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37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

1525

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.))

1530

Ms. Tracy Scott (Nursing Services Manager, Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin)

1535

The Chair

1540

Ms. Bonny Traverese (Day Care Coordinator, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs)

The Chair

Ms. Caroline Bercier (Tribal Family Health Nursing Officer, Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin)

The Chair

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd (Coordinator, Sandy Bay Health Centre)

The Chair

Ms. Bonny Traverese

1545

The Chair

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd

The Chair

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd

1550

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance)

1555

Ms. Tracy Scott

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.)

Ms. Bonny Traverese

Mr. Alan Tonks

1600

Ms. Tracy Scott

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Tracy Scott

The Chair

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.)

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd

1605

The Chair

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd

1610

The Chair

1615

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel (Administrator, Children's Programs, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations)

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic (Representative, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations)

1620

Ms. Bev Peel

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

Ms. Bev Peel

1625

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

1630

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Bev Peel

1635

Mr. Alan Tonks

1645

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Bev Peel

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

The Chair

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

Ms. Bev Peel

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

Ms. Bev Peel

1650

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel

The Chair

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

Ms. Bev Peel

1655

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

Ms. Bev Peel

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel

The Chair

Ms. Bev Peel

The Chair

1700

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

1705

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

1710

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

The Chair

Mr. Carl Sidney (Deputy Chief, Teslin Tlingit Council)

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris (Director of Health and Social Programs, Teslin Tlingit Council)

The Chair

1715

Ms. Kelly Morris

1720

The Chair

Ms. Brenda Sam (Ta'an Kwach'an Council)

1725

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

Ms. Kelly Morris

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

1730

The Chair

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Kelly Morris

Mr. Alan Tonks

1735

Ms. Kelly Morris

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Kelly Morris

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Kelly Morris

Mr. Carl Sidney

Mr. Alan Tonks

The Chair

1740

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

1745

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

The Chair

Ms. Kelly Morris

Mr. Carl Sidney

The Chair

Ms. Brenda Sam

1750

The Chair

1755

Brenda Sam

The Chair

CANADA

Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

NUMBER 025

1st SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Wednesday, May 8, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1525)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Welcome, everybody. I hope we're being heard in Manitoba. I don't know whether you can hear us all right; just nod or wave. Can you hear us in Manitoba? You can't hear us? How can you...?

Oh, you can hear us. It would have been a little odd if you were shaking your heads because you couldn't hear us, because I just asked you the question.

Let me welcome you to this Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk, and let me begin by introducing myself. I'm John Godfrey and I chair the committee. We have a couple of other members who are here and we're expecting others, but we thought we might as well begin, because we know we've only got a certain amount of time at our disposal before the satellite link goes down, or--I don't know if it's a land link or a satellite link--whatever it is.

Let me introduce, from the Alliance Party, Garry Breitkreuz, who is filling in for a colleague who's gone to the UN special session on children in New York, Larry Spencer. On this side is Alan Tonks, who is with the government side. There will be others coming along, but we're anxious to hear from you.

I think you will have received an indication of what we're doing here. We now welcome, as she comes in, Nancy Karetak-Lindell, from Nunavut, who will undoubtedly wave at you. There she is, just coming in; you can just see Nancy sitting down. I think you'll find, as we do, that after the initial awkwardness of technology, we'll get used to this strange way of communicating. Actually, it works quite efficiently.

I'd like to welcome our guests from Manitoba. I see four people, and we have four people; this is good. Tracy Scott--would you just wave? Hi, there. Tracy is nursing services manager from the Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin. You're going to have to help me with the pronunciation when the time comes and you introduce yourselves. And Caroline Bercier is the tribal family health nursing officer. From the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs we have Bonny Traverese--which person is that? Bonnie, hi, and welcome--and Ida Ross, the health representative from Lake St. Martin First Nation Manitoba. I guess that's the last person there? No, it's not

A voice: Ida's not here.

The Chair: So who is the mystery guest, then?

A voice: Dorothy Lloyd.

The Chair: Dorothy, welcome. Oh, there you are; good. Thanks, Dorothy.

I hope you've received from us a sense of the kind of report we want to do on the zero to six population of aboriginal kids and their families living on reserve. I think you will have received a bit of a backgrounder about which way we're going. Ideally we'd like to know what the ideal model would be for service delivery on the ground, how it is that Ottawa can better coordinate its services from the various departments that offer separate and unintegrated services on the ground currently. I think you've understood why we need your help in designing a series of recommendations so that we can improve the situation for people like you who are working in the field and on the ground in aboriginal communities.

We might begin, I guess, with the list in the order in which I have it. Tracy, would you like to introduce yourself and make opening remarks? Then we'll move along to Caroline.

¹ (1530)

Ms. Tracy Scott (Nursing Services Manager, Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin): My name is Tracy Scott. I'm the nursing services manager for the Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin, which I will refer to as the AMA. It means “first nations good health” in Ojibway. It's a first nations health authority that was established in 1996 at the second and third level of transfer through the first nations and Inuit health transfer initiative. We provide supervisory professional supports to community-based health teams, as well as a number of programs that are offered in our communities.

We work with seven different communities in the tribal council area of the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council. Our organization is governed by the board of directors, whose membership consists of our elected chiefs from each community.

AMA has a lot of different programs that we work with in the various communities. So in addressing this committee, I thought we'd be best to talk to two different programs that we feel look at the zero to six population.

I thought it might be useful to talk about programs that we feel have worked and have worked well, and why they've worked well in addressing this target population, and then some of the challenges we have in continuing to run those programs.

Two such programs are Giniijanis and Kids N Health.

Giniijanis is a peer support program that was developed with full community input. We had what we call “target assessment meetings” in communities. This is a program that was looked at with the expansion of the Canada prenatal nutrition program. When we went to communities and did these assessments, we said what kinds of supports do you feel that moms and fathers, parents and new children need in the community for health child development? So it's sort of beyond the CPNP as it is seen in most places.

From those assessments and that work with the community, there was a vision that came forward to hire community members as peer support workers, that whole peer support worker model we have. We have a lot of evidence to show the effects of that program. So it is an evidence-based program, and it's something that was developed with full community support.

We went to INAC to look for additional supports to fund the initiative because it just wasn't possible within the funding that was allotted to us through the CPNP. We were successful in securing funding for one year through the income security reform initiative. So the initial individuals who were hired into this program were people who were on social assistance, and that was one of the criteria to be hired into the program.

There are so many things to talk about with the program, but they promote healthy pregnancies, healthier children. Right now we're looking at literacy programs to expand our programs out. We do things like community kitchens--how to make baby food. There is peer support around breast-feeding. We have a database where we're looking at birth weights, breast-feeding rates, age of introduction to solids. So we have some outcomes that we can look at that are quantitative, as well as some qualitative measures that we're taking.

These peer support workers work in each of their respective communities and have quite a bit of support from our office, including Caroline, who's their program manager; a nutritionist; and a physical activity coordinator. So they're provided with lots of supports in doing programs.

They do prenatal programs, breast-feeding programs, child development programs. Some of the programs they've looked at are like the Mother Goose program, where they help families to learn nursery rhymes that they can share with their children. Those are literacy and interaction and child development programs.

The other program that I'd like to speak to is the Kids N Health program. This program has been around for about five years now. It's the first part of an integrated diabetes program. Kids N Health is a primary diabetes prevention strategy that works with children and their families, again, in teaching healthy eating habits and physical activity. It also employs people in the community, so it's that peer support model again of community-based workers, community diabetes representatives, or CDR, as we call them. There's a nutritionist involved in the program.

Again, if we have the time, we could go through some really unique activities that we see in this program, whether it's a family scavenger hunt to get people out and get them active or community gardens. There are a number of different activities and some traditional programs that are run in the community through the CDR. The CDR links with all the other community-based programs such as nursing, NNADAP, BFI, BHC, as does the peer support worker in providing diabetes programming and coordinating programming in the community. It also integrates the ADI program and some of the CPNP programs. So the program as a whole looks at prevention, promotion, education, care treatment, research, and evaluation.

¹ (1535)

We've actually partnered with the University of Manitoba and have done a screening of all the children in our communities and plan to do it again this fall--that's three years later--to look at what differences they're seeing in terms of impaired glucose tolerance or body mass index. With this research we also look at eating patterns and eating behaviours and activity patterns. We should hopefully see some changes there as well. We've also partnered with the university to look at complications for people with diabetes.

These are two programs I get really excited about. I think they work well. They bring employment into the community; they've integrated a number of different funding sources; and they also link with many different areas. This, I think, provides you with an example of how something could be coordinated and integrated at the community level.

The realities are that neither of these programs is feasible under current funding arrangements. If we look at the CPNP funding on its own, 75% of the focus of that program is nutrition. There is no way, with that funding, we'd be able to provide seven peer support workers in each of our communities.

Nutrition, albeit important, can't happen in isolation. We can't go and tell families to cook healthy meals when all those other issues aren't addressed, whether it's the mother's self-esteem, or the mother's support, or other activities for her to go to with her child.

The INAC funding has been lost. That was initially a three-year commitment. Then with the change of directors--it was a health program; it wasn't seen as an income reform initiative--they didn't want to support a health program. I think that's very telling of some of the struggles we have when we talk about getting various departments to work together.

I don't think anybody in any room anywhere today can say they don't know what health determinants are. We can have governments that say, “Yes, this is a health determinant”, meaning, “Income, or security, or those types of things are important, but this program is health, so it can't be funded from this department”. That was one of the issues with that program.

Funding for the Kids N Health program as well is in jeopardy. It's not fundable; it's not doable under the ADI funding we receive for the seven communities.

Those are some of the significant challenges. I wanted to say that about those two programs.

Some of the other issues that we find are challenges--and those are some of the things I believe you'd like to hear--are that the current funding agreements you get, such as ADI and CPNP, are programs. There is no one program that targets children from zero to six; there's no comprehensive program.

There are programs that can address that population, or some aspects, but when you get those agreements or you get funding for those programs, although they talk about community development--they definitely use the language--they're quite restrictive in what you can do. There are predetermined objectives and activities, and there are predetermined reporting requirements. To take CPNP funds and actually go out and hire peer support workers would not be meeting the Os and the As of that agreement, because you have to have that nutrition focus. That's one of the issues there.

The other thing is, in terms of ADI, the program is meant to look across a lifespan--across prevention, promotion, care, treatment, and support. When you actually get down to what that program announcement and what those fundings sound like nationally--when you actually get down to what an individual community gets to run that program--it's peanuts; it's totally insignificant to address all those components. Those are some issues.

