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37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

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

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

1530

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

Ms. Deborah Wright (Consultant, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples)

1535

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses (Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres)

1540

Mr. Rick Lobzun (President, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, National Association of Friendship Centres)

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

1545

1550

1555

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis (Director General and Secretary Treasurer, "Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec inc.")

1600

1605

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

The Chair

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ)

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

1610

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

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

1615

Ms. Judith Moses

1620

Mr. Alan Tonks

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

1625

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

1630

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

1635

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

1640

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

1645

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

1650

Mr. Rick Lobzun

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

Ms. Judith Moses

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

1655

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

Ms. Judith Moses

Mr. Rick Lobzun

The Chair

Mr. Rick Lobzun

1700

The Chair

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

The Chair

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis

1705

The Chair

Ms. Deborah Wright

The Chair

CANADA

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

NUMBER 005

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Wednesday, February 5, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1530)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Let me welcome you formally.

This is a subcommittee of the human resources development committee. As you've probably heard, we are undertaking a four-part study of aboriginal kids. The first study was on children from ages zero to six on reserve, which we completed in June. We've had a very successful report and response to that report. Now we're beginning our work to look at children off reserve from ages zero to six. For purposes of discussion, we are not limiting ourselves to off-reserve status or any of that stuff, just aboriginal kids off reserve. In future reports we will deal with kids ages six to twelve on reserve, and then ages six to twelve off reserve. This will probably tie us up until June.

It's in that context that we're delighted to welcome you. We're at the very early stages of our study and are trying to get a feel for the problem, or define what the federal government can do to improve services to aboriginal children and their families.

We're delighted to welcome four different groups, two of which are allied: the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples; the National Association of Friendship Centres; the Native Women's Association of Canada; and the Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec inc.

Without further delay, let me begin by welcoming Deborah Wright from the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. If you'd like to make some opening remarks, that would be terrific.

Ms. Deborah Wright (Consultant, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples): Thank you.

As you've already heard, my name is Deborah Wright and I'm here to speak with you on behalf of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, which I will refer to hereafter as the congress.

I would first like to say that the congress greatly appreciates this opportunity to appear before you as you embark on this important task of exploring some of the issues relating to aboriginal children between the ages of zero and six who do not live on Indian reserves.

As you may be aware, for more than 30 years the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples has worked to represent the interests and serve the needs of off-reserve aboriginal peoples living in the urban, rural, and remote areas of Canada. Our constituency comprises by far the largest number of aboriginal people and the largest number of aboriginal children between the ages of zero and nine.

The recently released results of the 2001 census reveal that 219,570 of the 286,500 aboriginal children in that age group live off reserve. That's approximately 77% of all aboriginal children between the ages of zero and nine. Unfortunately, a similar statistical breakdown for children between the ages of zero and six is not currently available to us.

While I recognize that your committee's current mandate is to focus on the zero-to-six age group, my comments today will often reflect concerns about the zero-to-nine age group and older. That's in part because that's the statistical data I have, and in part because the important cultural support provided by aboriginal early childhood development programs can be easily undone by an educational system that is not culturally supportive, unless other measures are put in place.

The majority of off-reserve aboriginal children face the same life challenges as children living on Indian reserves. Their families may be living in difficult circumstances, often as single-parent families or with limited educational background and/or economic opportunity or means. These are the children most frequently described as being at risk. There are others, however, who are also at risk in a manner that is not always recognized.

Aboriginal peoples living off reserve span the socio-economic categories. They include the very poor, the middle classes, and the very wealthy. Children from these families live and function in a world outside their family lives that can be disrespectful and non-supportive of their cultural identities. Without cultural supports outside the home, they often find it difficult to establish good self-esteem and a strong sense of who they are. These children are also at risk.

From the perspective of the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, a broad range of culturally appropriate programming is needed to address the varying developmental needs of children and their families, as the children grow from conception until their mid-teens. Such programs must be designed and delivered by off-reserve aboriginal peoples with strong, regionally appropriate cultural components. Furthermore, they must be available to all aboriginal children and their families living off reserve regardless of residence, Indian status, or economic circumstances.

In stating this, the congress acknowledges that there are already some excellent programs to support aboriginal children and their families, but there just aren't enough of them. They are not sufficiently financed to meet the needs of our constituency, or they're not easily accessible to us.

One example of such programs is the urban and northern aboriginal headstart program, a veritable leader in programming directed at aboriginal peoples living off reserve. While this is an excellent program, its current capacity enables it to serve only a very small number of off-reserve aboriginal children. According to Mr. Richard Budgell, manager of the off-reserve aboriginal program, in his November 28, 2001, statement to this committee, the AHS program served a total of 3,500 off-reserve aboriginal children in 2000. That was just 1.6% of the 219,570 off-reserve aboriginal children who were between the ages of zero and nine. That was just 1.6% of only a portion of the off-reserve aboriginal children in need.

There are other much-needed programs designed to support at-risk children and their families that also lack the capacity to adequately serve our constituency. For example, there is no aboriginal-specific FAS/FAE program or prenatal nutrition program that is available to the off-reserve aboriginal community. Our communities and agencies must therefore compete for scarce dollars with agencies serving the general population. The aboriginal child care and day care dollars that are offered by HRDC are for the most part unavailable to our constituency, making it considerably more challenging to develop low-cost culturally appropriate day care for off-reserve aboriginal peoples.

We therefore see a need to substantially increase the financial resources to existing programs so they have the capacity to more adequately serve the off-reserve aboriginal population. In addition, there's a need for government agencies to work closely with organizations such as the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples to develop new programs that fill the gaps and alter the structure of some existing programs to make them more accessible to our constituency.

¹ (1535)

In closing, I would like to remind the committee of the statement of the committee chair, Mr. John Godfrey, during your November 28, 2001, hearing with representatives of Health Canada. He said:

I understand the head start program is probably the most expensive because it's the most labour-intensive. But the prenatal nutrition and the FAS/FAE may be the most crucial, because if you don't get it right in the beginning you're going to be dealing with the effects and the costs over a lifetime.

While the congress agrees wholeheartedly with the essence of that statement, we must clarify that for our constituency, each of these and many other as yet undeveloped programs are essential to meeting the needs of off-reserve aboriginal children and their families. We ask, therefore, that the committee not underestimate the value of potentially more costly programs that support the physical, educational, cultural, and spiritual development of aboriginal children through their childhood. For when it comes to supporting child development, if we don't get it right in the beginning--that is, if we don't support the healthy development of all aboriginal children regardless of status, residence, and socio-economic factors, and if we don't provide what is needed so they can develop good language and motor skills and an enthusiastic approach to life-long learning, a strong sense of identity, pride in their culture, and a positive self-esteem--then we will be continuing to deal with the cost and effects over a long time.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, and thank you for quoting me.

To clarify, I'm also a very big fan of aboriginal head start.

Ms. Deborah Wright: I recognize that.

The Chair: Judith Moses, welcome.

Ms. Judith Moses (Executive Director, National Association of Friendship Centres): Bonjour, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. On behalf of the National Association of Friendship Centres, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today.

The National Association of Friendship Centres has the largest network of urban aboriginal service centres in Canada. We have 117 centres located in every province and territory of this country. We have about 10,000 volunteers who provide volunteer time to these centres.

At its annual general meeting in July 2002, the membership of the NAFC identified child poverty as a top priority, and directed us in the national office to support the ongoing work of our provincial associations in addressing the issue. I am pleased to be able to do that today.

The Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres is bringing to the subcommittee's attention a seminal report on aboriginal child poverty in Ontario. It is a report that thoroughly and critically examines the realities of poverty for aboriginal children and parents living off reserve in Ontario, and which identifies the actions that must be taken in response. It is a report that may well serve as a blueprint for urban aboriginal communities struggling to address child poverty in other provinces. We believe their submission to you accurately reflects the tragic and entirely preventable circumstances of many aboriginal children, not only in Ontario, but all across this country.

Mr. Rick Lobzun is president of the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, and he will continue with our presentation.

Thank you.

¹ (1540)

Mr. Rick Lobzun (President, Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, National Association of Friendship Centres): Child poverty has been the subject of public attention in recent years, particularly as Canada fails to meet its 1989 House of Commons resolution to seek to achieve the goal of eliminating poverty among children by the year 2000. Although there have been several reports about the impact of child poverty in general, until the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, which I'll refer to as the OFIFC, released its groundbreaking study in 2000, no substantive study had been undertaken specifically related to poverty among urban aboriginal children.

With shocking frequency aboriginal front-line workers at friendship centres and other community-based service providers began calling attention to increasing levels of crisis work with which they were engaged as a result of poverty among their clients. The federation then commissioned a study in response to community concerns and in recognition of the need for aboriginal-specific research related to child poverty.

It was hoped that the report would serve as a tool for discussion among aboriginal service providers, and for policy-makers in aboriginal service providers and at all levels of government, as they collectively worked to eradicate urban aboriginal child poverty. Unfortunately, the report has not had the impact on government policy-makers that we had anticipated.

I have a few stats I'd like to read out: one in five children, or roughly 1.5 million, live in poverty in Canada, which is the second-highest rate of child poverty in the developed world; 52.1% of all aboriginal children are poor; 12% of aboriginal families are headed by parents under the age of 25; 27% of aboriginal families are headed by single mothers; 40% of aboriginal mothers earn less than $12,000 per year; 47.2% of the aboriginal population in Ontario receive less than $10,000 per year. Aboriginal people have a disability rate that is more than twice the national average. Since 1995 the poverty rates in Ontario have increased by 6.3% while decreasing in the rest of Canada by 11%.

Further, 16% of the aboriginal population in this country experience hunger. Studies have found that the families of hungry children are 13 times more likely to be on social assistance or welfare, and four times more likely to represent people of aboriginal ancestry.

You'll find most of those stats in the three copies that I brought with me. I'm sorry, I only brought a few, but we have mailed these out.

The Chair: Mr. Lobzun, can I just ask a technical question? Is there a French version of this text, or anything like it, or a summary of it?

Mr. Rick Lobzun: Sure. I believe those were mailed out as well to the members of the NAFC who were in Quebec and requested French copies.

The Chair: It would be good for this committee to have a couple so we could, because we are--

Mr. Rick Lobzun: I'll make sure that's noted.

The Chair: --constrained in what we can do, and rightly so. We like to make documents available

[Translation]

in both official languages. We'll endeavour to obtain the French version.

[English]

Mr. Rick Lobzun: I'll make sure they're sent to you.

We believe that the concerns of aboriginal people are becoming even more significant because North American Indian, Métis, and Inuit are the fastest-growing population in Canada. According to the 1996 census data, aboriginal people are found to have the highest per capita birth rates, the lowest life expectancy, and are more likely to raise children in lone-parent family settings.

As recently as 1996, one in three young status aboriginal people 15 to 24 years old were living off reserve in Canada. It's estimated that Ontario is home to 18%, or 141,525, of Canada's aboriginal population, the highest number of any province.

One of the other stats that we found within our studies is that 35% of the aboriginal population in Canada are under 14 years of age. One of our front-line workers was quoted in our friendship centres as saying that poverty is just the norm around here; it's passed on and on. The stats that came with that is there is little or no difference in the levels of poverty experienced by young people on reserve or in urban communities. That would also be the same statement that my sister from the Congress of Aboriginal People stated.

In 1994, when we were doing research for RCAP, the OFIFC discovered that 85% of the federal funds went to on-reserve programs to service 35% of the native population. Yet in the new census we find that 68% of the aboriginal population now lives in urban areas, off reserve. So there's a big variance there between how much money is getting sent on reserve for the smaller portion of our population and the much lower amount of funding that's getting sent to the urban areas where the greater number live. Almost twice as many live in the urban areas now.

Aboriginal people also tend to have children at an early age. For example, 12% of aboriginal families are headed by a parent under 25. This is four times the rate of parents who are under 25 among the non-aboriginal population.

I'm trying to hit some highlights here through my report because I didn't realize I was going to be splitting time. We weren't sure how it was going to work out when we got here.

In our poverty report we have provided a snapshot of the reality of poverty for aboriginal children, 52.1% of all aboriginal children being poor. Some of the things we believe the distinct nature of aboriginal child poverty in Canada are rooted in are the multi-generational experiences of residential schools; wardship through the child welfare system; and economic, social, and political marginalization from mainstream Canadian society.

Current government policies and practices recognize some aboriginal groups but not friendship centres. Friendship centres have developed over the last 30 years. They've actually been in existence for 50 years now, but the federation was formed in 1972. And we have become service delivery experts, whereas many of the first nations organizations, or some of the other organizations that do not have as many programs and have not had as many programs as we've had, over the past 30 years especially, are still catching up to how advanced we've become in providing services to our people in urban areas.

For reasons none other than being aboriginal, aboriginal people have for generations grown up poor. The most pressing and immediate need identified in our 2000 report, which was further supported by research, may be the lack of food. It's almost impossible to imagine children in this country being consistently hungry, or being kept home from school because there was no lunch to send with them and the parent feared intervention from child and family services, or being put to bed hungry. And in many of the cases we find in friendship centres where this is occurring, the mother has told us that not only are her children hungry, but she gave them everything she had and hadn't eaten herself for longer than the children.

Recent studies indicate that aboriginal people are four times more likely to report experiencing hunger than any other group in Canada. Basic food such as bread, milk, and cereal are often scarce in many aboriginal families for two weeks of the month as benefits and income sources run out. It's well documented that inadequate nutrition leads to poor mental and physical development in children. These points have been gathered from many of our front-line workers in the friendship centres, and this is happening in urban areas, not just on reserve, as many people tend to believe.

One of the things I would like to touch on is that 100% of friendship centre workers and parents who were surveyed for our report also spoke about the psychological effects of poverty in their lives. Some of these effects were low self-esteem, depression, anger, self-doubt, intimidation, frustration, feelings of being overwhelmed, shame, and hopelessness. Just as adults experience the impact of these conditions, so do their children.

¹ (1545)

One of the things I wanted to raise as an issue here was our lack of programming since the Little Beavers program was cut in 1995. It covered the age group from six to 12. We now have programming within the head starts and the CAP-C programs, and the CPNP programs that will cover zero to six. Then we have our UMAYCs, the youth centres, which cover from 13 to 24. We have absolutely no programming in any of the friendship centres of the urban areas from age six to 12.

That program used to be a prevention program and used to help to keep our kids off the street. It used to teach them how to stay away from the things that would interrupt their lives, such as drugs and alcohol. Now there's a gap in that six-to-12 age group where they have no programming whatsoever within our friendship centre. It's become a definite problem.

One of the things you can find—and I can guarantee you could go into my friendship centre in Windsor, Ontario, and many of the children who went through the Little Beavers program.... I first sat on the board there in 1984, and I watched children go through that program until 1995, when it was cancelled. Many of those children now are in their mid-twenties and early thirties. They make up the parent committee in our head start. They are working in our head start. They are working in our friendship centre, and they are sitting on the board in our friendship centre.

