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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 26, 2003

1530

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

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP)

The Chair

Ms. Josie Hill (Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.)

The Chair

Ms. Josie Hill

1535

1540

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky (Director of Programs, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.)

The Chair

1545

Ms. Jaime Koebel (Board Member, Odawa Native Friendship Centre)

The Chair

Ms. Jaime Koebel

1550

The Chair

Mr. Clifford Summers (Executive Director, Odawa Native Friendship Centre)

The Chair

1555

Mr. Lou Demerais (Executive Director, Vancouver Native Health Society)

1600

The Chair

1605

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

1610

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Lou Demerais

The Chair

Mr. Lou Demerais

The Chair

Mr. Clifford Summers

1615

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Clifford Summers

1620

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

1625

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Lou Demerais

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Lou Demerais

The Chair

Mr. Lou Demerais

Ms. Libby Davies

Mr. Lou Demerais

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville

1630

Mr. Lou Demerais

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Lou Demerais

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Mr. Clifford Summers

The Chair

Ms. Josie Hill

1635

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

1640

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville

Mr. Lou Demerais

1645

The Chair

Ms. Jaime Koebel

The Chair

Ms. Josie Hill

The Chair

Ms. Josie Hill

The Chair

1650

Ms. Jaime Koebel

1655

Mr. Clifford Summers

Ms. Jaime Koebel

Mr. Clifford Summers

1700

Ms. Jaime Koebel

The Chair

Mr. Lou Demerais

1705

The Chair

Mr. Lou Demerais

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

1710

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Libby Davies

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

The Chair

Ms. Diane Redsky

Ms. Josie Hill

Ms. Diane Redsky

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 008

2nd SESSION

37th PARLIAMENT

EVIDENCE

Wednesday, February 26, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¹ (1530)

[English]

The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Now we can start the meeting. Welcome.

How appropriate that she who gives us legality--that is, Libby Davies--is a member of the opposition.

I think, Lou, you were involved in a little pre-study with.... Libby, did you go visiting?

Ms. Libby Davies (Vancouver East, NDP): Yes, Lou set up the meeting, basically, in Vancouver.

The Chair: So another thing to say before we start hearing witnesses is that a number of us went across the country. I went to a program in Toronto. Libby was in Vancouver--and did you also visit Saskatchewan?

The Chair: You met Larry, who may or may not be joining us in due course.

So we did have a little informal look around on our own. I hope that gives you a bit of a scene-setting of where we are and why we've asked you.

We have a batting order here. I hope it's okay. So why don't we just start with the names in the order in which they appear?

Josie and Diane, are you each planning to speak? Who's planning to go first?

Ms. Josie Hill (Executive Director, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.): I will.

The Chair: All right, welcome. We're delighted that you're here.

Ms. Josie Hill: Good afternoon. My name is Josie Hill, and I am currently the executive director of the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

I bring with me today 25 years of experience of working toward bettering the life circumstances for aboriginal children and families living in the inner city of Winnipeg. I also bring my own personal experience, being an aboriginal female raised in the inner city of Winnipeg and having experienced all the circumstances many of our families still face today.

I did, however, have the opportunity to attend the Winnipeg Education Centre in 1997, an opportunity many of our families will never have. It gave me, a single mother at the age of 22 on welfare with two small children, the credentials and skills to be gainfully employed to work in my community.

I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity to share with you my experience as an aboriginal mother, grandmother, and professional who has witnessed over and over both the needs of aboriginal children and families and the incredible strengths and determination families have for building a happier, healthier life for themselves and their community.

I feel it is important to contextualize the realities for the majority of aboriginal children and families living in Winnipeg with a few demographics and statistics.

You know, when you write this stuff, it's a lot easier than when you start saying it. It's a mouthful.