The other struggle we have as a health authority is in developing programs that really are looking at long-term outcomes. When we look at diabetes prevention, we're not going to see a measurable quantitative outcome in a year, two years, or three years. These are long-term programs that are hoping to have long-term benefits. But when you look at funding agreements, transfer agreements, or contribution agreements, you're measured annually or every three years, and those sorts of outcomes that are looked for or sought by funding bodies are simply not sufficient indicators of whether the program is working.

The Chair: Ms. Scott, I'm sorry to interrupt. We're very grateful for the paper you've submitted, and I think your conclusion is very powerful, which, as you explained, there really is no integrated approach to this particular population.

My practical concern is that, partly because we started late, which is our fault...as I understand it, we have about 20 minutes left for the pre-arranged time. I don't know if we have any flexibility there or not; we may have a little flexibility.

But I'm anxious, in order that we take advantage of the fact that you're all here.... I don't know quite, amongst the others, whether some of you have formal presentations to make, or others are here as resource people. I don't know how that works, because I've only had the one paper that Ms. Scott produced.

Had each one of you planned to say something in a formal way, or how have you planned to use your time?

We can do it. I'm just anxious that the members have a chance to ask questions, where possible. We're under very unusual circumstances today.

So if I may, let me interrupt you there and ask whether any of the other three of you had statements you wanted to make. I don't want to rush anybody, but I'm anxious to hear from you all.

¹ (1540)

Ms. Bonny Traverese (Day Care Coordinator, Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs): I'm Bonny, and I have about a five-minute presentation.

The Chair: In order to organize my time, Dorothy and Caroline, I'd like to know whether you have presentations to make as well. What's the situation?

Ms. Caroline Bercier (Tribal Family Health Nursing Officer, Anishinaabe Mino-Ayaawin): I'm Caroline. I'm here with Tracy. I'm the program manager for the Giniijanis program, so I'm here just in case there are any questions about that. Tracy will be making the presentation.

The Chair: That's perfect.

Dorothy, what about you?

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd (Coordinator, Sandy Bay Health Centre): I was just going to go over the demographics.

The Chair: I don't know whether it makes sense to start with demographics. I don't think it much matters.

Bonny, you could speak for five minutes, and then, Dorothy, you could fill in with some demographics. We'll see where that takes us. Thank you.

Bonny.

Ms. Bonny Traverese: Thank you.

My name is Bonny Traverese. I'm the day care coordinator for the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs in Winnipeg.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs holds a master agreement with Human Resources Development Canada under the aboriginal Human Resources Development strategy, which will end March 2004. Under this agreement, my job is to monitor the day cares we operate here in Manitoba, and I'm going to speak from that perspective.

In one of our communities, Sioux Valley here in Manitoba, older children are presently role-modelling behaviours to the younger ones--and when I say younger, I refer to infants and toddlers--and they're utilizing puzzles as a teaching tool. An example of this would be an older child helping a toddler or a preschool child put puzzles together. The idea of this is to improve fine motor skills, language development, social interaction, and cognitive enhancement.

Overall, I find most of the communities are incorporating their main languages, such as Cree, Ojibway, Dene, and Sioux, as well as incorporating their cultural values and beliefs. We have noticed an increase in children using some of the basic language, and in turn their parents are learning to speak. This is a strong, positive indicator that day care programming is positive for parents.

The shortcoming is the funding for training early childhood educators in the communities, specifically in the areas of special needs. We have a high rate of children with fetal alcohol syndrome effects. We also have attention deficit disorders, attention hyperactivity disorders, behavioural management problems, handicapped and physically challenged children who have no opportunities in our day care centres.

Another deficit of the program is related to funding issues. Our funding is not comparable to off reserve. We can't compete with the wage scale of off-reserve, early childhood educators. We don't have the buildings in which to house these educators should they come from outside the community. There's a high burnout rate in our communities because of the low wage scale.

Another problem we have is that when children learn routine and structures in our centres, they are not practised at home. The inconsistency is because routine and structure are not compatible with the aboriginal values of non-interference in child rearing.

Promoting early childhood education in our communities is also a challenge, because it's perceived as babysitting rather than as early education programming. We need to promote this type of preventative measure in our communities.

Family types appear to be a factor in children's behaviours, particularly in blended families. Children seem to have a more difficult time adjusting within these family types, and as a result they have a difficult time behaving in day care. These children do not have the language capacity to explain what is happening in their environment.

The federal government could offer more programs and services in the areas of life skills training related to relationships and family dynamics, interpersonal communication skills, educating parents on parenting--as parenting was destroyed during the residential school era--the child welfare system, as well as the correctional system.

We need to reintroduce family as the central place of learning in our communities, and we believe we need to begin by offering parents training to relearn these family values. If you want to research this, there was a model offered here in the seventies or early eighties in a town called Rivers, Manitoba. In that community, they offered these skills I'm talking about to couples and people who wanted to learn them, and from what I understand it was successful. It ended for I don't know what reason.

If we need to pay couples, parents, guardians, and any caregiver to attend these kinds of training programs, we would fully support such an idea; we live in a capitalist society. There are a lot of studies that have been done--we've been studied to death--and I don't think I need to discuss this part further.

What I'm suggesting here is that in Manitoba we have HRDC funding for day care on reserve, and this is a five-year agreement that, as I said, will expire in March 2004. Health Canada funds the Head Start program on reserve to approximately 20 first nations, and it is proposal-driven. I think Head Start provides programs for parents and their children related to offering services in the area of parenting.

¹ (1545)

It shouldn't be proposal-driven. I think it should be offered to all the first nations here, particularly as training to the parents, etc. There needs to be an all-encompassing program that addresses Head Start pre- and post-natal programs at early childhood education. Each program is unique to the needs that are in the communities, but there needs to be something, some kind of transition, that encompasses all these areas. I think this would go a long way in community capacity-building.

The other thing is, I don't think we need to take one funding source to cover another program.

The last question I have here is, do we think the programs and services are reflective of local priorities? I don't think so, because people here live on a daily basis of survival. They need to worry about what they will feed their children, how they'll make it to the next pay cheque--or, should I say, assistance day. Day care will not be a priority when people are concerned about meeting their basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, and safety.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Bonny. That was very helpful.

We are going to now hear from Dorothy. Then, through a certain amount of juggling, because we're dealing with witnesses from a few different locales, I think we're going to be able to extend this conversation to about a quarter past. It's now ten to. You notice I'm avoiding saying which hour, because we're in different zones.

Let me now call on Dorothy and welcome you to make a few remarks. I think they are about demographics, as I understand.

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd: Actually, I'm working on a reserve that is about 120 miles northwest of Winnipeg. We're approximately 4,000 people in a six-mile radius.

The Chair: What's the name, please?

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd: It's Sandy Bay. And part of that land is swamp, basically.

I've been working in Sandy Bay since 1979, and away at school a couple of times in between, and I've noticed changes in the situation of Sandy Bay--not only in the population, but our population has gone from an average of 50 births a year to now between 80 and 100 births a year.

We don't actually have any services for children of any great impact on the reserve, because our day care can only take care of a small portion or segment of the population, and it's a very directed type of service.

The school has an N/K program, but that's about it. We don't have any recreation, or any types of things like that.

I'm going to just summarize it in one way. Basically, with an unemployment rate of about 90%, where entrepreneurship is very minimal, we actually are living in a very poverty-centred location, and we have all the things that follow from poverty. We have people who are very hard-pressed to think about doing things developmentally for their children when they have the survival problem you were talking about.

I think, just as in an old text book--like Maslow's; I like that hierarchy of needs he has--when we try to reach people up here and tell them about all these wonderful things to look forward to, when at the very bottom line they don't have any work, they're living on social assistance with no place...I mean, it's not just eat, sleep, and then go and get your social assistance, and eat and sleep. The quality of life has to be more than that. And that quality of life can't be translated into the children, because they see what their parents are going through. When they look at those kinds of things, I think they have to look at the whole structure of what it's like to live on reserve and the changes that have come about over the last even 20 years.

There's an influx of drugs, for instance, that when I started wasn't there. We've got more children with development problems, birth anomalies, that we didn't have to that extent when I first started.

I've seen some major changes in the status of health on the reserve. I think they have to look at that.

We wanted to do a Head Start program. One of the requirements of the Head Start program is to have a building. Well, everybody's so overcrowded right now there's no way you can have a building constructed, when you don't even have enough housing for people.

The housing right now is extremely overcrowded. There are health problems coming out of it because of mould and all kinds of things that are happening--probably part of it because of being close to the water, but also the unhealthy situation people are living in.

So basically, in the demographics and where we're actually living, I find it very difficult to take a look at one thing and say how it's going to impact a group of people, when it seems to me there has to be a lot more combining of effort to make a change for the people who live there.

My reserve is in Muskeg Lake. I've been in Sandy Bay now for an awfully long time, and I've lived in the city, and I have a very hard time thinking that in this day and age people have to live in that situation.

And to see the children and what they don't have, compared with what other places have: they have no access to any of the amenities you have when you.... I lived in the city. As you said, music lessons--I went to music lessons. Our school had a lot more things, but they're cutting back from school programs. So these children--it's not their fault, but they are the victims of all this, and that's the future.

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It worries me a great deal what the future of our communities is going to be if somehow this whole thing doesn't get looked at and addressed in its poverty-run....

I think I've said it all.

The Chair: And you've spoken it very well. You've given us an image of a community, with all of its challenges, which is very compelling. We're so glad you were all able to speak to us, because this is precisely the reality check we need here, even if we have to do it through this strange medium of television.

We do have a bit of time. I was wondering, Mr. Breitkreuz, whether you wanted to start. Then we'd move to Mr. Tonks and to Ms. Karetak-Lindell, if she had any questions.

Mr. Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz (Yorkton--Melville, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much.

I shouldn't say I enjoyed your presentations, but I appreciate the insights you've given us. I don't want to take up a lot of time.

I lived on a reserve for a couple of years and have a bit of an idea of what it's like there. You have quite adequately given us a bird's eye view, a description of what it's like.

Have you looked at any programs elsewhere that have been successful? I know one of you said you partnered with the University of Manitoba. Do you have access to other models that may have been successful somewhere else, and do you somehow try to model it on something elsewhere? It could be in Canada; it could be in the U.S.; New Zealand may have similar situations, or Australia. How much background information has been fed into the design of the programs you have?

¹ (1555)

Ms. Tracy Scott: I think the first thing I'd like to say is one of the challenges is that we only have to look to our provincial counterparts and to those children who live off reserve. The province of Manitoba has done a wonderful job. It has a whole continuum--a seamless continuum, so to speak--of programs for children. They have Healthy Babies, BabyFirst, Early Start, and they have STOP FAS/FAE. Those are all evidence-based programs. Those are programs that came out of Denver, Colorado, or the Perry Preschool Project. There's lots of evidence.