We've seen the advancement of those children who were able to attend that Little Beavers prevention program. Now we're seeing the next generation come up who haven't had the chance to be in there, one being my own daughter. I'll catch my breath a little, because she tried to take her own life last year.

My viewpoint of that, partially, is that she was not able to attend that same prevention program that her older sisters were even able to attend, which taught about not doing those things, or seeking counselling or telling people when you were feeling that low.

I knew I would have a hard time getting that one out, but I hope that's okay. I wanted to make sure you understood where my concerns are coming from, especially when it comes to that six-to-12 age group.

I'm going to skip to my conclusion, because I realize I'm taking a little bit of time. I'd like to make sure I get my recommendations in, if that's okay.

The conclusion we had written was that we can report that the concerns raised in this paper have led many aboriginal people in helping professions, especially friendship centres, to become frustrated and overwhelmed by the sheer enormity of the task before them.

The long-range plans of every friendship centre recognize the need to design programs that assist children and their families in addressing these issues. We know the needs of the children are diverse and long-term. Rising poverty, neglect, lack of education, suspension from school for behavioural problems, substance and chemical experimentation, learning disabilities, starvation, and general lack of adequate support services for children are just some of the conditions where these children struggle to find their way.

In short, we need to appropriately address the needs of our children through a broad range of programs and services that are designed for aboriginal children and delivered by aboriginal people in our urban communities. The health and vibrancy of our next generation depends upon it.

We thank this parliamentary Subcommittee on Children and Youth at Risk for the opportunity to raise these issues. We look forward to working with you in implementing these and other recommendations that will improve the quality of life for urban aboriginal children.

I have a list of recommendations that I'd like. There are five.

The first recommendation is funding for aboriginal children ages six to 12. As I already mentioned, it's imperative that the federal government support and develop programs aimed at urban aboriginal youth ages six to 12. Further, the federal government must ensure that aboriginal children become a funding and policy priority, a priority that is also clearly communicated and supported in its interactions with provincial governments.

Number two concerns the accountability framework. All levels of government must work with aboriginal service providers, including the OFIFC, to design and implement an accountability framework to be used when developing and conducting programs for aboriginal children.

The third recommendation concerns the Privy Council Office. The OFIFC is seeking the parliamentary committee's support of its involvement in consultations related to the Privy Council Office's seeking a second cabinet mandate for its urban aboriginal strategy.

Four deals with inclusion of the OFIFC. The OFIFC expects it will be a full and active partner in the follow-up to the parliamentary Subcommittee on Children and Youth at Risk and their examination of aboriginal issues.

¹ (1550)

Five is the role of friendship centres. The federal government must recognize and acknowledge the multi-generational effects that poverty, economic and societal marginalization, government intervention in families, and poor educational opportunities have had on our current generation of children and youth through the variety of federal aboriginal strategies, policy platforms, and programs. Further, the government must recognize the pivotal role that must be played by friendship centres in addressing these effects. In many cases and in many of the 28 cities our friendship centres are located in, they are the only source of programming or services that our people find.

Thank you.

¹ (1555)

The Chair: Mr. Lobzun, thank you very much, and Ms. Moses as well. Thank you particularly for your personal testimony. I think we're all touched.

Ms. Brown seems not to be here, unless she's hiding someplace. She may be detained by bad weather, who knows?

[Translation]

I now call upon Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis to make her presentation.

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis (Director General and Secretary Treasurer, "Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec inc."): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am the Director General and Secretary Treasurer of the Regroupement des centres d'amitié autochtones du Québec.

The RCAAQ is the coordinating organization for the needs of Quebec's seven friendship centres located in Montreal, Quebec City, Chibougamau, Val-d'Or, Senneterre, La Tuque and Joliette. Among other things, the friendship centres offer social, health, training, sheltering and emergency help services to natives living in or passing through urban areas, through its interveners.

The friendship centres have developed a range of flexible programs and services geared to the changing realities of aboriginals who seek out the centres' help. As such, the centres serve as a single point of access to social services, health services, employment, training, shelter, emergency help, referral and information services. All of these programs are specifically geared to the unique cultural characteristics of aboriginals and every effort is made to preserve native identity by providing them with the tools and means to adapt to life in an urban environment.

In Quebec, a large number of natives live off reserve. The same is true of all large urban centres. Statistics Canada data shows that a large number of aboriginals leave their communities and settle in major urban areas. Some of these families live below the poverty line, while others are single-parent families. In fact, 71 per cent of these families are single-parent families, a figure three times higher than the national average. Other characteristics include the low education level of parents, linguistic and cultural barriers, social isolation, family violence, suicide and misunderstanding of the non-native society standards.

The RCAAQ offers a number of programs for children. One such program dispensed by the Quebec Native Friendship Centre, the Community Action Program for Children, or CAPC Program, is aimed at promoting the development of parental skills in the case of native parents residing off reserve, supporting them in their adjustment to urban life and promoting optimal development for the child.

Over the past year, we have helped more than 360 parents and children between the ages of 0 and 12 who constitute a high risk clientele. We have conducted in-home visits and developed intervention plans. We have observed the fragile, vulnerable state of our children. These programs have been developed with the help of government subsidies and we realize that it would be impossible to expand them further, given the shortage of programming for natives residing in urban areas.

Our programs include activities geared to primary school children, such as help with homework. Children between the ages of 6 and 12 can receive direct assistance from interveners. Personalized follow-ups are provided with a view to enhancing parental skills. We also plan various activities for youths, including day camps, workshops in early infant stimulation, “Nobody's Perfect” workshops, conferences and family activities. Unfortunately, all of these activities and programs can't keep pace with the demand and we do not have enough funds to fill the void.

With respect to programs targeting children in Quebec from birth to 6 years of age, sadly, we cannot rely on provincial programs because of jurisdictional issues. Where families are concerned, when we try to secure funding from the provincial government, we're always directed to federal programs. The provinces seem to be under the impression that aboriginals are a federal responsibility and it's virtually impossible for us to obtain funding to assist aboriginal families with young children.

We also deal with jurisdictional problems between youth centres, the youth protection branch and the CLSCs. When our clients seek out the services of these agencies, the latter claim to be incapable of providing services to aboriginals and refer them to the friendship centres. Apparently, because of provincial jurisdiction issues, they cannot assume responsibility for providing services to a growing aboriginal population in large urban centres. We are therefore left to cope with few tools and resources and with a limited range of action. We need programs such as those in demand in communities so that we can better respond to the requests we regularly receive from our urban clients. Year after year, we face an ever growing number of young people and families in increasingly fragile, vulnerable situations with ever growing needs. Aboriginals arrive penniless in the city and think they will enjoy a better life and standard of living. However, they have no money and are left to their own devices.

In our estimation, a power-sharing structure should be put in place so that we can respond properly to the needs of this clientele, in particular the needs of young persons who are turning to our friendship centres in ever greater numbers. We would like to improve access to various programs. Federal transfers should include funds earmarked for aboriginals living in urban centres.This is not the case at the present time.

In Quebec, we do not have access to subsidies which would enable us to deliver adequate health care and social, education, employment and training services. Urban centres are truly given short shrift. Governments are unwilling to take on this responsibility.

We have attempted to secure funding from the Quebec government to operate our friendship centres properly, to offer enhanced programming and to hire better interveners. Unfortunately, our requests have gone unanswered so far and we are still waiting for subsidies.