Anyway, I would also like to note that this information can be somewhat generalized as the situation for urban aboriginal people across the west. In Manitoba 14% of the population is aboriginal. One-quarter of the children in Manitoba are aboriginal, and 69% of first nations people live in urban centres. Four-fifths of aboriginal households in the inner city of Winnipeg have incomes below the poverty line. Most aboriginal families are headed by a single parent, the mother. Of the children who live in single-parent families headed by women in Manitoba, a startling 76.3% live in poverty.

The majority of aboriginal parents living within the inner city have less than a grade 8 education, and only one-third of aboriginal high school students complete grade 12. Canadian studies show that 58% of the children taken into custody by child welfare authorities were from families on social assistance, and 80% of the children in care in Manitoba are aboriginal.

I don't believe I need to belabour the point with further statistics, reports, or studies on the impact of the obviously desperate situation urban aboriginal families find themselves in. I do want to assure you that the many families I have met over the years are forever in search of a happy, healthier life for their children and their community. The need is great and can sometimes be overwhelming. However, there are a number of fairly simple solutions that could be implemented that would sustain funding over the long term and that would greatly improve the future of urban aboriginal families.

In no order of importance, some recommendations are as follows.

Increase the number of head start programs in neighbourhoods where they're using models of best practice wherein parents are currently meaningfully involved. Expand the programs to include educational opportunities for parents. I think we could be creative. I think where the parents are meaningfully involved and are coming to the head start programs on a regular basis, it could be an opportunity to help them with their education while they're there.

Two, get involved in provincial jurisdiction by developing a program for elementary, middle, and high schools where a high percentage of students are aboriginal. Schools where the emphasis is on aboriginal culture, maintaining standards, and engaging their parents in their children's education have proven to increase completion rates. So if there could be some kind of program that enhanced.... In Winnipeg, for example, there are certain elementary, middle, and high schools where there are high numbers of aboriginal students not completing the course. If there could be some kind of special programming to enhance the cultural aspects, parental involvement, and those kinds of things, we might have more children graduating from school.

¹ (1535)

This is a big one: reinstate the Canada Assistance Plan, the cancellation of which has not only resulted in reductions in welfare payments but has led to the delivery of harsh provincial policies for recipients. Many families were really cut back, a family of three by at least $200 a month on account of their food budgets within the province, and families just can't get anything extra.

Families are always living in desperate situations with poor housing. They get a one-time-in-your-lifetime damage deposit, that kind of thing. Oftentimes families are looking for a better house, but they just can't get it.

If someone had an educational opportunity back in 1985, that was their one shot, and if they didn't do something with it, too bad. That really doesn't make any sense, because if they now want to take something else and are more ready, they're better able to go to work and those kinds of things with a better training opportunity, yet they're just not allowed to do it anymore. When the CAP program was cut, also cut was the opportunity for the federal government to have some say and influence over how it is people are treated.

Expand the community action program for health offered by Health Canada and develop additional programs where there is a higher percentage of aboriginal people and children. These are usually located in neighbourhoods where poverty is a big issue.

People are quite isolated due to poverty. If they could expand programs such as the Andrews Street Family Centre and those kinds of things where people have the opportunity not to be so isolated and to be involved, that.... Where there's great isolation, there's an increase in family violence, child abuse, and those kinds of things.

Introduce a home ownership program for urban aboriginal people so they can have their own homes, can stay put, don't have to be moving all the time, and can put down some roots for their families and children.

Disallow provincial governments holding back portions of the national child tax credit to welfare recipients. Right now there's a certain percentage the province holds back for training and those kinds of things.

Form partnerships with provincial and municipal governments to introduce programs to improve healthier life choices for aboriginal children, youth, and parents with recreation. Create healthy lifestyle opportunities, promoting participation, leadership, and employment free of charge in neighbourhood-based situations in areas such as the north end of the inner city, where a lot of the recreational opportunities, community clubs, and those kinds of things just don't exist anymore. There are just not a lot of opportunities for kids and for families as a whole.

Ensure that any and all programs that are developed for aboriginal children and families are entirely run for and by aboriginal people.