They've also evaluated their pilot projects. They're taking BabyFirst now and putting it across the province--except for children on reserve.

We don't have to look far to see programs that work and work well, that are well coordinated and well funded and extended to the population. They're just not available to our children. There are not similar funding sources or similar programs through the Government of Canada or through Health Canada to target those children.

Both of the programs I spoke to are built on evidence. They're built on community input, definitely--people telling us what they want to do. Often what happens is you can say people want someone in the community to be a peer support; you may have been told “that person”, and you go and find out there's lots of evidence to support it. There are certainly models out there.

We're still going to build that program from our community's wishes and our community's desires. It's well supported by evidence and proof in other communities. What's important is it's something the community has wanted. The two are married; they're well integrated.

I don't know if anybody else wants to talk to this. Does that answer your question?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes, thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

Now Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.): Thank you for your presentations.

We have been trying to develop and we've been searching for a model that would be community-based, that would be comprehensive in terms of programs, that would provide for the kind of peer support you've talked about, that would be inclusive of our prenatal and our employment and skills development--that would be a comprehensive community-based program.

I'm surprised to hear you say that under the transfer agreement--the first nations and Inuit health transfer initiative--you have developed this framework that seems to have that sort of cross-section of services, but the funding is going to be terminated. Various parts of the program will terminate. For example, I guess March 2004 is the termination of the prenatal funding? In any case, can you respond to that? Am I accurate in this?

Ms. Bonny Traverese: I'm the one who said we're under the Human Resources Development strategy we had signed with--I think it's across Canada--aboriginal people: Inuit, Métis, and first nations. That was to develop day care on reserve, because prior to 1995 there was no day care on reserve, other than the ones that were assigned through social services programming or education.

That strategy, I believe, is ending March 2004, and I'm hearing rumours there might be another one signed; I'm not sure. At this point we're just wondering where that's going to go.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I want to understand. Is the AMA program operating in all its facets out of a single building?

º (1600)

Ms. Tracy Scott: The day care support program?

They're actually community-based workers, peer-support workers. They have to be from the community they're working in; that's one of the criteria. They work out of the health centres. The support is coming from one office. You'll have the nutritionist and the physical activity, but they have lots of in-community support from the nurse in charge, who is sort of a community leader, a support person.

What happened with that program is we took an agreement to our proposal to INAC; that's how we got that program started. That funding's gone. Maybe that's the one you were referring to.

Mr. Alan Tonks: That's the one I was referring to. It seemed that program was very.... Under the transfer agreement, we were told, there's an assessment that's done, using, I guess, basic indicators of measurement that are also community-based.

Was that assessment done, and then in spite of the assessment the program was discontinued?

Ms. Tracy Scott: This was the assessment that was done for the CPMP fund to look at. We have this little pot of money, and it's not a lot of money that you get for CPMP--I think it's $75,000 for seven communities under the enhanced agreement. We want to go to the communities and say, “This is additional funding under CPMP. How should we run a program in your community that's going to help support moms and babes and dads and families?”

And that's what they told us: “These are the kinds of things we want.” We couldn't do it within the funding we got.

I think, as in the concluding comments, we know what needs to be done; we know what's effective. We just don't have the programs or the funds or the resources to support those types of programs.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Nancy Karetak-Lindell, did you have questions?

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell (Nunavut, Lib.): Thank you.

I certainly identify with many of the comments you have made today, coming from a riding very similar to yours. I also certainly feel with Bonny...in the statement where you said families should again be the centres of learning and responsibility, and also a comment by Dorothy that it's very difficult to do just one segment of a population if you're not also going to help the families these kids go home to after being involved in a program.

If you had the opportunity to integrate different programs, how would you structure it? How would you deal with a whole family situation? Unless you deal with some of the real, root causes for why our children are not finishing school, or not being productive members of society--and I certainly understand Dorothy's situation--when so many people of your population are on welfare, it's very difficult to motivate them to take part in all the opportunities we keep saying are open to all Canadians.

What program would you like to see in your community that would address those problems instead of just, as I understand from your presentations, functioning piecemeal--you know, we deal with little kids in aboriginal Head Start and then we deal with them in Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies programs, but there's no real coordination. I'm just wondering what you would set up if you had the funds to do it. What kinds of programs would you like to see in your community?

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd: This is probably a little bit off the wall, even. But I've been thinking about some of the questions.

If we were to start something, I think children need to see something. They're visual; they go by what is modelled to them. They model their lives according to what is modelled to them. By linking with other things I would like to see more mentoring help and training help, to help people into entrepreneurship, into working situations--to be self-sufficient, because it takes chunks out of people to be dependent. I think sometimes the programs put things in and then walk away. And then you're left...that tells you that your future.... You're not sure where your future is going to be, depending on a funding agency.

I think we need to have something so that children can be nurtured through the modelling--that's just one piece of it too--and seeing their parents being successful in doing things for themselves. I've been in a school system a long time too, and children do what they see. We can talk to them until the cows come home, and they're going to do what they see you do. If their parents are on social assistance, that's how they see their future.

I want to convey too that one of the things I find so serious is we used to have a little book where the kids would say what they were dreaming--the little wee ones, you know; we're talking about this age group. I was shocked to see that our little ones have no dreams left.

Now, if that happens, jeepers, we have to do something, because they are the future. If they don't have dreams and hopes, then we're missing it. And we can't band-aid them either; don't put a band-aid on it and then walk away. Maybe the band-aid will fall off because of lack of funding, or somebody just can't pick it up, so then it falls off. Then you've got another hole--I'm a nurse as well as a teacher. Then you have a festering hole, and it's another step down in how you feel about yourself.

I think they need this. They have to have it. I think people don't even have to fight for it really any more, it seems, to do something about it, because that's where our kids are at.

º (1605)

The Chair: Can I ask a follow-up question to Dorothy, if you don't mind, Nancy?

It is this one. This committee is not the aboriginal affairs committee, which I also sit on, but it is one that focuses on children and youth at risk, and you've certainly given us a picture of children at risk; there's no doubt about it. So while we understand there are many components to the challenges that communities like Sandy Bay face--that is, now you present an unemployment rate right off the top, and housing conditions, and mould, and all those other things we know about--the tough question I'm going to ask is this.

Understanding that there is no silver bullet for sure, if we were, in our limited capacity, which is to make recommendations about children--we might like to make recommendations about the whole ball of wax, including creating more entrepreneurs and so on--to make a recommendation that went along the lines of the recommendation Tracy Scott made at the end of her document, which is essentially, as everyone would agree, an integrated set of services, culturally sensitive, using local people, community peers, as you say, being inclusive from conception to school and notionally beyond that, and understanding that such services would also have an impact on parents.... By definition, children don't live in isolation, they live in families, and families need support, and they also need to know how to be good parents because of this dissidence between what goes on in the home front and what goes on in child care, for example, because parents need to know how to make that work. If we were to do all of that, as best we could, would the impact on the kids and also on the parents and on the community--that is to say, the community peer workers you were creating, the health centre workers and so on--would that in itself, to some degree, get things going in a different direction? Or is it not enough to overcome all those other factors, notably 90% unemployment and bad housing? Is it a place to begin, or is it the wrong place to begin?

I'm asking Dorothy, I think, but anyone can pitch in. I think it will have to be our last question too.

Ms. Dorothy Lloyd: When I looked at this, I thought the idea was setting recommendations on how to help children. Somehow it has to come together to make the situation more feasible to live in for children. That means their basic needs--I don't know how we can get around it--have to be met.

We can take parenting away from the parents--taking them out and grouping them, and trying to do all the parent, nurturing things--sometimes, in some cases. In other cases I know the parents struggle really hard, but the priorities are really hard on them.

It seems to me those things are essential. If you do a report on this and find out what influences children and early childhood development, would it not be those actual living situations that have an influence that could be presented? I don't know what you're hoping to accomplish by your research; is it to show what we're actually living? Is that what it is?

º (1610)

The Chair: I think the point you're making will have to be very strongly reflected in our report. What we're talking about here is not a silver bullet that will overcome those other factors. It can't do; it couldn't possibly.

It would be irresponsible of us to make a recommendation that didn't recognize all those other surrounding factors, because it's not going to work. What we're proposing is simply part of a cluster of strategies, which collectively will change the course of events in a place like Sandy Bay. This one thing by itself won't do it, but if we can do this in conjunction with other stuff, which Nancy Karetak-Lindell and I might have something to say about on the aboriginal affairs committee, maybe you can put enough of those things together.

What we're trying to do is at least make the early childhood development piece as coherent as we can, because from everything you're saying, even when programs work--provably--we drop them because they don't meet some sort of cockamamie criteria that don't make any sense. I think in any notion of community development we would always have to be aware of all of those other pieces.

I think our report should recognize the very limitations you're talking about: that you can't transform a community through one set of integrated early childhood development services. That would be a good thing to have, but not the only thing you need. Somehow, this would have to be seen as one of a set of recommendations, which taken together would be effective. I think that's probably the most honest answer I can give you.

I have to at this point say farewell on behalf of the committee. I think you've given us a glimpse of hope, in that it is good to hear when programs work and when they're effective. Of course, it's very depressing when those very programs don't continue to get funding. One of the things we certainly can do in our report is comment on that. But also to be confronted with the on-the-ground reality as Dorothy Lloyd has given us the picture, and to remind ourselves that we shouldn't be kidding ourselves about this being an easy task.... We have huge challenges, and to see early childhood development in isolation from those challenges would simply be irresponsible on our part.

You've helped us enormously. We want to thank you for your participation. We want to stay in touch with you as our report develops, and we want you to be quite rude about it if you see a draft report and say, “Ah, that's not what we meant”, or “You should have mentioned this”, that or the other thing. On behalf of all of the committee, thank you so much.

I think we'll bring this particular portion to an end before the telephone company cuts us off. Goodbye now. Thanks very much. Take care.

While we're disconnecting, we have a certain amount of business....

[Proceedings continue in camera]

[Public proceedings resume]

º (1615)

The Chair: Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Chairman, I neglected to say that Anita Neville wanted to be here today and she passes along her regrets, but she's very much interested in terms of the deputations and she will be at the next meeting.

Ms. Bev Peel (Administrator, Children's Programs, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations): Do you mean me? My name is Bev Peel. I'm the administrator of children's programs for the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations.

The Chair: Great. That's wonderful. That's excellent.

So we have two representatives of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. We're delighted you're with us.

We think you've received the background information about what we're up to here, which is to focus on the situation of aboriginal kids on reserve from conception to six, and their families, and how we can improve their situation, both as a federal government providing a bunch of services already, and indeed working with those communities and with provincial authorities where applicable. That's what we're up to.