We believe that aboriginals leave the reserve because they want to survive and enjoy a good quality of life like other people. Sadly, this still seems to be an impossible goal for them to attain.

Reserves were devised to control individuals. They may have ensured people's survival and strengthened their native identity by becoming a genuine cultural bastion, but I do believe that they are largely responsible for many of the problems natives currently face. We have a responsibility to address this situation, as we cannot stem the tide of natives leaving reserves for major urban areas. Which of these two worlds is best for our people? We don't yet have an answer to that question. Thank you for your attention.

º (1600)

º (1605)

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Gros-Louis. Could you clarify something for me? I assume your services are not restricted to status indians.

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: No, we provide services to treaty and status natives, to Métis and to Inuit as well. In Quebec, the aboriginal population covers the entire spectrum. We serve not only status indians, although the majority of our clients are status indians from aboriginal communities.

The Chair: Again, thank you very much.

Do you have any questions at this time, Mr. Gagnon?

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ): Yes, I do. My first question is directed to Mr. Lobzum and perhaps to Ms. Gros-Louis as well. We're talking about problem issues. Is there some connection with aboriginals who leave the reserve and move to an urban environment? Is there some way of keeping track of these individuals to ensure that some do not end up penniless in the big city?

The Chair: You may respond, Ms. Gros-Louis.

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: I didn't quite understand the question. Are you talking about keeping track of aboriginals who move off the reserve and to a large urban centre?

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: Yes. For example, is it possible for your committees or for your agencies to lose track of aboriginals who leave the reserve and ultimately end up residing in an urban area?

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: The clientele to which we provide services is composed of homeless, itinerant aboriginals. Our agencies assist persons without any money, whether it be with housing, food or applying for social assistance. These individuals represent a cross-section of aboriginal peoples. When they leave the reserve, they don't necessarily have money or a job. Quite often, they move away with their family to hook up with friends and often, they end up homeless. The numbers are constantly changing. We deal with a population in flux. Our clients may require our help for several weeks, or for several months. Some manage to get settled, but sometimes, their situation becomes so tenuous that they are forced to move back to the reserve with extended family. These individuals are in a constant state of flux.

Friendship centres, at least those in Quebec, experience problems in terms of developing a structure, organizing services and monitoring changing family situations. We work with aboriginal families and sometimes, we open a file on them, but we lose track of them when they move to a different community. Given their tenuous situation, these families move around a great deal and are fairly unstable.

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: I have another question. Last week, a representative listed some of the current programs for us. Are you in contact with these individuals with a view to maximizing the benefits of existing programs such as the AHS and other similar initiatives?

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: In Quebec, the AHS, or Aboriginal Head Start Initiative, operates out of several locations, including Montreal, Quebec City, La Tuque and Val-d'Or--Senneterre. There are also several AHS programs operating in the far North and geared to the Inuit. Such programs are operated off reserve. The CAPC Program provides assistance to young children. One such program exists in Quebec City and operates out of the Native Friendship Centre in that community. Unfortunately, it is the only such program and expansion seems to be out of the question.

The waiting lists for daycare are very long. One such daycare centre is located in La Tuque and another is planned for Val-d'Or. These will be the only two centres of this kind. The problem is considerable and waiting lists are long, given that daycare costs only $5. Because aboriginals tend to move frequently, they cannot put their name on a waiting list. Their movements are difficult to anticipate. Aboriginals often move from town to town or from one reserve to another and they never register with public daycare centres in Quebec.

º (1610)

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: I don't know whether Mr. Lobzun wanted to add anything to that.

Mr. Rick Lobzun: If it's okay, I'll respond to the first question.

It's very hard for the reserves to identify who is still living on the reserves unless they check in and check out. It is very seldom done.

At our friendship centres, they self-identify as Métis, Inuit, status, or non-status as they come in. They have access to all of our programming and all of our services in that manner. Our numbers reflect all four of the groups. We do not separately keep track of which groups have come in and identified. We offer our services to those who come into our friendship centres and ask. There's no real way of tracking which one would be status from what reserve.

In many cases when you're talking about the northern communities, when they migrated for work-related purposes down to where I am, in Windsor, or the Hamilton region, the golden horseshoe, or Toronto, if they didn't have a friendship centre with programs and services available, they would have to travel all the way back to their home reserves to get the services and programs.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Tonks.

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for making your deputations this afternoon.

When I was part of the urban task force and we were in Winnipeg, we heard much the same commentary with respect to the lack of community-based services for aboriginal off-reserve children and their families.

In your testimony today, there seems to be a recurring theme. The friendship centre provides the opportunity for a full spectrum of services dealing with housing, nutritional services, counselling, job searches, and FAS/FAE problems. It is all targeted towards making a child healthy and a young person capable of, as an adult, becoming a productive citizen. It is the goal we want for all of our children.

While those are the services that could be provided, there are jurisdictional problems with respect to doing it. There's a lack of cohesiveness, if you will, with a lack of understanding on the part of provincial governments and with respect to silos of activity on the part of the federal government.

For example, the friendship centre is supported by Health Canada, but HRD has a different response with respect to reserve families, as opposed to off reserve. The mandate through other silos of the federal government never seems to get down to the off-reserve delivery system.

If you could design programs, on the basis of your experience in the friendship centres, that would be holistic and a one-stop-shopping opportunity on the intake for you to look at a family to see what their needs are and, like a good physician, have the resources available to help those families, what would the programs be? What suggestions would you make so that we could keep them in our recommendations?

º (1615)

Ms. Judith Moses: One of the advocacy initiatives undertaken with the Privy Council Office, Indian Affairs, Canadian Heritage, and Health Canada is that we want them to identify national envelopes for friendship centre services. We get our core funding from Heritage Canada. It's something like $14 million a year for our 117 centres and seven provincial associations. Quebec has one and so does Ontario. We were cut back substantially in the 1990s. Since then our centres have been struggling to try to get back to where they were so that they could get back to the level of service delivery they had back then. That's compounded by the fact that we have such a high birth rate. We're not catching up to where we were before, and we've missed a whole generation of people in between.

We are working with the PCO and Canadian Heritage. They've created a director general's office for aboriginal affairs. We're asking them to institute an interdepartmental committee to look at the whole range of those kinds of services, from Solicitor General to Corrections to Health to HRDC to Indian Affairs. We think Indian Affairs has to be at the table because of that migration between on and off reserve and also because of the ramifications of the Corbiere decision.

We believe that the friendship centres can play a much stronger role in addressing these critical issues so that you don't have children who are in poverty and are being apprehended. We can take a look at developing prevention programs to address teenage sexuality. Some of the parents of those kids from zero to six are in the teenage bracket. We don't even have the numbers on that.

In terms of looking at some research around that mobility between on and off reserve, we are working with SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, to develop a national research study on mobility between on and off reserve. That's one of the initiatives the National Association of Friendship Centres is part of in order to back up our advocacy work with proper statistics.

Another piece of information for you is that we recently submitted a very detailed report to the Privy Council Office, which we will be providing to the members of this committee. It's called Moving Forward. It contains about 25 recommendations. It takes a look at national policy and programs and the governance requirements we have as a friendship centre movement.

HRDC is one department that the National Association of Friendship Centres has a relationship issue with. HRDC has chosen to enter into agreements with the five national political organizations. At one time NAFC was at that table as a national service provider, but we were pushed aside about five or six years ago. As a consequence, we've been totally ignored, and the funding we get from HRDC is minimal. In terms of the friendship centres, we're located strategically across the country. We can play a stronger role, and we need to be at the table.

