phase 1 of its review and Cabinet approved the Homeowner Protection Office component (see the Update on New Era Commitments section for more information). A final decision regarding the Provincial Housing Policy and programs is expected from CSRC in the first quarter of 2003/04.
2	The actual number of Aboriginal businesses started or expanded with assistance from the First Citizens Fund exceeded the Directorate's target by 50 per cent. This is because the loans for which applications were received were generally for smaller dollar amounts than were anticipated. This allowed more loans to be provided. To understand the fuller story, readers should be aware of the jobs created as a result of these loans (reported in the section below).

 

Other achievements for which targets were not set in the Service Plan for 2002/03:

Women's Issues

• 12,925 women and children used transition houses as safe shelter from violence. An annual average of 14,125 clients used this service between 1998/99 and 2001/02. The 2002/03 decrease is consistent with the nation-wide downward trend in transition home use identified by Statistics Canada. The ministry is revising its data collection system to help determine the cause of this and other trends.
• 5,087 women who experienced abuse were counselled by contracted service providers. In 2001/02, 5,064 women received counselling.
• 8,458 children were counseled by contracted service providers under the Children Who Witness Abuse program. In 2001/02, 9,203 received counselling.

Child Care

• 172 child care organizations were supported under the capital grant programs. This is down from the 257 supported in 2001/02 because the capital program for out-of-school care was no longer in place at April 1, 2002.
• 416 spaces were created and 5,070 spaces were supported under the capital grant programs.
• 3,170 child care organizations were supported by operating grants.

Housing

• The Rental Housing Planning Guide was released, providing tools for local governments to work with the housing industry to promote and preserve rental housing stock.
• The Province, BC Housing and other partners completed 1,386 housing units across BC, 368 of which are for lower income urban single people, people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness and other groups. Construction of an additional 939 units is under way.
• Through BC Housing, the Province provided more than $16 million to subsidize approximately 2,600 units of social housing in the Vancouver Downtown Eastside. As part of the agreement to sell the former Woodward's building to the City of Vancouver, the Province announced that it would also fund an additional 100 units of non-market housing in the area.

Aboriginal People

• The ministry provided loans through the First Citizens Fund to enhance social and economic opportunities for Aboriginal people. In addition to the business starts and expansions reported above, the loans helped to create 446 full-time or part-time jobs. This compares to 407 jobs created in 2001/02.
• The ministry negotiated three agreements with employers under the Aboriginal Employment Partnership Initiative to encourage employment and economic opportunities for Aboriginal people.
• Bursary funding of $153,600 was provided to 158 Aboriginal post-secondary students. In 2001/02, the ministry provided 135 students with $123,750.
• 111 Aboriginal youths received entrepreneurial training through the Aboriginal BEST program, assisting them to develop business ideas and become self-employed. The program is offered in Terrace, Courtenay/Comox, Williams Lake, Kamloops, Fort St. John, and Castlegar.
• Business Advisory Service offices were set up in Fort St. John and Cranbrook, with federal funding assistance. The offices are designed to support Aboriginal businesses in under-serviced areas of the province.

Settlement and Multiculturalism

• The ministry completed development of the Critical Incident Response Model, with 12 communities at various stages of model implementation. The model enables community leaders to respond to incidents of racism arising in their communities. As of March 31, 2003, four communities were in the first stage of implementation, four were in the second stage, and four were in the third (final) stage towards full implementation.
• Immigrant settlement services and adult English training were delivered in 33 BC communities through 145 contractors.
• 36 anti-racism and multiculturalism projects were underway in 22 communities across BC. These included the Capital Region Race Relations Association's Racially Diverse Families Project, which provided workshops to Victoria-area service providers to help them identify barriers faced by racially diverse people. Elsewhere, the Kamloops Cariboo Regional Immigrant Society coordinated a community anti-racism project that included anti-racism training for youth, a diversity walk and various other activities in the community to raise awareness about racism, its effects, and how to combat it.

Immigration

• Under the BC Provincial Nominee Program, 181 immigrants were nominated to fill jobs in sectors with proven critical skill shortages. There were 83 nominations in 2001/02, the first year of the program. Twenty-two per cent of the 2002/03 nominations were from employers outside the Lower Mainland.
• Employer clients of the Provincial Nominee Program gave the program a 94 per cent satisfaction rating for the time required to complete the application process and a 79 per cent satisfaction rating for the program's expediting of the federal immigration process for nominees.
• The International Qualifications Program negotiated 15 partnerships, which directly or indirectly helped immigrants practice their profession or trade in BC. An early result of these efforts saw nine foreign-trained nurses successfully challenge the examination for registered nurses, allowing them to integrate into the Canadian nursing profession. Four others examination challenges were pending as of March 31, 2003.