If we could get your thoughts to help us in our position of trying to make recommendations, or if you could tell us about your own experience with existing programs, we would be very appreciative. I don't know who's going to go first--Sheila, perhaps.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic (Representative, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations): Well, we have a wide range of programs on our first nations in regard to early childhood intervention. We have the Brighter Futures program, day cares, the Head Start program, prenatal education, FAS awareness, and training. They all have a positive impact on our first nations.

Each of these programs impose restrictions, though, as you know, in regard to funding. Funding is very limited and has always been restricted. It also creates classism. The fact is that we are always looking for ways of intertwining each of these programs to make one program work within the first nations. It creates a lot of problems, a lot of animosity among first nations.

The program where people regain their language within their own communities has had a positive impact. A lot of these programs have allowed us to regain this. Being able to teach our children and design programs specifically for first nations children in their own languages has helped us. We have been able to develop these programs and make them better.

And this creates identity within our first nations people. The children are becoming more aware of who they are, where they are, and why we are there. The programs that have been developed are very positive, but they have many restrictions. I guess my buddy here will talk about those restrictions.

º (1620)

Ms. Bev Peel: I've been working with the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations now for seven years. When I first started, day cares had just become a reality on first nations reserves. There were seven day cares when I started, and now there are close to 100.

The only problem was that there was really only enough funding for about 20. But the chiefs felt that it was important for all the communities to have these services, so basically all the communities have child care centres. The child care centres we have are small in comparison to what we need.

I was just visiting a centre last week and it had four employees. They only had a very small number of children. The centres have had a really positive impact on employment and a lot of spinoffs as far as other jobs for the reconstruction.

We didn't have enough money for new buildings. Only about three of them are in new buildings. Basically, people used the facilities that were already there. Many of them weren't up to standard, so a lot of money was spent fixing buildings. It would have been nice to have had better ones.

Head Start just came on board recently. Again, the chiefs felt it was important that all communities have these programs, so we have 78. Again, there was a call for proposals and Saskatchewan was to choose the communities most at risk, but the leadership felt that all communities were at risk and all communities needed these programs. So we have many programs going on, but they are mostly under-resourced. The resourcing of what we have is the biggest issue as far as gaps go.

The women are doing a fabulous job. It's exciting to see them, and the parents are very happy. But there's not enough money for training and some of the buildings need repair now. That's what we are hoping will happen.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: To add to this, demographic trends occur yearly, and some years we have increased populations in the programs, but we are still working at the same level of funding that existed five or ten years ago. It just doesn't make sense that funding would be capped and only a certain amount is allowed to be spent.

Enhancement dollars tie into programming dollars, but they just aren't there. We need to train staff. We need to train the community. We need to train people, to help them understand day care and services and child care programs. Education is number one for prevention; we need to promote it.

I just recently took FAS training, because it is a cause of concern to some first nations people. It's amazing that the training just isn't there. There isn't enough. It's restricted. I can go on and on about how restricted we are with funds, but if funding is capped, it is always going to create a deficit--always.

Ms. Bev Peel: I'd like to add a little about that. Our day cares are targeted for working parents or parents in training programs, which is limiting in itself.

Because we are only receiving $39,500 per community for Head Start for the whole year, it limits the size of the program. Many communities have only been able to offer their program to, say, three-year-olds. The communities have had to pick certain children from within their own populations.

So with day care only for working parents and those in training, and Head Start for only a very limited number, the need is out there. There are people on waiting lists. I think it should be available for all parents who need it and I don't think there should be a cost.

º (1625)

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: The positive impact of not charging the parents a fee has meant that they are taking more control of their lives. They are deciding to choose different careers, go back to school, move on. And this way, they don't have the fear of knowing that their children are receiving lower-quality care; they get a fine quality of care. It's important to me that regulations and policies be developed to make sure that our children are receiving the best care. The care needs to be regulated and monitored because those are their babies.

If these kids are going to be healthy adults, it will have a healthy impact and create a healthy population. They are our future. So we have to make sure these children are receiving the best quality care we can provide. If this means developing policies and regulations that supercede what's out there, then that's what we need to do. And we have done this. I believe there are some regulations and policies within Saskatchewan that address these concerns.

The Chair: Thank you very much. That's an extremely helpful opening statement.

Before we move to the questioning, I gather from what you're saying that the situation for kids in general seems to be improving because of these programs. I don't know if it can be measured in a formal way, but are the communities improving because of these programs? I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but this sounds a little different from what we have just been hearing in Manitoba.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: Yes, the situation has improved. These things have had a positive impact. They have created a lot of employment and allowed many people to move on. More careers have been created and more opportunities. Our children have also become more aware of where they belong and where they come from--what they are there for and what they are going to be. They are our future and they are going to be healthy. That's the impact a lot of these programs have had.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I'm going to ask Mr. Breitkreuz if he has questions.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I found what you have had to say--especially now at the end--very interesting. Could you outline for us a little bit more the successful programs and what the elements are in them that you feel are leading to their success?

Are you aware of communities where programs are more successful than in other communities? What factors might contribute to that success?

I'd really like quite a full description of what is really working and why you feel it is working.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: One of the programs that has become successful is day care. The initiative first came out in 1992. People weren't employed; they just couldn't find employment. They couldn't go to school because they didn't have anybody to take care of their children.

When we did provide these day care centres, it created a lot of opportunities. Kids went back to school. A lot of young parents are now trying to better themselves and get more education. They also want to provide more skills.

Even with the construction of these day care centres--some of them were built right from scratch at the beginning, but a majority of them were renovated from existing buildings. Now the problem is they're getting old and they need to be renovated again. Some of them are even being condemned.

So they have tried to make a program that is successful. But there always seems to be some thing or another that comes along to halt day care.

With regard to Head Start, it is being restricted because the federal and provincial governments don't work together to fund it. The federal government tells you that you have to follow provincial regulations, yet provincial regulations don't recognize first nations Head Start programs on reserve. To me that creates a lot of problems. Yet when we're signing agreements, it's stated that we have to follow provincial regulations. That just doesn't make sense, especially if the province doesn't recognize the quality of care we provide to our own children.

The studies on these children are done by people off reserve. It's never done by our own people doing it to themselves. We can study our own people. We can study them greatly. We can even give you the positives and the negatives. But we're never given the opportunity.

So these are some of the positive things I would note.

The language...as you know, our children now are being encouraged to speak what they want to speak, which is their language. The language was a barrier in my age, and even in my parent's age. They were restricted. They couldn't say anything. They couldn't say anything in their own language. They were told not to. Now these children are proud to speak their language. To me, this creates a lot of pride within our community, which is watching these young children speak their language and being able to communicate with their parents--and their grandparents, for that matter. That was one thing that was taken away from them.

º (1630)

The Chair: Mr. Breitkreuz, are you...?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: No, that's fine.

The Chair: Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

If you don't mind, I'll just call you Sheila Kay. Is that okay?

Sheila, you're in southern Saskatchewan. How far are you and your project from Regina?

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: I'm about an hour north of Regina. It takes me approximately an hour to drive to the Kawakatoose First Nation.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Do you work on-site?

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: Yes, I do. I work on five different sites.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Are you familiar with the Quebec model? It's called an SLCSC. It's a local community service centre.

We have been told by other deputations that, under that model, the delivery of Health Canada's community action program for children, CAPC, and the Canada prenatal nutrition program, CPNP, is done through a network of these one-stop service centres. Are you familiar with that model?

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: No, I'm not.

Mr. Alan Tonks: [Inaudible—Editor]...that kind of model where we would attempt to integrate services and provide some core funding to keep your basic staff able to coordinate programs, and then develop programs through a community-based board.

Ms. Bev Peel: I'd like to speak to that question. Some of our tribal councils have attempted models like you're talking about, but the authorities need to change at the government level so money can move between departments. We're getting money in targeted streams and envelopes.

Communities get their Head Start money and they do Head Start. Everything is separated. For example, Meadow Lake Tribal Council have a service centre for their communities, but they were also able to get funding from a research institute, over and above the head start, day care, and CPNP money. So given enough resources, that would be an option. They would love that more holistic approach.

º (1635)

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.

Are you familiar with the first nations and Inuit health transfer initiative?

Ms. Bev Peel: The transfer agreements?

Mr. Alan Tonks: Yes. Are you familiar with those?

º (1645)

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: Yes, we are.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Okay. Is there an opportunity through those transfer agreements to work towards the same type of model developed in Quebec?

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: The integration model?

Mr. Alan Tonks: Yes.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: Sometimes in the development of these models I feel nobody ever looks at the first nation input into it. They're just done to see how integration would work.

I guess contribution dollars are always limited or minimal. We do the integration by overlapping the resources from Brighter Futures and first nations governing dollars. We use these to help establish these programs. Yet the in-kind contribution dollars are more and supercede the contribution dollars. As I said, integration just creates deficits.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.

Ms. Bev Peel: I think that model would work for some of the tribal councils, but we still have a lot of independent first nations and very tiny independents, with a lot of non-transferred...which that model might not work with.

In fact, in Saskatchewan we've developed our own regulations. So first nations licence and monitor their own day care centres and Head Starts. They do their own monitoring. I monitor the 15 that don't have tribal councils.

So you'd end up having to have more than one model. You could probably have four different models that would work, but not one model per se.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: The funding for developing the licensing--to issue a licence for our quality care services--is limited as well. It's always going to be limited. You want to make sure you can put a licence or a certificate on your day care, stating it's safe, healthy, and secure.

The Chair: Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell.

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Just carrying on a bit from what Alan was talking about, I'm a little bit confused now. Maybe you could explain a bit of it to me. You represent the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations. How many communities are they?

At the beginning of your presentation, I understood all the dollars for Aboriginal Head Start and other federal programs came to the federation. Then you monitored them over the different communities and subsidized them with some of your government dollars. Then you talked about the 15 others being handled separately.

At the beginning of your presentation I heard of this model in which you're overseeing all communities and making sure they have access to all these different programs, so that all of the communities have an Aboriginal Head Start and other programs, working to help each other out.

What about the FAS and FAE dollars, and the diabetes initiative? We heard from the Manitoba presenters that sometimes the funding is all separate and that you have to do things in parallel and report how you spent the money. Maybe you could just help explain how you do all that under what I thought was one umbrella.

Ms. Bev Peel: I'll speak to all those questions you've asked.

The FSIN, the federation, is the Indian government of Saskatchewan. The day care funding comes in three allocations. We're responsible for almost all the tribal councils, except for the Prince Albert Band Council and Peter Ballantyne. So there are actually three contribution agreements for day care.

We have a working group for day care. We also have working groups for the CPNP, FAS, child care, and Head Start. Sheila's on the child care and the Head Start working groups. The working groups make the decisions about how they want funding to flow, or how they want to use the money. So when the day care money came to Saskatchewan, the decision was made not to have 20 day care centres but to have day care centres for all communities that wanted the service. So it flows through FSIN. A portion of that money stays at FSIN, so we can have the regional working group make decisions and recommendations and develop models and regulations.