There is a federal-provincial-territorial aboriginal council that meets quite regularly with ministers and premiers. We're not even at that table. Yet we are the strongest and most comprehensive service provider to urban aboriginal people in this country. I'm trying to advocate on our behalf with the Privy Council Office to get a seat at that table so that we can negotiate and raise our profile.

º (1620)

Mr. Alan Tonks: I hope, Mr. Chairman, that our researcher is taking note of those points in order that we can follow up on them. The point is well taken that the people who are providing the services on the ground in the community are the ones who should be consulted first. I just can't stress enough how that dialogue should be a continuous one. We have heard so many times that in program development that consultation is not happening. I hope we incorporate that in terms of any follow-up we're going to take.

The Chair: That's an excellent suggestion. Because there are not too many of us, we can be fairly freeform, I think, in our discussion, so I'm open to interventions from my colleagues and from you.

Let me raise just a couple of issues to clarify things. Would I be right in assuming there is a relationship between Madame Gros-Louis' organization and yours? Is it just that this is...?

[Translation]

It's the Quebec arm of the organization, correct?

[English]

Ms. Judith Moses: Yes, there is. The National Association of Friendship Centres is composed, as I've said, of 117 local friendship centres. We also have seven provincial and territorial associations. Quebec is one, and so is Ontario. They go from Quebec westward, except for the Yukon. We don't have one that represents the east.

The Chair: Now the next relationship question I wish to ask is just to make sure I understand, for example, the relationship between the Association of Friendship Centres and the Congress of Aboriginal People. They're allied, but they're organizations with different purposes. I just want to make sure that the Congress of Aboriginal People is not in the service business as such.

Ms. Deborah Wright: No, we're not a service delivery agency; we're very much a political advocacy organization. What we do is provide policy advice and recommendations at the national level. We try to monitor as many situations or issues as we can and be at the forefront of making sure that issues are being raised in a public arena and being appropriately addressed.

The Chair: You work together, but you're advocating?

Ms. Deborah Wright: Yes, we're not competing with each other. They deliver the programs, and we recognize that.

The Chair: Now, concerning the situation Madame Gros-Louis described, even from a technical point of view.... The Province of Quebec or any province might argue as far as status of aboriginals goes that it's a federal responsibility, whether they're on reserve or off reserve. But it's a little tougher to see how they would argue, whether it's in Quebec or in Ontario, that everybody else, whether they're Inuit or non-status or Métis, is also somehow excluded from their care; that they can declare these people to be in some kind of constitutional dead zone so that.... Well, can you decode what I think? It looks as though she's ready for this question.

Ms. Deborah Wright: That's exactly where we fall. That's exactly where our organization comes into play, because these are issues we've been advocating on for 35 years now.

We fall in a dead zone—I guess that's the best way to put it—in that nobody wants to accept responsibility for off-reserve aboriginal peoples. The federal government takes the position that it has a fiduciary obligation to on-reserve aboriginal peoples. It's a grey area, but over time they're more closely defining their responsibility as aligned with the Indian Act. They are working harder towards not only aligning it with the Indian Act but with the Indian reserves, so that if you actually leave reserve, then you're less and less a federal responsibility.

You'll find circumstances, when you look at various programs, where the rights you have on reserve don't necessarily go with you when you leave the reserve. That is a difficult situation. When those people leave the reserve, or if they never had status at all, the province's attitude is: “Well, they're aboriginal. They're saying they're aboriginal. That's a federal responsibility; it's not our problem.”

So we get into the situation of nobody wanting to provide services.

º (1625)

The Chair: But am I not right in saying—I'm not going to forget you, Mr. Lobzun—as we heard on the aboriginal affairs committee, actually in a conversation with somebody from Saskatchewan, that the federal government does make some allowance for off reserve, because through the CHST there is some formal heavying-up of the money they make over to the provinces as a form of recognition, but the provinces either fail to recognize that or....? Did I hear that right?

Ms. Deborah Wright: I can't speak on the specific issue, but I would say that's correct.

The Chair: Okay.

Judith, and then Rick.

Ms. Judith Moses: Accountability under the CHST is another area we identified in our report to PCO, as there is a block of funding under it that is supposed to go for aboriginal services and programs.

The Chair: Is aboriginal being defined as the full range of aboriginals, not simply those with status?

Ms. Judith Moses: Yes. It's according to the census, and includes status and non-status Indians, Métis, and Inuit, and whoever is off reserve or in an urban or rural area.

There is no requirement upon the provinces to deliver or earmark any of that funding specifically for aboriginal people. It generally doesn't happen.

I know in Manitoba, though, that our Manitoba friendship centre council has an excellent relationship with the Manitoba government. So you can see the spinoff from there, as the CHST is going to provide services off reserve in the health and social area.

I'll give you a really concrete issue with the CHST. In terms of FAS and FAE, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, the Secretary of State for Children and Youth, made an announcement back in November on FAS and FAE. We were quite excited about that, because we had met with her the week before and she had told us she was going to make the announcement. She had met with our national board of directors.

Lo and behold, the day the announcement came out, we found out that all $15 million of it was directed to on-reserve people. I met with Health Canada officials to determine this, because we were astounded. Given that 68% of people are off reserve, why was none of that money dedicated off reserve? I found out it was because of the CHST, whose moneys can be directed to FAS and FAE prevention and programs, but have not been.

The Chair: I think we've just stumbled on something that strikes me as potentially extremely interesting, although I may be exaggerating its importance. I want to make sure we capture it in our research.

You may have other examples, and perhaps if you do today, we should make sure they're part of the record. Here is a case of a health program focused specifically on FAS/FAE, in which it would seem, from what you're telling us, that provision has been made for specific sums of money to put into the CHST for that purpose. If it's true, it would be good to know the total range of programs that the federal government says, or thinks, or claims, it is funding for off-reserve people through the CHST.

What a day to be talking about this. We're in the process, we hope, of striking a health accord with the provinces. Part of this is about accountability.

A future direction of the CHST is precisely to colour-code dollars, so that in the first instance we can actually break out health dollars from social dollars, from higher education dollars, and from children's dollars. We have already acknowledged this through the early childhood development initiative, which is supposed to consist of colour-coded dollars going through the mechanism of the CHST.

So I think it would be helpful. I don't know what witness we can call to get this down, but any evidence you have on that, and anytime anyone has said something like that to you on FAS/FAE, or for any other reason.... I don't know if you have anything more to add to that, but I think this is a potentially useful piece of information when we look at the ways in which the federal government can actually try to address the problem.

Are there any other other bits of information?

Yes, go ahead, Ms. Wright.

º (1630)

Ms. Deborah Wright: It's generally very difficult for us to track these kinds of things, because we often don't find out that money has potentially been earmarked for our constituency until we try to access other dollars, such as going for the dollars earmarked for on-reserve people. That's when we found out that dollars were earmarked for us under FAS and FAE.

First off, nobody told us. Potentially, nobody told the provinces—

The Chair: That's a problem.

Ms. Deborah Wright: —and we haven't seen any impact from that. It constantly happens that we're told that provincial governments are receiving dollars on our behalf, as Canadian citizens, but they're not necessarily instructed to earmark those specifically for the use of aboriginal people.

The Chair: Or account for them afterwards.

Ms. Deborah Wright: No.