I realize that on your first hearing some of these recommendations, you may be thinking that the cost would be high and that there are many jurisdictional boundary issues to be considered. However, when you weigh the costs currently expended on housing aboriginal people in systems such as the criminal justice system and child welfare systems, the investment in urban aboriginal children and families up front will eventually pay off for all Canadians as the need for the back-end system diminishes.

In closing, I'd also like to use the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre as a small example of how investing in the community can pay off. Ma Mawi has been in existence for 19 years, and our primary purpose is to support families in order to prevent their children from entering the child welfare system.

In 1997 Ma Mawi was located in what I call government and lawyer country; we were on Broadway. This is far from where the majority of aboriginal families live, laugh, and struggle. Our model of service delivery was pretty much the same as that of any traditional bureaucratic service agency: we were the professionals, they were the clients.

In that same year of 1997, we went back to our community and asked them a number of questions, one of which was, how are we doing? Their response was predictable. Most of the people we should have been serving did not even know that we existed, and for those who did, the reviews were mixed. They told us to get back to the community. They told us they wanted to be involved, and they told us they wanted us to take the lead in serving families again.

¹ (1540)

To list a few of the results of this direction given by the community, I can tell you that we're now located in five inner city sites, and we sponsor an aboriginal head start program, Little Red Spirit.

There are countless ways people contribute to bettering their lives and the lives of their community members. They volunteer for everything from tidying up the drop-in areas to making powwow outfits to co-facilitating almost every program we offer. In the past it was all professionally facilitated. Now almost every program we have, which is over 20, is co-facilitated by a community member.

We've hired a number of the very people who originally came to us for service, and families no longer have to have an appointment--or a problem, for that matter--to come to Ma Mawi. Community members are now valued as the experts. Ma Mawi has now become one mechanism whereby community members can care and laugh with their fellow community members and share their gifts and strengths.

I could go on and on about the achievements of our community, but I'll close with this thought. Because we took a risk of asking and because we listened and made the investment, we have seen many urban aboriginal families move a little closer to their dream of a happier and healthier life for their children and community.

I have some quotes here. I said, “Oh, I get to go to the House of Commons and do this presentation, you guys. If you were going to go, what would you say?” Here are a couple of quotes from sister agencies.

One is from the Andrews Street Family Centre, which also works in the heart of the inner city: “People find Andrews Street Family Centre by word of mouth. Family resources are important. The community needs us here. They need to connect with one another.”

“Families are used to fending for themselves on their own. They are not used to having someone available to listen and direct them to services. They need to be introduced to new resources before a crisis happens.”

Here's another one from a head start program: “If children are not enrolled in a Head Start program, they aren't as exposed to the Aboriginal culture and Aboriginal languages.”

We work very closely with Rossbrook House, which is also in the inner city: “Rossbrook House has always formed our programs around the needs of the children. They decide which programs that we need.”

Again from Rossbrook House: “There is a certain resilience in kids because they know how to form community amongst themselves.”

The Chair: Thank you very much. It's our pleasure, as members of the House of Commons, to have you here, believe me.

Were you going to add something, Diane? Go ahead.

Ms. Diane Redsky (Director of Programs, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.): I only want to really build on a lot of what Josie was saying.

What I think makes Ma Mawi and a lot of aboriginal organizations in Winnipeg different is how we do things. It's really about creating opportunities for people--children, youth and families--to build relationships with each other. As an agency, we see ourselves as facilitators, helpers, mentors in that whole scheme of things. So all of our programs and services are designed in that way. We consult with the experts, the experts being the children, youth and the families in our neighbourhoods.

With that, our Little Red Spirit aboriginal head start program, with the extremely high parental involvement, has been asked many times, “What's so good about you?” and it really is because it's a family program. The families really run the program, and that's key to building any kind of success. Although there is programming for the children, it is very much family oriented.

This also goes for the youth programs we have. Ma Mawi currently operates a power club in two community centre-type facilities, an aboriginal scouts program, and we do a number of recreation, culture, sports and leadership development programs, all of which have opportunities for families to be involved. Although they're youth focused, there's still lots of opportunity to build relationships with families to families, and families with Ma Mawi.