What happened with the regulations is that many of the tribal councils are very strong and have developed their own services. There were, however, communities that didn't have first nations regulations. So the regional working group--the provincial working group that Sheila's a member of--developed a draft version of the regs for the 15 communities that don't have tribal councils doing that kind of work. In this model everyone has somebody they can draw on for resources. So everyone either has a tribal council or FSIN. Then FSIN does the regional work.

The FAS dollars flow through prenatal nutrition. The CPNP nurses have a working group on FAS. This year we get $1 million. You know it costs over $1 million to raise one child with FAS; yet we only have $1 million for our entire province. Just last week the working group met and made a recommendation that the money will go for training. A national training program on FAS is coming to Saskatchewan, which the prenatal nutrition nurses will be taking. So each of the communities will be getting a portion of that money. The rest of it is going to be spent making a regional kit to go to schools, and then on a conference to share FAS information. So the $1 million will be gone.

So the FSIN does the regional or provincial work, but we flow most of the money, or as much of it as we can, out to the communities or tribal councils. That leaves us a little short, as far as coordination. There are 72 first nations, but hundreds of communities have been mentioned. Some of them are multiple communities. La Ronge is a first nation but it has six communities. That's why it sounds like there are two different sets of numbers. But some bands have more than one community.

Does that answer your question?

Ms. Nancy Karetak-Lindell: Yes, it does. Thank you.

The Chair: I'm curious to know a little bit about the relationship between the federal government, the provincial government, and yourselves. I know that Saskatchewan has long been very child friendly. Some years ago I remember going to the website of the Saskatchewan government. I can't even remember, but there's a slogan like “Children First”, which covers all the provincial programs. So we're dealing with a government that seems to have a tradition of being interested in children and making them a high priority.

I think it has been the assumption of the committee that it makes sense for us to begin by coordinating our activities across federal departments, so that child care programs work in conjunction with Head Start and everything else. So they're not individual silos coming down to communities. Instead, there would be some capacity for Ottawa to integrate them somehow at this end and make sure the programs are integrated at the community level. It also makes a lot of sense, in turn, that efforts be integrated with whatever provincial programs are coming into play. These might vary from community to community, depending on how close they are to non-native communities with social services or whatever else. Where there seems to be quite a lot of capacity as an institution or a collective, as is the case with Saskatchewan first nations, we want to work with them too.

First, what I want to know is how much coordination is there currently at the community level between these three entities--yourselves, ourselves, and the provincial government--on early childhood development services? Second, if it were up to you and you were offering us some recommendations to put in our report, can you suggest some practical ways of making all of these services work together in a holistic fashion? That would be very helpful. Obviously we're not going to force you to do anything. We want to cooperate with you. We can't force the provinces to do anything.

What a question, eh?

Ms. Bev Peel: The province funds these programs for children, but they're not for children on reserve.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: We're always excused.

Ms. Bev Peel: We're not part of that. For example, when the Kids First initiative started in Saskatchewan, I was at a meeting with about four other first nations representatives on a Thursday. They already had job descriptions and the whole model was already drawn up. That was our first meeting. On Monday there was hand-shaking between the minister and our chief; that's not consultation.

They chose 17 communities in Saskatchewan for this Kids First program, where children are most at risk. One of the communities is northern Saskatchewan--a rather big community.

The Chair: All of it.

Ms. Bev Peel: That's one of the 17. We have situations where people are phoning to say that in Prince Albert, for example, if you live on one side of the street you can be part of the program, but if you live on the other side of the street you can't.

They said they were going to try to hire first nations people for their main office, but they weren't able to find any, I guess. They mostly hired from within the department. Some of the jobs were advertised for one day.

We don't get any provincial money for our day care centres at all. In fact, the province removed Saskatchewan first nations from their regulations. In their new regulations that came out last year it said, “These regulations do not apply to on-reserve child care services”.

First nations want to control licensing and monitoring, but that should not stop us from obtaining resources for training. We don't want social services coming on reserve and monitoring, because we're doing a good job. Saskatchewan first nations can do that, but there should be resources.

Last week a news release came out saying, “Let's talk about children” and “Services now available for children”. We thought it should have said, “some children”, because it wasn't for children; it was for wage increases. We haven't had any salary increases since 1996 and we've had no new money. People working in day cares have seen these announcements for off reserve three times now, and there's been nothing for on reserve.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: It raises the spirit of the community and then knocks it right down when it's only designated for off reserve. On-reserve people always have to wait.

The province took the initiative to get us off their regulations, and they found a way. Monitoring and licensing have always been a priority of Saskatchewan first nations--they now are.

Several tribal councils have developed standards and regulations that supercede those of the province, yet the province doesn't even want to recognize that.

Ms. Bev Peel: A federal-provincial first nations intergovernmental committee has been formed, and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations has been asked to participate, so we do have a member on that. I believe they've had two meetings. I was able to go to one, but the second meeting was at a time when there was already something on.

So that's hopeful. Part of the terms of reference was to work on filling in the gaps. So I'm really hopeful that something will come of that committee, but that's the very first.

I sent a copy of the Saskatchewan first nations regulations to social services for their input. I got back the same ones I sent with sticky notes all over them and not even a letter attached. So there hasn't been a lot of support.

º (1650)

The Chair: We were just muttering to ourselves here, and Mr. Tonks was making a very good point that perhaps--this is for the researchers--we should know more about this committee. We've heard of something similar in Manitoba, so we have some notion, even if it sounds like it's the very beginning.

And it certainly sounds as if the answer to my question of whether there's lots of cooperation amongst the three entities is basically no.

I guess it would help us also if we go back a bit in time. Was there a moment when the Saskatchewan government was more actively supportive with social services or early childhood development services of any kind, and is what we're witnessing a retreat from that? Also, the excuse for not providing the resources is sort of “Well, you're on your own; we're going to honour your self-government”, or something like “Set your own standards, because we're not going to give you any money”. Am I being a bit unfair here? Was there a time when there were actually more resources?

Ms. Bev Peel: There were some back in the early 1990s. There was a really good relationship forming between Meadow Lake Tribal Council and the Saskatchewan government. They were the first tribal council to develop their own regulations. The province wrote a letter of equivalency. There were really good feelings at that time, but then when it went province-wide, I got the feeling there was not enough money to go around. So when the water hose shrinks, the animals get meaner. It just seemed there wasn't enough money for everybody.

Don't write that in your notes.

The Chair: On the contrary, that may be the most important thing you've said. I think that's very good.

Ms. Bev Peel: I think there's some happiness with what we're doing, and there's a lot of pride in the child care people in the field. But it's the funding thing, the issue of not enough resources and everybody wanting some.

The Chair: There are a couple of other questions.

We were wondering whether there was any program funding allocated to creating physical infrastructure. I guess we were thinking of child care and other things. Are you on your own? For example, if you're going to set up a child care place or a parenting resource of any kind, do you have to buy the buildings? Are there some dollars for infrastructure?

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: No there aren't. There are just programming dollars, and programming dollars are for what exists there now. As I said, there are no enhancement dollars. That's what we like to call it. We'd like to make things better--provide more training for our day care workers, our parents, our communities. They're tapping into the dollars that are already there, and we're stretching them. Let's face it, our day care workers are overworked, underpaid, and they volunteer their donations. Fundraising is becoming a common word amongst all the communities. It's also creating a lot of tired workers.

The Chair: Mr. Breitkreuz.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Thank you.

I've been listening with a great deal of interest. I've picked up several times in your presentation the reference to the Meadow Lake Tribal Council. I happen to be from Saskatchewan myself, and I've heard their name mentioned with many other initiatives, with other first nations trying to model themselves after their initiatives. Is there more to the story here that we're not being told about this tribal council? What are they doing there that makes them a model for other nations to go after?

Ms. Bev Peel: I can't share their model, but I'm sure they would love to.

They did have a Head Start, and there was CCCF funding earlier, so they were the first on board with children's programs. They had the vision and they started first. They had a two-year training program through the University of Victoria, and they trained child care workers before any of the other day care money came on board across Canada. So they already had the workers. They had a day care centre. Their health and social development commission already had regs. So they are the leaders, historically. They have also been able to access other funding.

Does that answer your question?

º (1655)

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes. I'm just wondering why. Maybe you're not aware of why they were out in front of this. This is, I think, something this committee would like to look at; for example, why were they designing all these things?

Ms. Bev Peel: I think it was that they had the decision first.

The Chair: I have a related question. I heard you say early on that when money comes in, the chiefs generally, as a collective, try to be fair and distribute it equitably amongst communities, which results in shortfalls because there's not enough money. On the other hand, you get something like the Meadow Lake Tribal Council, which I've also heard lots about in a very positive way. I'm wondering if the answer is that you need both. It seems extremely useful to have a leader like that, a pioneering group that shows what you can do when you get it right and you get enough money. Does it work that way in Saskatchewan?

Ms. Bev Peel: I'm really proud of all the tribal councils, and they've always shared what they've done. They are the leaders, and they shared everything they had done in the five years previous to when the money came. They shared it across Canada. Their training program that was developed is what we're using all over Saskatchewan now, and it's an accredited program. They are a model, but to reproduce that model takes money. They did have a lot of money when they initiated that program. There were only certain sites across Canada that had that capacity, and yes, wow, it would be wonderful to use that model.

The Chair: What was that program you mentioned with a number of Cs?

Ms. Bev Peel: That was the health care initiatives fund through the CCCF.

The Chair: It goes back to when?

Ms. Bev Peel: It was prior to the 1996 day care money. It was the five years previous.

The Chair: Well, thank you very much.

I'm afraid we're coming to an end of our time together because of the constraints of time and technology. It's been extremely helpful, and it's interesting because we're hopscotching across the country by just sitting here using technology. We've been in Manitoba, we're now with you in Saskatchewan, we're about to head north to the Yukon, yet we just sit here.

From our point of view, it's been an extremely valuable exercise because you've given us hope. You've given us some examples of programs that work, and you've also given us a contact. We'd love to stay in touch with you as we work on our report.

We're very grateful for the time you've taken to talk to us. For you it probably beats having to fly to Ottawa too.

Ms. Bev Peel: May I just say one thing?

The Chair: Absolutely.

Ms. Bev Peel: This is about the process. Sheila only knew about this yesterday, and I only knew on the weekend. I did write answers to some questions I was given last week, but I didn't actually know I was going to be here. As to the communities that were chosen, we would like to have the opportunity to do a real presentation of what exists in Saskatchewan or even to invite the members of your subcommittee to one of our working meetings.