So we have the opportunity, as I pointed out in my brief, to make applications to make use of those dollars. Sometimes, depending on how well informed the bureaucrats are, we'll be turned down on those applications, because we're told to go to the aboriginal funding. That happens to us very frequently. Other times we may squeeze through, in terms of actually having our applications at least received and considered, but because our programs are so specific to our community, they're not acceptable. And on other occasions, we do actually get funded. But those are the challenges we often face, where we're looking to do things specific to our constituency to track dollars that meet the needs of the off-reserve aboriginal peoples, and we just can't get access to them.

The Chair: What I'm thinking is, looking forward to the fact that the person--I always get this thing wrong unless I read it out--who is known as the federal interlocutor for Métis and non-status Indians.... I'm always calling this person the urban interlocutor and nobody knows what I mean because it's not true. That would be Minister Goodale, who--among his other assignments--is appearing before the committee in February.

I think it would be useful, first of all, to give his office a heads-up saying that we might want to ask a question about moneys that are sometimes claimed to be or that we think are for these purposes, and ask him to give a bit of an account of what his understanding is. It would be better if we gave him advance notice of this.

Second, if we can ask our researcher to do a little background on all of this, it's obviously going to be part of a mix of what we're going to propose.

Let me ask this question of the friendship centres. The first question is whether we could use the friendship centres as a platform to integrate the various sums of money that come in from different parts of the federal government. For instance, today when I was meeting earlier with a friendship centre from Toronto--I should have hijacked them and brought them over here--one of the people attached to that friendship centre was working on a crime prevention program that comes out of the Department of Justice. Clearly, there's an example--it was kind of informal; I don't know how it worked. But there's one federal department, justice. The other gentleman was working under an HRDC operation. And then others will do it through Health Canada. And we determined that for the on-reserve population of zero to six years we had all these federal departments coming down in silos and landing on a reserve in a small community in northern Manitoba, with different accounting regimes and all the inconsistencies that three federal departments and three different sets of programs could produce.

Could we use the friendship centres as the on-the-ground integrator for the programs we've identified? You get money from Heritage Canada--there's also justice department money, HRDC money. There isn't DIAND money. Can we at least take HRDC, Health, Justice, and Heritage dollars--I guess I've identified most of the sources of potential dollars--and use your organization as the integrator? That way we can start to provide one-stop shopping, as Mr. Tonks has described it. Is this to overfreight a friendship centre? I'm focusing here now on early childhood development services and services to parents. I'm thinking from zero to six years, and I'm prepared to go zero to 12 or 12 to 18. Is that a vision?

º (1635)

Ms. Judith Moses: That would be the point we would like to move toward, except I should dispel you of the notion that.... The only national programs we run from our National Association of Friendship Centres office are through Heritage Canada. We get the Young Canada Works, the aboriginal friendship centre core funding, and the UMAYC program. We roll that out to our local friendship centres.

The Chair: You're the centre point for that, and then you push it out to them.

Ms. Judith Moses: Yes, and we want to use that process as a template for programs from Health Canada's population and public health branch, those prevention programs, head start. We want that to roll over into corrections and also into the Department of Justice. What happens with the 34 friendship centres they have and their dozen or so over there in Quebec is that they all individually have to prepare proposals, negotiate, and try to get funding from whatever sources. With that $15 million we get from Heritage Canada for our core funding, we're able to attract over $200 million in programs and services from other federal pockets, other provincial pockets, from their own fundraising, and the private sector. So we lever quite a number of programs and services from other sources with a very minimal amount of funding.

The Chair: If we're dreaming in technicolour, we might as well continue.

I can see that there would be some advantage for the national office to enter into negotiations with the feds, for example, for core funding for what you do. But I can also see that to be effective--and here you're going to have to help me.... There are three units: the national organization, the provincial organizations, and then individual friendship centres. It would seem to me that if one were pursuing an integrated service model and wanted to be able to have the tough conversations with, say, the provinces in which we say we have now tracked down the CHST dollars, so we can argue, “Come on, you can't use that argument; you can't get out of your responsibilities”, one would need somebody also at the provincial level integrating wherever possible the provincial services and the municipal services. In other words, that can't be done, I'm assuming, from head office.

What is the reasonable division of work here between what happens at your level, what happens at the Ontario and Quebec levels, and indeed what happens at the level of the individual friendship centres? I see strength in numbers, but do you see what I'm trying to get at?

Why don't you go first and then Deborah.

Ms. Judith Moses: Sure. At the national office we have about eleven staff members. We work quite closely with our seven provincial territorial associations. We contract a service fee to them to monitor and manage the programs within their particular geographic areas. That system works.

In terms of the organizations, I think we are the most accountable, most transparent. We put everything up on our website. At our AGM, we put everything on a CD-ROM so that people know where our funding is going and what it's being spent on. That's not to say that we don't have some issues in terms of a centre going off track perhaps through political infighting, family relationship issues, or even accountability issues.

I've had this discussion with Minister Goodale, because his constituency office is in Regina. We have a problem with the Regina Friendship Centre, and I try to tell him not to think that all friendship centres are like Regina because they're not. We have 116 centres operating quite viably and constructively. We also have seven provincial and territorial associations.

So we have the structure to deliver. That's why we're trying to negotiate national envelopes. We've outlined what we want in terms of a relationship framework with the federal government in our Moving Forward report, and I'll certainly provide that to you before your meeting with Minister Goodale.

º (1640)

The Chair: By the way, Monsieur Gagnon and Mr. Tonks, don't be shy. I'm just going to keep going unless you stop me.

I'm curious to know if the provincial and territorial organizations attract any non-federal money. Do they get money from the provinces for part of their programming or their cases, Mr. Lobzun, or...?

Mr. Rick Lobzun: I didn't quite catch what she was saying. Is it all right if my technical person confers with me for a minute?

The Chair: Oh gosh, yes.

Mr. Rick Lobzun: She says that $20 million, in an annual budget from the provincial government, comes into our provincial-territorial organization within Ontario.

The Chair: Is the Ontario government contribution $20 million?

Mr. Rick Lobzun: Yes.

The Chair: That's out of a total budget in the Ontario region of friendship centres of--

Mr. Rick Lobzun: We have 29 centres, and 28 are affiliated with the federation.

The Chair: So Ontario provides $20 million. How much does everybody else provide in Ontario, for a total?

Ms. Judith Moses: The Ontario federation has a total budget of $29 million.

Mr. Rick Lobzun: So $9 million comes from the federal government and the rest comes from Ontario.

The Chair: Ontario.

[Translation]

And in Quebec's case?

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: As a provincial association, the RCAAQ receives $110,000 from the Aboriginal Affairs Secretariat. This is non recurrent funding. Friendship centres receive no funds from the province, but may apply under programs for which all agencies and the general public are eligible. That's why I mentioned that we had applied to the province for an operating grant for 2001-2002 for all friendship centres and for the RCAAQ. We requested a total of $1,540,582 and received absolutely nothing, with the exception of our provincial association which received operating funds, much like other aboriginal groups.

The Chair: What is the RCAAQ's annual budget?

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: It's around $600,000. It's a modest budget, because ours is a small office.

The Chair: But that doesn't cover the seven centres. That's a different matter.

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: That's right. The RCAAQ receives funding from the federal government and from other sources to administer the programs of the national association.

The Chair: And what is the total budget for these seven centres, including that of the association?

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: The budget for all centres in Quebec?

The Chair: That's right.

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: I don't have that figure. I would be hard pressed to come up with a total amount representing the budget of all of the centres, plus that of the RCAAQ.