Although the funding or the programming may be focused on a certain target group, to look at children and youth in isolation of the family is really inconsistent with how the aboriginal community operates and how we value the importance and significance of family.

That's about it. I have some reports, some pamphlets to share with everybody.

The Chair: I think the best way of dealing with that might be for the clerk to handle them. He's a very useful fellow, this clerk, so we'll let him be the official distributor.

Next on my list I have the Odawa Native Friendship Centre. Are you both going to speak, or is one speaking and the other backing up and correcting? How are you going to do it? Welcome, anyway, however you're going to do it.

¹ (1545)

Ms. Jaime Koebel (Board Member, Odawa Native Friendship Centre): I have a presentation to make, then Cliff can add to what I have said.

The Chair: So, Jaime Koebel.

Ms. Jaime Koebel: Good afternoon, honourable members, fellow aboriginal organizations, and observers. Tân'si n'totemtik.

I'm here today as a board member of the Odawa Native Friendship Centre and on behalf of the membership. Also here today is the executive director of the friendship centre, Cliff Summers.

Our goal for this presentation to you is to stress the importance that urban centres such as friendship centres have on the holistic well-being of our communities, aboriginal children, and ultimately aboriginal people as a whole.

I'll begin by outlining some of the unavoidable statistics that face our people and provide you with examples of positive programs and services that have had amazing effects on progressive change within our communities. I'm sure you're aware of some of the statistics that I'm going to tell you, but I'll just review them.

One in five, or roughly 1.5 million children, live in poverty in Canada. That is the second highest rate of child poverty in the developed world. Although the aboriginal population accounts for only 3.3% of Canada's total population, aboriginal children represent 5.6% of all children in Canada, which means that one out of every 17 children in Canada is an aboriginal child; and 52.1% of all aboriginal children are poor.

Twelve per cent of aboriginal families are headed by parents under the age of 25.

About two children in three living on reserve live with two parents; only 50% of aboriginal children in census metropolitan areas live with two parents. In contrast, about five out of every six non-aboriginal children live with two parents.

Forty per cent of aboriginal mothers earn less than $12,000 per year; 47.2% of the Ontario aboriginal population receives less than $10,000 per year. Since 1995, poverty rates in Ontario have increased by 6.3%, while decreasing in the rest of Canada by 11.1%.

The rate of sexual exploitation of aboriginal children and youth has reached levels of more than 90% in some communities where the aboriginal population is less than 10%. Sadly, these children are more easily exploited because of the lack of basic needs of food, clothing, and shelter.

All these facts and situations have implications that raise serious questions about what services, facilities, and actions need to be taken to address these issues. Friendship centres are, without a doubt, a place to facilitate the growth of children and youth.

An example of the positive effects that friendship centres have on aboriginal youth is in the growing number of youths participating at the National Association of Friendship Centres' annual youth forum.

I just want to share a personal experience. About eight and a half years ago, at a national gathering, a youth forum, there were only about 20 participants, and we were trying really hard to find people to run for positions that were available, like president and vice-president. It was really hard to get people to be actively involved in a national arena within friendship centres. My last year, at my eighth annual youth forum, which was held in Edmonton, where I resigned my position of three and a half years as president of the AYC, the Aboriginal Youth Council, there were well over 100 actively involved aboriginal youth participating in elections, learning about issues such as those I have just outlined to you, and sharing ideas from across Canada and across nations. I personally believe this increased level of participation has to do in large part with, one, community support and mentors within our communities across Canada, and two, the Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres program that has really been fantastic for friendship centres in urban areas.

As a former chairperson of the national UMAYC committee, I have had unimaginable opportunities to improve my life through participating in various stages of programming, to being an advisory member to the minister of multiculturalism and status of women on issues surrounding the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance. I've had several opportunities to participate in international preparatory meetings as part of the official delegation, to confront international issues, and to meet other indigenous people from around the world who suffer the same problems as indigenous people here in Canada.