The Chair: We apologize for the somewhat scrambled nature. It is a reflection of intensely difficult work by the folks who organize here, because they're juggling all the time...we're under impossible constraints of time, trying to get a report out--can you believe--by the middle of June, or at least a first cut at it.

We can at best get only a representative sampling across the country. It is by no means a complete survey. I think it comes under the category of quick and dirty. We are so glad that on short notice you were able to give us such fantastic information. We apologize for the late nature, but as you can see, we're trying to do our best to sample, at least a little bit, from across the country, get a reality check, so that even though we're up here in Ottawa, we're not going completely crazy.

We would also appreciate any written submission you could give us. The researchers would deeply love it. And could you do that on a fairly quick basis, if you wouldn't mind, because we're under terrific pressure here? We would love to have your written comments in respect of the questions you were sent. They would be extremely helpful. That would be great.

I think we must now bid each other farewell, so take care.

Ms. Bev Peel: Thank you.

Ms. Sheila Kay-Machiskinic: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much. Good-bye now.

We're now dialing Whitehorse. We're in the Yukon, and we're getting people from two communities. There may be four.

What we were doing was trying to notify them that we might be coming in a little earlier.

Could we take advantage of this moment, because you're here and we still have a quorum, to actually...? I think we can still put it on the record. Could you tell us a little bit about...? I know this is a little bit irregular, but why not?

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Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: You heard the people in Manitoba describing the problems, the deplorable conditions, the poverty. The Meadow Lake Tribal Council started with economic development. They took the bull by the horns and began some excellent projects that built up self-esteem on the reserves by providing jobs for the people.

A lot of the other things developed without federal money coming in.

They said, “Well, they have the money.” Well, where did the money come from? It didn't come from an outside source. They began by realizing the conditions on the reserves and decided that they were the solution. They've become a model. They've partnered with people off the reserve in developing the economy, and so on. I think that is something that could be modelled in many other places.

The Chair: It's a collection of communities, isn't it?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes. That's why there's more to this story.

The Chair: How long did...I mean, you've...?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Oh, quite a few years.

I want to go up there sometime.

» (1705)

I think they've come a long way since 1994, when we first started. I was on the human resources development committee then. There was a lot of resistance at that point, but we really started pushing for video teleconferencing. At first it was jerky and you couldn't hear, but this is really good.

The Chair: The resolution is a lot better.

Since you're here and since you obviously have some first-hand experience...the problem I was trying to put to the folks in Manitoba was, which comes first? Clearly, if the Meadow Lake story has anything going, it's that it started with economic development. That's the big message.

The question is, what do we do to make a series of recommendations as to what we'd like to see for a fully integrated set of services for kids? Let's start with some pilot projects or something like that, but it sounds as if Meadow Lake is more or less there now.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: My first question to Manitoba was, have you studied other models that work anywhere in Canada or in the U.S.? And there are some. It would be worth taking a look, though we can't do this between now and the middle of June.

Even if you took three people from the committee and actually went and studied some of these areas around the world.... The Maoris in New Zealand do have some successful projects. This is not my area of expertise, but if you're going to do something about this, go and study places where they have actually been successful.

The Chair: Sure. We're in this funny position of having a fairly narrow mandate, that is, the kids and youth lens. Though Nancy and I serve on the aboriginal affairs committee, one might take a much bigger view of all this and say that this is a part of it. We're always trying to figure out what we could do that would be really helpful.

Certainly, in general terms there's no doubt about it. Having a bunch of disconnected federal services going into a community with each being measured on a different basis and expiring at a different time is goofy. There has to be a way of pulling that together.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Without the economic development and without the jobs, families break down because people don't have things to do and they start engaging in activities that cause the family to come apart. When that happens, who suffers? The kids. The kids are the ones.

I lived on a reserve for a couple of years. It tears your heart out to see what goes on.

The Chair: Was that in Saskatchewan?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes. It was in the north, Wollaston Lake. We had children staying with us overnight. It's very difficult to see what happens there. That was a few years ago, but things have not improved since.

The Chair: Maybe it was just the luck of the draw of the witnesses, but I had the impression things seemed to be marginally better in Saskatchewan than in Manitoba.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I don't know if I'd say that.

The Chair: Thank you for helping us out today. You have the home town advantage of actually having lived on a reserve.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: It's very interesting for me to see what's going on. I'm not even aware of what the mandate of the committee is. I didn't know you had a deadline of the middle of June.

The Chair: This is somewhat self-imposed, because we want to make this the first of about four reports. We're focusing very narrowly on specific targets, currently prenatal to six on reserve and for the fall prenatal to six off reserve. We thought we'd start with the on reserve because as the federal government we control more of the parts.

Of course, the further away you get from a reserve, the more the elements are already in somebody else's hands. It was interesting to hear that in that province it's kids first, yet it doesn't seem to mean aboriginal kids. Is that just a money thing?

» (1710)

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: The provincial government doesn't have a lot of money. You see, Saskatchewan has a higher proportion of aboriginal people than any other province. Usually, the province views this as being a federal responsibility, and they're reluctant to put provincial money into it. They don't even have money to help out farmers, the backbone of the economy. They are a have-not province still, and they don't have the money. They just say, this is a federal responsibility, and they don't put the money in.

The Chair: And they never have.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: They start, but then they feel they're going to have to keep on doing it. They feel more responsibility for the off-reserve people. Regina and Saskatoon have very large aboriginal populations, so there's a bit more provincial participation there, but as far as what happens on reserves, they pretty well leave that to the feds.

The Chair: Welcome, folks. As you're settling yourselves in, let me just tell you a little bit about ourselves.

This committee has been looking at children on reserve from conception to age six and trying to figure out how we can be more helpful, particularly as a federal government, in coordinating our services as they affect on-reserve populations.

We've been hopscotching across the country this afternoon, using the miracle of television. We have visited Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and now we're visiting Whitehorse. So it's great to have you with us; we are delighted you're there. The suggestions for the communities you represent came from the member of Parliament for Yukon, Larry Bagnell, who held you up as models. So we're delighted you're able to make it.

Carl Sidney, Kelly Morris, and Brenda Sam are there. Hooray, we have everybody in place and life's okay.

I understand you represent two different councils, and we'd like to hear from you. I think we sent you a bit of background and some questions.

Carl or Kelly, will just one of you be presenting and the other acting as a resource person? Will you be dividing your time, or how do you want to proceed?

Mr. Carl Sidney (Deputy Chief, Teslin Tlingit Council): Hi John. Thank you for inviting us. As you can tell, I won't be doing much talking, as my voice is pretty much shot. I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to let us come in and talk.

Teslin is 114 miles away from Whitehorse, where Brenda Sam comes from. Kelly will probably do most of the presentation. We never received any questions, so we put something together and faxed it to your office this afternoon.

I'll just let Kelly and Brenda introduce themselves, and then we can start.

The Chair: Let's just start, and then we'll take it from there. Thank you very much for coming this distance to talk to us.

Kelly, do you want to tell us a bit about the community?

Ms. Kelly Morris (Director of Health and Social Programs, Teslin Tlingit Council): We didn't receive any questions, and we have a brief history. Carl and I work in Teslin. Carl is an executive council member and deputy chief in Teslin. I'm the health and social director for Teslin Tlingit Council.

Did you receive the information we faxed?

The Chair: We received the notes on your video conference on the issues surrounding children at risk in Teslin. Kelly, if you'd like to talk to that it would be wonderful.

» (1715)

Ms. Kelly Morris: Okay.

Carl and I met with the health and social department staff in Teslin and we had some discussion around the risks that exist for youths between the ages of zero and six in Teslin. This is some of the discussion we had and identified these topics.

I'll just read from it. The issues surrounding children at risk in Teslin was discussed at length. The Head Start program would be very beneficial to our community. For children who are of preschool age, the day care facility could integrate this program into theirs.

The financial and program support would provide the children with more programming and education, preparing them further for school. What we're talking about here is that there are three communities in the Yukon, I believe, that have access to funding for Head Start; those dollars are limited to those three communities. The rest of the communities in the Yukon have not been able to access the Head Start program in the Yukon. We've had a viable, running day care that would really benefit from it in Teslin for our youth there who are between those ages.

There is a lack of resources in the community for dealing with children with chronic conditions. We have a health centre that has only two nurses to assist the community, as well as a doctor who comes up for one day twice a month. They come from Whitehorse.

There's only one hospital in the Yukon and it's in Whitehorse. As you probably know, the community of Teslin is two hours from Whitehorse. A lot of the specialist-type services we require for any type of health care or specialist services for our children are located in Whitehorse and are provided by specialists who come from down south, from Alberta and B.C. Usually, there's a waiting list to see these specialists or it means sending these children down to Alberta or B.C. We're finding it more and more difficult to access the services and facilities that are outside the Yukon.

One of the problems for an outlying community like ours is that the majority of the resources that are available to communities dealing with children between the ages of zero and six are only to be found in Whitehorse. A recent survey showed that 80% of the services and resources are in Whitehorse and only 20% are available in the outlying communities. As you can see, we really lack resources in the communities.

We get programs through Health Canada, the first nation and Inuit health program. We have in Teslin the Healthy Moms and Babies program. We access dollars through the aboriginal diabetes Initiative, and other nutritional dollars for CPNP as well as the home and community care program. These are all proposal-driven, and there's always the fear that these programs will end due to funding allocations. We would need a commitment to make these programs sustainable, because they have been benefiting those children between the ages of zero and six.

FAS and FAE is another problem that affects communities in the Yukon. A lot of children go undiagnosed due to there being no one in the Yukon who can diagnose these conditions. There's very little training for support personnel in our community. This also includes support personnel for children with physical disabilities.

Most buildings in Teslin are not wheelchair accessible. If we had a child in the future who became disabled, it would be very difficult because almost all buildings in Teslin are not accessible by wheelchair; a good example is our own school. Even our grocery store is a very small trading post, and it would be very difficult to move a wheelchair or any type of equipment for the handicapped around that store. Our day care, too, is housed in an actual house that was used for families at one time. We've turned it into a day care. So even when we talk of our day care facility, it's in a two-storey building and is not accessible to handicapped children.

The Child Development Centre in Whitehorse services the outlying communities, and Teslin receives services one day per month for approximately four or five hours, and then they return to Whitehorse.

A lack of family housing is another big issue in our community. We have families who live in homes that are inappropriate in size for the family or they're below health and safety standards for homes.

Another issue is infrastructure. Teslin lacks the land development subdivisions to meet our housing concerns. Teslin Tlingit Council has found it difficult to access funds to develop future lots for housing development.