[English]

The Chair: So the $29 million is for the operation of the friendship centres in Ontario.

Mr. Rick Lobzun: That's the total budget that flows through the federation.

[Translation]

The Chair: That would be an interesting piece of information when you have the time to...

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: I could tell you what the total operating budget is.

[English]

The Chair: I've neglected Ms. Wright in all of this excitement. I know she has something to say.

Ms. Deborah Wright: Yes. I would like to come back to your suggestion and say that while it's a very interesting one that I think is worthy of consideration and discussion, we want to remind you that while friendship centres are one of the biggest service providers to the aboriginal communities, they are not the only service providers. They're not everywhere; there aren't enough centres to have them in every community.

Many other community groups and organizations access and operate programs that don't necessarily work through the friendship centres, so you wouldn't want to shut off access to resources for those community groups. The approach would have to be very carefully explored to ensure that access continued to be available.

º (1645)

The Chair: The difficulty is that you have a very diverse population. For the moment let's just restrict ourselves to thinking about the cities, because it's easier in a way, although it's not the full picture by any--

Ms. Deborah Wright: It's not the full picture, and that's exactly where I'm going.

The Chair: Yes, but let's even just think about the city problem. People self-select; they self-identify; they come or they don't come. You may have an outreach program to try to get in touch with people you hear about; I'm not sure how that would work. I'm sorry; I'm now thinking of friendship centres.

I guess what we're trying to think through is how we can take this essentially chaotic situation, which is very hit or miss and underfunded, and create some kind of movement toward greater cohesion. So even if there are different organizations serving the population, maybe in smaller communities, maybe in cities, we can weave them together in a way that makes it easier for people for whom we need.... We're using as our focus here services for themselves or their children, and I'm just thinking in the first instance from prenatal to six, but we could go prenatal to 12; the point would be the same. We need to recognize at the beginning that the problem is underfunding, but that it's not helped by the confusion of the feds, with their little pockets of money and programs, and the proliferation of services, some of which are provincial, some municipal, some voluntary, some.... Is there a way of weaving it together in a sensitive fashion that doesn't cut the legs from under the existing organizations, but builds on what we have, such as friendship centres?

Ms. Deborah Wright: I don't think there's any simple solution to that. We've all been struggling with those questions for probably 20 or 30 years.

A starting point to the solution, though, is having government departments, when they're developing programs, sit down with all the service providers and the political representative organizations and talk about who the constituency is, and who is going to be receiving these services, and work out mechanisms for best delivering them by talking to the aboriginal community itself—as opposed to the way it frequently happens, which is that a couple of bureaucrats get together in a back room and say “This is the group, and this is how we're going to do it”. Then we all hear about it after it's a done deal.

If government starts working more closely with aboriginal people at the inception of ideas and programs, we're more likely to be able to successfully develop programs that will work for aboriginal people and will reach aboriginal people. I think the important thing is to begin opening up the dialogue. We'll work out ways of making it work.

Mr. Rick Lobzun: One of the things I wanted to remind you is that four out of the five recommendations I brought forward ask specifically that the OFIFC be included in all the discussions that would occur. We've been left out of a lot of discussions that have occurred, as our sister is saying, where things are decided for us and there's no consultation. Then what we expected to happen does not happen, and without our consultation; or the moneys we expected to flow through, such as FAE/FAS, do not flow through. We just find out after the fact that it has all gone to on-reserve, and we were promised a portion of that pot.

When you have 68% of the native population living off reserve in the urban areas, how does a total budget go to on-reserve for 32% of the population of aboriginal people, while the ones who probably need it more, because they're not close to their home services and are living in urban areas as an aboriginal urban native, don't have access to those funds now?

One more thing is, many times our own home reserves count the number of their total status as their total number and they don't, in those numbers, reflect how many are living actually off the reserve—

The Chair: And tapping into your services, in some cases.

º (1650)

Mr. Rick Lobzun: Then we still end up providing the services on a lesser or a limited budget to more of the population than is even recognized, because those numbers have already been pulled back into our own home reserves, on their numbers.

Ms. Judith Moses: In terms of how you begin to initiate dialogue with aboriginal groups, there are aboriginal councils in most of the large urban centres across the country. These people get together to discuss who is best to deliver a service and how to do it. They will work together to support that one organization to sponsor and deliver a service. If there's a request for proposals coming out, they'll discuss it and find who among them is best positioned and has the capacity to put together a proposal and deliver it.

Those organizations exist. There's one in Toronto. I know in Toronto there's an aboriginal social service provider association. There's also the Aboriginal Council of Toronto, which was only developed in the last two years. Winnipeg has a very strong aboriginal council that's elected. Calgary has one, Vancouver has one, and Edmonton has one.

The infrastructure for consultation exists out there. However, I don't think they're being utilized to the extent they should be.

I know our friendship centres are participating in them. In terms of a national level, in terms of our relationship with other federal departments, the National Association of Friendship Centres mandate is to negotiate and advocate on behalf of all friendship centres and all of our seven provincial-territorial associations. That is what we're doing.

We put together that report to PCO, Moving Forward. We are working with Canadian Heritage to take the lead on an interdepartmental working group that is going to look at some of the issues, such as the CHST and the lack of funding for FAS and FAE, and start looking at the need for national envelopes in which we can provide services to the clients that we have in our friendship centres. If we had more core funding from Canadian Heritage, we have new and developing centres that are waiting to be acknowledged as friendship centres.

For your information, Rick said that the centres were developed about 50 years ago. For all the organizations that you see around you--for instance, in Toronto there are over 60 aboriginal organizations--most of them were spawned or given birth from the friendship centres in Toronto. We have two friendship centres in Toronto.

The friendship centres have played a crucial historical part in the formation of the aboriginal service organizations. Everybody knows who's doing what in the centres.

In terms of the rural areas, that is where you are going to have the most difficult time, because the only show in town is the friendship centre.

I'll leave it at that.

The Chair: In terms of Moving Forward, we received a copy. Was it our office, or did the committee receive a copy? What's its status? Is it a document?

Ms. Judith Moses: Our report is a response to Gathering Strength. It's called Moving Forward.

The Chair: Is it in the public domain?

Ms. Judith Moses: Yes. It was sent to Minister Goodale.

The Chair: We will circulate that. We will do that dans les deux langues officielles.

That's a very useful suggestion about people to contact.

Ms. Wright, I assume the friendship centres are front and centre of all of the consultative groups that have been under-utilized, so you're represented there. Would they also capture some of the other non-friendship-centre players?

Ms. Deborah Wright: I think some of the groups would. Rural areas are where it becomes particularly more difficult. There are splits even between people who aren't using the friendship centre services. There's a whole bunch of political issues out there that need to be dealt with more sensitively in rural centres.

I think in the urban centres there are probably fairly good relationships in most of the urban centres between the various aboriginal organizations.

Where my concern was expressed, I was thinking about it in a more crystal way. For example, we have places like the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health in Ottawa, which is using CAPC dollars and CPNP dollars to supplement their programs. The same dollars are probably also being used by the Ottawa friendship centre. I know there are Inuit organizations in the Ottawa area that are also getting access to those programs to offer services.

You would have to be really careful not to cut off access to those valuable community groups that are meeting very specific needs, even in one urban centre or in other urban centres.

º (1655)

The Chair: But do we get around the problem of inadvertently doing some damage there? Would they all tend to be represented in these councils you've described?

Ms. Deborah Wright: Do we have them in Ottawa?