» (1720)

For our water supply the majority of our houses have water delivery; the municipality does water delivery. We actually had a little E. coli scare last week, which really showed us something in the sense that there are things we need to start taking care of, the safety of our water holding tanks and stuff like that. Those are dollars we even had difficulty trying to gain in keeping stuff like that, things of concern for families with children.

We'll go back to the day care topic a little. The facility is being housed in a family home turned into use as a day care. It was to be a temporary residence. It's now been there for six years, and that in itself is a difficulty because we're limited in the number of kids who can be in that day care. It is the only day care facility, so a lot of times it is difficult for people to go out and gain employment because of the limited accessibility to day care.

One of the benefits we'd have for children would be if we actually had a day care building in the community. It would be better suited for educating children in our community, and this one could go back into housing as it was supposed to be.

Recreation facilities in our community are another very difficult thing. For children, especially between the ages of zero and six, there is no playground, park, or anything for them in our community. We actually do not have any park whatsoever, but there used to be one. As it states in here, we did have a park. They were actually going to do repairs on the structure, but because it was all rotted, it was unsafe for any children to be in it and it had to be torn down. This was a park for children under the age of six. That was torn down quite a few years ago, and we've had no replacement in our community to date.

As a final statement, we need more programs for our children, but at the same time we need secure funding for these programs. Long-term funding would be preferable.

Thanks.

The Chair: Thanks very much, Kelly and Carl.

Brenda, do you want to tell us a little about your community, where it is and what the situation is for kids?

Ms. Brenda Sam (Ta'an Kwach'an Council): I work as a community health representative for Ta'an Kwach'an Council. I have worked for Ta'an for two years now. Ta'an Kwach'an Council is a fairly new band, and I will give you a brief history of how we came into existence.

Ta'an Kwach'an Council represents the Lake Laberge people. In 1951 the Department of Indian Affairs came to the Yukon and decided that we needed reserves for our people. Lake Laberge was named as a reserve, and also a site in Whitehorse was named as a reserve for the Whitehorse Indian Band, which is now called Kwanlin Dun First Nation. In 1956 the government decided that since these bands were fairly close together, since there was a distance of only 25 miles between Lake Laberge and Whitehorse, they would amalgamate the two bands. We became known as the Whitehorse Indian Band.

The Lake Laberge people felt that many of the programs and services were not meeting their needs, so at a Council for Yukon Indians general assembly in 1987, a motion was passed to separate the band back into the two original bands, the Whitehorse Band and the Lake Laberge Band. In 1998 the government held a referendum for Kwanlin Dun First Nation, asking its members whether or not they agreed to separate these two first nations. The outcome was a yes, and Ta'an Kwach'an Council then became a recognized Indian band. We are fairly new as a first nation, only four years old.

To date we have had very minimal services we can provide our members. Since Kwanlin Dun is a bigger first nation, they are provided with more programs and service delivery for their members. We are in constant competition with Kwanlin Dun and many times are faced with the answer that Kwanlin Dun is already receiving that program and delivery. As you can see, we are very much in need of many programs and of operating dollars so we can meet the needs of our Ta'an Kwach'an Council people.

» (1725)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Mr. Breitkreuz, do you have a question?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Yes. I would be curious to know how many bands are in the Yukon and how familiar you are with programs on some of the other first nations reserves. Are you aware of any programs on any of these other reserves that could serve as models of success?

Ms. Kelly Morris: There are 14 first nations in the Yukon. Do I have the number right? Yes.

The Head Start program, I guess, would be one model of a success. I believe it's in the Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in First Nation--

Ms. Brenda Sam: Yes, Tr'ondëk Hwëch'in, which is in Dawson, and Kwanlin Dun First Nation.

Ms. Kelly Morris: Kwanlin Dun and Watson Lake--

Ms. Brenda Sam: And Watson Lake, yes.

Ms. Kelly Morris: The Kaskas.

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: Okay.

How much experience have you had with the programs you are now operating on your reserves?

I noticed you said at the end of your report that you would appreciate more long-term funding. If that were available, what would you design? What would you model this after? Are there successful programs you feel could be adapted to your situation?

Ms. Kelly Morris: We have the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies program, which is through the PPHB branch of Health Canada. We got that as a pilot project in the last year. So we're in our second year. The pilot project ends after one more fiscal year.

It's quite successful in our community. It's just a start-up one, but it's running very successfully. It is a very big benefit to the expectant mothers, as well as to the babies who are at home almost until the age of one.

It would be really beneficial to be able to secure and keep that program alone. Pilot projects are nice, but you sure hope not to lose them. It has been a big benefit.

In our community we had 10 babies born within the last year. We're a small community of 300 people and some. We look after not just the children on reserve but also all babies in the community. So it's a program we're running through our first nation for the whole community, not just on reserve.

The diabetes program is a certain amount of dollars that come into the Yukon. The dollars usually stay in a central location. We've had a lot of difficulty getting through to Health Canada to get these dollars into the communities, because they want to keep these resource dollars in one central area. But we have been able to access small amounts of these dollars to help assist in the community. I think this year alone we're looking at something like $3,000.

Under the home and community care program of Health Canada, there's one pilot project in the Yukon. It is in Champagne and Aishihik First Nation. The home and community care program takes a look at home support services and the training we need to do. It's a new program up north, which we're all looking at. But in Haines Junction, it's an actual pilot project right now. None of the other 13 communities are actually into service delivery as of yet--except maybe the Kwanlin Dun First Nation, which has done a health transfer. So they have an actual health centre. So that's something.

One of the concerns is capacity in training, to be able to assist--whether with disabled people or anybody with chronic conditions--or provide home support service when people need a break or a respite. I'm trying to think of the name--

The Chair: Respite care.

Ms. Kelly Morris: For home and community care, a limited number of dollars are available for the whole Yukon. One of the problems, which I think even Brenda would agree with, is that by the time you divide the dollars that are actually going into the Yukon, it won't be enough to assist any one community with service delivery. You're going to have a band-aid service, because we're going to have under $100,000 to look after and take responsibility for a lot of these services in the communities. There's always great difficulty with that and how we can make other programs fit in order to make that program a success.

Right now we're in the process of looking at health planning and the health transfer arrangement, which was only offered south of 60°. The Kwanlin Dun Band was able to access those health planning dollars, and in the last month or so they have entered into a health transfer arrangement. So they were able to access that.

They've now decided on doing one other pilot project in the Yukon, and Watson Lake is receiving those dollars this year to do some health planning. That's where you can actually go one on one with the community and find out their needs and what's required to provide health services and promotion, even for youth and children at risk in the ages from zero to six. That's where we can identify that. We need to do some politicking around getting that service so that the rest of the communities in the Yukon can get those dollars to do some health planning.

Sometimes things are offered in the south and not in the north, and that is one of them. But what comes with that is knowing that in the north we have different problems than they do in the south, and sometimes that isn't really acknowledged. We are given conditions as to how we have to deliver a program that would work down south but not in the north. Sometimes consideration has to be given to people living in the north because we live under a lot of different circumstances. We can't afford to have a nurse in every community actually working for first nations or things like that. That's just an example.

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The Chair: Mr. Breitkreuz, do you have any more questions?

Mr. Garry Breitkreuz: I have one more question. Has the signing of the self-government agreements in the Yukon affected the way in which programs and services are delivered in those communities?

Ms. Kelly Morris: A lot of our time is not spent doing the reporting, because the negotiating has gone on to move those dollars to the community, and we make decisions on how we'll provide the services that were negotiated.

The one difficulty we've had is in the actual negotiation process. All they want to negotiate is what exists, not what's required to actually offer that service. One of the things the communities still deal with as self-governing first nations is that we're working with an amount of money that doesn't provide what we require to cover the services we've taken on. We don't get as many dollars as we require.

I'll go back to health planning. When health planning took place down south as well as for the Kwanlin Dun Band, they didn't look at the actual programs but at what was required and then the cost of a health transfer. That's different from program service transfer arrangements where all that's really on the table is the programs and dollars you were getting before, with some escalators put in place.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Mr. Chairman, I was going to ask that question with regard to whether either of the two councils had those transfer agreements in place. It would appear that you're precluded from having them because you're north of 60º. Is that correct?

Ms. Kelly Morris: The health planning stuff took place in the south. Not all of the north has become self-governing. Nunavut and the Northwest Territories finished their negotiations, and eight first nations in the Yukon have signed their self-government agreements. There are another six to go. One of the reasons the health planning dollars didn't come to the north is because we are self-governing and we're negotiating the service transfer agreements.

Mr. Alan Tonks: I see.

We've been told by other deputations that there is a program in Quebec that is sort of a one-stop shopping model, if I can characterize it rather loosely. They establish local community service centres. Then through those centres, the delivery of Health Canada's community action program--CAPC--and the Canada prenatal nutrition program are done, through that provincial network. Would that model be applicable to your experience?

» (1735)

Ms. Kelly Morris: We'd almost have to get more information and take a look at it, because it sounds interesting. We do have the CAPC and the CPNP up here. But when you're talking CPNP, for example, in our community, it's just over $6,000 a year.

Mr. Alan Tonks: So you'd also require core funding for coordinating that kind of program, but there is no money for core funding. That's a problem.

With respect to job creation, is there any economic development model that is receiving support either through provincial or federal programs?

Ms. Kelly Morris: No, I'm not aware of any.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Is there priority on that--on local, community-based economic development, co-ops, non-profit work? Is there any opportunity for that?

Ms. Kelly Morris: I can tell you of one in Teslin that I just thought of--through Gathering Strength. Do you know of that funding?

We have the forest management plan that we got through the economic development dollars, and we're doing forest management planning in Teslin. Locally, it's going to create three to four jobs, because we don't have the technical expertise that's needed. It has to come from outside.

RCAP is part of that as well.

Mr. Carl Sidney: I'll try to help you out a little bit.

We did try to do some economic development opportunities in our own capacity. We tried to establish a sawmill in the community to create jobs, but with the tariffs and stuff across the border, we had to shut our sawmill down. Now it's just sitting there. So with regard to economic endeavours, we have hardly anything right now.

Kelly talked about the possibility of establishing a proper day care centre. We could look at putting more children in there and training more people to work in the day care centre. It would also help out our young men to build a new facility. As Kelly said, the day care right now is just a house that people used to live in before it was turned into a temporary day care six years ago. Those children who were initially put in there started going to school last year, and the teachers are saying there's quite a difference in them because they've already started to learn in day care. They started socializing and doing some preschool stuff. So there's a benefit to having that day care.

The other one Kelly talked about was disabilities. We don't have any trained staff in the day care for disabled children--if we happen to get disabled children. We are also lacking transportation equipment. We're two hours away from Whitehorse normally. In the summertime, it could go up to three hours because of the tourists. The highway is only two lanes, so the traffic increases.

I'd better stop there.

Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Yukon is a territory and is obviously different from a province. We know it would be helpful if we coordinated our services from the Ottawa end, so they weren't coming from different departments like Health Canada, Human Resources Development, and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

If we could actually pool the money in a coordinated fashion--and of course have more money; that would be a condition as well--that would be helpful. But it would be even more helpful, where it applied, if we could coordinate our efforts with various provincial and territorial social services.

We just visited Saskatchewan electronically, and we know the provincial government there is quite anxious not to get involved in on-reserve social services. There's a large population, and they think the federal government should do that. They are having enough trouble meeting their other obligations, I suspect.

What's the situation in Yukon? Are territorial social services that are available to the general population equally available to reserves or first nations?

» (1740)

Ms. Kelly Morris: Regarding health?

The Chair: I'm thinking of anything that might be relevant to children and their families--family resources, maternal health or anything like that, or children with disabilities. Does Yukon think the first nations are just like any other citizens in Yukon and entirely eligible for services, if they can get at them?

Ms. Kelly Morris: It depends on the department. That's a very specific one. When it comes to home support services, if you're status they're not going to help you at all.

Then they expect DIAND to do that and they have no trained staff. How many people in the north are going to work for $7 an hour? That's what DIAND pays.

The Chair: Are there some areas where the Yukon government actually helps out if a resource isn't available on a reserve?

I think there was the example of the child development centre. This seems a little odd; it seems to be a mobile centre, like a travelling library or something. It's a Yukon government service that comes to you for four or five hours a month, as I understand it.

Does it just visit first nations? What is this service?

Ms. Kelly Morris: In Teslin they come one day a month, and it's for the whole community. We like them to work with the younger children and the babies, to check on their development. So a good portion of that time is taken in the day care. They have follow-up visits with the parents, to encourage them to help their children practise their motor skills and whatever. So it's of benefit to the children in Teslin.

You talked about bringing different programs together from different departments, such as Health Canada and HRDC. We get some dollars to assist our day care through HRDC. Our education department looks after the reporting requirements of HRDC. It would scare the heck out of me if all of a sudden it were combined. They have a lot of requirements, and the Teslin community council has to pay a full-time employee just to keep up with the reporting to HRDC.

The Chair: Are you referring to the Yukon education department?

Ms. Kelly Morris: Teslin is a self-governing first nation and we're made up of departments. It's an actual government. We have an education department, an executive council office, a finance department, lands and resources, capital and infrastructure, and health and social development. Those are the departments we have.

The Chair: Help me here. You're a self-governing first nation, and the education department you refer to is your own. But if we were to combine a lot of the resources into a single pool so we could allocate more rationally amongst the needs the community decided on, are you telling me your own education department has a set of rules that are so bureaucratic you wouldn't want to put them under that, or am I missing something? Is that because there's a reporting requirement to DIAND?

» (1745)

Ms. Kelly Morris: It's HRDC. It's the HRDC program alone that stands out and creates such a headache; it causes a major headache throughout the whole government. It's one program we've been trying to get our PSTA people to negotiate down. We've had nothing but difficulty trying to move that program so that we can actually do a program service transfer agreement into it. They just don't want to get to the table yet.

The Chair: What's the PSA thing you just mentioned? Sorry, Public Service...? What is that phrase?

Ms. Kelly Morris: PSTA. It stands for--

The Chair: It was a negotiating--?

Ms. Kelly Morris: --program service transfer agreement. It's a process for negotiating programs. It's between the federal government and the first nation government. Sometimes YTG is involved as well, as they're trying to bring that portion of the program down that they look after for us too. So there are three governments that negotiate.

The Chair: That's good to know. Could the things that can be negotiated through that PSTA be not just things from Health, but from HRDC or from DIAND? Could the matter be from any federal government department?

Ms. Kelly Morris: Yes, it can come from any federal government department, as well as territorial departments.

The Chair: I don't want to push this too far, but it would seem to me, just listening to you, that this may be a bit of a model for transferring. What we've discovered, I guess mostly south of 60, is these health transfer agreements. But they only apply to Health Canada programs. If I understand what you're telling me, in your particular situation there is a more general way--the PSTA--of transferring resources and so on to you to do programming, which would seem to make it on the surface easier to do the coordinating, if we had the right way of transferring and had the right ways of keeping account that the money was being spent on kids and the outcomes were improving. Am I getting that right?

Ms. Kelly Morris: Yes, it's actually a good process, but one of the problems we have is actually negotiating. A lot of times with DIAND.... Well, I'll speak for DIAND itself. With Health Canada, what we've negotiated down so far have been existing programs. Sometimes when negotiating an existing program, such as a lot of the first nations programs that were out there--the CHR, the NADAP program, the Brighter Futures types of programs, all those programs. We've negotiated them down so that we no longer have contribution agreements and reporting requirements. We've taken the responsibility of looking after them. But the negotiating part is the financial part; all they're willing to give is what you were receiving before.

Mr. Carl Sidney: This other guy asked earlier if it has been better for us since we signed our agreement, and the answer to that I would say is yes, because we can model them to our needs and to how we see the children's needs, instead of to the criteria that used to come down. So yes, it has improved.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Ms. Brenda Sam: We are in a different situation because we have just signed our land claims. We're just in the process of starting all our own negotiations for all our programs and services. As I mentioned earlier too, Ta'an Kwach'an Council is always in competition with Kwanlin Dun First Nation, another first nation out of Whitehorse.

Any time any new programming or funding comes in or we try to tap into something, we're always given the answer that Kwanlin Dun has it and that Kwanlin Dun is receiving it. Our answer is always, well, they have it and that's as far as it will go.

Ta'an is really faced with the lack of a lot of programs and services for our community and our members right now.

When you look at Kwanlin Dun, it's a big first nation. They do have all the services and programs that do meet their needs. They have the Ashea Day Care, which is right in the community of Kwanlin Dun First Nation, and out of there they offer the Head Start program. This is a good program and it's meeting their needs, but other communities are excluded; they don't have Head Start.

I wish we could have Head Start.

I used to work for Kwanlin Dun as a CHR, and I worked there for eight years. When Head Start first came into the day care, I could see the improvement it made on our children. It got them ready for school. Just talking to the day care workers and even to the school up there, I find they have really seen a big difference.

I think it's five years that Head Start has been in Ashea Day Care, so last year they had their first products. It made a big difference in the children who did attend. They modelled it to meet their needs. They showed the kids their traditional values, and they taught them. They brought elders in, and they gave them traditional meals. As well, they showed them how to print their names and everything.

Head Start would be beneficial to all of us.

As well, in Kwanlin Dun they have the Healthy Families program. Healthy Families is only offered in Whitehorse out of Kwanlin Dun. The Government of Yukon has its own Healthy Families program, and I think Carcross/Tagish have Healthy Families, but it's linked with the Government of Yukon here.

In many ways Kwanlin Dun is always a step ahead of all the other first nations, or even a couple of steps ahead of us. Working as a CHR, I have the CPNP program I can offer to my members, but that's only good for the babies up until they're one. After they turn one, they can no longer be in my program. Once a baby turns one, I feel really bad when I have to tell the mom, well, I can no longer offer you any services. A lot of my moms, nine times out of ten, live below the poverty line, and probably nine times out of ten our whole community, our whole first nation, lives below the poverty line.

» (1750)

The Chair: On behalf of the committee, I want to thank you very much for being very helpful. Of course, it does pay for us to make these electronic excursions because the conditions across the country vary so much.

We've learned this afternoon, for example, that there are certainly some disadvantages in living north of 60, but there seem to be some advantages as well, in terms of the ability to find a way of transferring programs over to first nations so they can do the coordinating.

I'm hearing you say that one of the sins of the federal government is to start pilot programs that work but then get dropped, despite the fact that they work. That's not helpful. You can't do any planning on that basis.

I hear an absolute shortage of resources as a theme. I hear the need for coordinated resources. And I think the last example you gave, Brenda, was a good one; you get going nicely with a bunch of kids but when they turn one year old you drop them because there's not a coordinated set of services from conception to six.

I think we're very encouraged to hear that where these services exist, the differences are manifest and visible, that they work, that kids are prepared for school, and that's good news. We're glad there is proof of that.

You've been extremely helpful in guiding us as we do our work here. We are advocates on your behalf. I think we hear what you're saying. I hope we'll be able to produce a set of recommendations that are flexible enough to reflect the very differing situations we've heard but yet move in a certain direction--coordination, more resources, more autonomy in doing that, more attention to cultural and language issues--if we're going to be successful.

So on behalf of the subcommittee, thank you so much. We appreciate particularly the fact that although you didn't have to drive to Ottawa, driving to Whitehorse is not a small matter for you, even if you do it. So thank you so much for helping us, and if you have--

» (1755)

Ms. Brenda Sam: May I make one more comment?

The Chair: Absolutely.

Ms. Brenda Sam: As a CHR working in my community for the last 25 to 30 years, we've been dealing with the issue of FAS and FAE children, and it's now finally coming to the forefront.

The sad reality I face today as a health care worker is that I am now dealing with babies who are born drug addicted, dealing with prenatal mothers addicted while they're pregnant, and I have no training. I have asked everywhere how I could get training for myself; how would I even support a mother who is going through this?

An answer I did receive about six months ago was that I would treat the drug-addicted mother who was pregnant the same way I would an FAS or an alcoholic mother. I said no, because these are two totally different areas and they both need specific training.

This is a big area that I have no training in at all. I'm glad I made this presentation to the committee because this is one concern I've been bringing up for the last three or four years, that I need training and we all need training as health care workers, to start dealing with what we're living with today.

The Chair: Thank you for that. I think, additionally, we would want to say in the report...you raised the issue, and others have as well...we are going to be making reference to disability issues. We have to because of the very serious needs that you and other witnesses have pointed to.

On the FAS-FAE question, it's interesting that people like you have been talking about the need--since the dollars are quite limited--for more training for that particular situation. I think we should also take note, because we've heard it as well from Manitoba, that we have to be alert to emerging issues, such as drug-dependent moms and the effects on their babies. That's an emerging situation that people are not trained to deal with. They don't have any experience in it. It would be foolish to think you could just simply, as was suggested to you, apply the same techniques that you use for FAS-FAE. They share the common bond of dependency, if you like, but they're different pathologies.

I think we need to alert people to that as well in our report. We can't deal just with yesterday's problems--which we haven't dealt with all that well anyway. We have to be aware of tomorrow's problems and today's problems.

So thank you for adding that note.

On that note, I think I'm going to bring the meeting to a close. You're going to watch the mighty gavel come down. We thank you very much for all the effort you've taken.

We hope your voice gets better, Carl. Don't try to sing at the opera tonight. That's our last thought to you.

Bye now. Take care.

The meeting is adjourned.