Ms. Judith Moses: In Ottawa, they definitely have a group of executive directors that get together and discuss what new programs are arising and who's best to take advantage of them.

They also work in terms of, in one case I know of, a treatment centre here in town that was having difficulties and in danger of being eliminated. Those executive directors got together and decided, okay, let's partner or have Wabano Centre take the lead and be like the mother to the agency that was having some problems, monitor it over a two-year period, and take some management role to get it back on its feet so that we continue to have that service in Ottawa, and to protect that funding.

Those kinds of arrangements are out there, and they do work. The friendship centre here in Ottawa was involved in that discussion. There is a lot of collaboration that goes on that government people aren't even aware of.

Mr. Rick Lobzun: I have a point: that even with the bringing in of the head start programs--I believe there are ten in Ontario--they had to be sponsored first by one of the native organizations that was within the area it was being brought into. So even in that, you've already seen where there's a buddy system, where one helps the other and then becomes a delegate agency to get the other one, with brand-new funding coming in, on its feet and up and running.

One of the things I would hope, if you're dreaming in technicolour, is that as you begin this process, as you go into the different areas of the country, you would make sure those groups were notified and invited.

The Chair: Let me try a bit of a summary here, because I think our time is drawing nigh, and always with the understanding that colleagues can try to muscle in if they can get past me.

First of all, you reminded us that there are existing organizations in which the friendship centres are central but not exclusive, which we should be consulting, and that, in a way, in terms of urban areas, that is a good place to begin: Why don't we go with what exists, the good informal organizations, the good network, and you can correct this little account after?

Secondly, we need to consider that in rural areas we have a different set of problems, or it's a different situation. It's not as obvious, in a sense, to find a similar grouping. We're going to have to work harder at that, and any suggestions you want to forward to us as you mull over this would be much appreciated.

The second observation is that I was surprised to hear how much of the total budget of $29 million in Ontario, $20 million, came from the province. I think it would be helpful, if it's not indiscreet, to ask you to give us--not now, but in written form--a sense of which programs you're tapping into in the province. That helps bring in a larger group of services and integrate them. On the other hand,

[Translation]

the situation is completely different in Quebec. I was just wondering and I don't know who can answer that question. With such a range of programs, how are the other provinces faring? I don't know if the situation in Ontario is exceptional or the norm. What of the situation in Quebec or in Manitoba?

[English]

I don't know whether in Manitoba you have friendship centres that.... Could you give us, by written account, if you could, a bit of a sense of how it looks across the country? I think that would be useful information.

I'm just trying to pull together what we're learning here. I think we're going in a good direction.

Yes, Rick, go ahead.

Mr. Rick Lobzun: We would be glad to send you a breakdown of where our funding sources are and the programs.

Also, regarding your very first statement, I want to make sure you're aware that as they are able to walk into a friendship centre and self-identify, all the other groups are welcome at our friendship centre: non-status, Métis, Ontario native women, Inuit, all the other groups. So if there are services not being provided by other organizations, they can still come to a friendship centre in that area and receive those programs and services.

» (1700)

The Chair: That's really important.

Monsieur Gagnon.

[Translation]

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: Community groups operate differently in Ontario and Quebec.

Last week, the witnesses informed us that they dealt with certain agencies, specifically early childhood centres and CLSCs. The figure mentioned was $20 million. However, you seem to be implying that you are experiencing some financial problems.

I would like either our researchers or your services to draw up an organization chart showing how the agencies are connected and which services they provide. As I said, mention was made last week of the funding allocated to early childhood centres and to CLSCs. I'd like to have an overall picture of the situation and some idea of how the money is channelled so that the necessary program changes can be made.

If your status in Quebec is the same as that of community groups, then your situation could be unique. In the community sector, funding is often not allocated on a recurring basis, even though problems continue to grow. I'm well aware of the problem, as a former fund and program manager.

I'd like to have this information to get a better understanding of the situation.

The Chair: Would it be possible to obtain that information through the clerk?

Ms. Jocelyne Gros-Louis: We can certainly supply you with some information.

As far as community groups are concerned, just let me point out that the Secretariat for Independent Community Action and the friendship centre requested funding, but once again, there was no money set aside for aboriginal groups. We're talking about a resource envelope of $10 million. Recently, we asked that an equivalent amount be set aside, but we have yet to get an answer, since a decision has yet to be made.

The fiscal year is drawing to a close and March 2003 is fast approaching. Friendship centre administrators are still waiting for an answer. I don't know if other aboriginal groups are receiving any funding, but friendship centres in Quebec are service groups. Aside from us, there are no other service centres in urban areas.

Each centre is also involved at the regional board level. We sit on different committees, but the fact remains that funding from the regional boards is directed to CLSCs. These funds are intended for the general population.

As a rule, everyone, whether native or non-native, is entitled to receive services, but for many reasons, services aren't delivered to clients. This may be due to language or communication problems, to cultural differences and so forth. Numerous factors come into play and waiting lists are very long. As a result, the aboriginal population does not always have access to available services.

The Ministry of Health and Social Services informs us that it allocates funding to the boards which is turn allocate the money to various CLSCs so as to reach the entire population, including the aboriginal population. However, specific services and resource persons are not available.

For these reasons, it is difficult to obtain data. Exactly how much funding is allocated to the aboriginal population?

We have collected data from various departments that we could leave with you. The data was extracted from reports covering 2000-2001. Specific mention is made of funding allocated to urban areas.

Consider, for example, funds allocated by Quebec's Department of Education; the amount is $3,592,040 to urban groups for the operation of primary and secondary schools. However, these amounts do not cover the delivery by friendship centres of services to children. Such services include specialists and education experts who help with homework or other resource persons who work in schools.

In short, funding is allocated, but not necessarily to organizations like friendship centres that work on the front line, provide services and assistance in times of crisis, and so forth.

» (1705)

The Chair: We need that information. It would be very useful to have.

[English]

Ms. Wright, did you have a word to add there?

Ms. Deborah Wright: Yes.

Jocelyne made a point that I thought was very interesting and I wanted to reiterate. It relates to the issue of culturally appropriate programming. When dollars are mixed in with the general population, we don't see them as going toward aboriginal peoples necessarily.

In one of your hearings, I think it was last year, you had someone from Health Canada explain how the CPNP program worked in Quebec, how it was tied with the CLSCs. So prenatal and nutritional programming was being delivered generally in Quebec and there was no way of tracking how many aboriginal women were actually making use of those services.

More importantly, those services, as they're being offered, are not necessarily culturally appropriate in meeting the needs of aboriginal peoples. When we're looking at programming for aboriginal peoples, we're looking at clearly identifiable dollars that we can access to design programs that are culturally appropriate and that meet our cultural needs, so we can gear them toward the needs of the aboriginal people specifically.

It's particularly important when it comes to trying to get messages across relating to good living or prenatal care, being able to build traditional practices into prenatal care and parenting, and looking at building self-esteem in children, making them proud of their culture and their environment, making their parents proud of who they are so that they can be better parents for their children. Those things don't come out of mainstream programming. So when dollars that are supposedly earmarked for aboriginal peoples go into the mainstream or are said to have gone into the mainstream, we don't get to use them for those purposes.

The Chair: Well, I think on that note, which is a very useful reminder, thank you all for coming.

[Translation]

Thank you very much to all of the witnesses.

[English]

As you see, you've sparked some very important questions that are going to be inspiring when we come to discuss things with the federal interlocutor, and we're going to start with those CHST dollars.

Thank you all. It's been a very rich and rewarding afternoon.

The meeting is adjourned.