¹ (1550)

As a youth board member on the national board of directors, I have been put in positions of trust and respect, such as chairperson of national meetings and going to meetings in place of other board members, a sign of respect no matter what my age happens to be. However, when I attended meetings with other national youth-serving agencies, there were no youth to be found on their board of directors or staff. I was amazed to be the only youth at national meetings that were about youth, and I think this goes for other areas, where people talk about youth and children, but really, they're not directly involved in policy-making and decisions.

At 24 years of age, I have personally not gone without the sad statistics that aboriginal youth inevitably face, such as drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, sexual abuse, racism, having a single-parent home, or poor health problems. However, friendship centres have had an immense impact on my decision to stay in university for four years, with aspirations of law school.

Although I have been able to witness the steep incline in youth participation within the friendship centre movement, I fear that these opportunities will not be there for my two children and the one on the way. I fear that promises from federal and provincial governments will be made and not honoured, such as the recent case with the aboriginal head start program at the Odawa Native Friendship Centre.

Although the non-core-funded friendship centres, such as the Lac La Biche Canadian Native Friendship Centre in northeastern Alberta, where I originally come from, are without a doubt pleased at the $1.5 million they will be receiving in core funding, there are still pressing issues and circumstances in all urban areas and friendship centres that will not be able to be addressed because of a lack of core dollars and program dollars.

It is our hope that you will look with a sympathetic heart at the statistics provided and acknowledge the realization that our communities face every day, that I, as an aboriginal person, have faced in my lifetime.

On behalf of the Odawa Native Friendship Centre, I conclude this report with great appreciation for your time and understanding.

Ay ay.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Jaime Koebel.

Mr. Summers, if you have any comments, you can say them now, or pitch in on questions or wherever you feel comfortable. You can let it go for the time being, if you want, and then come back if there are things. Or if you want to add anything in, that would be great, too.

Mr. Clifford Summers (Executive Director, Odawa Native Friendship Centre): I guess there might be a couple of different things I could add right now, and I'd be happy to answer any questions the committee may have later on.

In terms of some of the impacts that are caused by the effects of the statistics that were outlined, one of the things that we are confronted with at our local friendship centre is the fact that the homelessness among aboriginal people in this city is very disproportionate. I know there is a focus on children and youth with this committee, but I think it's necessary to realize that what happens is, for the children and families who are impacted by some of the cutbacks in funding and programs and things like some of the other programs, such as workfare and so on, that has really serious impacts across the board with the kinds of programs and services we offer.

I'd like to add also that there was a reference to the aboriginal head start funding. We do have a program situated in our friendship centre for head start. It has been declining in terms of the funding for the program, yet the need is very much still there for children who want to go into the program. But we're seeing fewer spaces available.

Those are some of the things that I thought I should draw some attention to, the impact that these statistics have, and the real work that we try to offer and the services we try to deliver. But if you have any other questions later on, I'll try to answer them.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I think that was a very helpful intervention, because you referred to two federal government strategies, the aboriginal head start programs and the homelessness strategy. We'll want to come back and think through those parts with you.

Mr. Demerais, we've already had a sneak preview, in a sense, because we had a good report and indeed some recommendations from Libby Davies after she and Larry Spencer visited, but we're delighted to meet you in person and hear from you directly.

Welcome.

¹ (1555)

Mr. Lou Demerais (Executive Director, Vancouver Native Health Society): Thank you very much.

I'm going to use my five minutes today, Mr. Chairman, to speak about something we spoke to both Libby and Larry about in Vancouver, because I think it's important to drive home certain things related to the program called aboriginal head start. I want to use my allotted speaking time to bring to your attention a somewhat distasteful experience we recently had involving B.C. regional officials of Health Canada. Two weeks prior to Christmas I wrote to Minister McLellan about the episode, but I've yet to receive a response from her.

In 2001 we reluctantly agreed to act as a host agency or sponsor for a Vancouver-based aboriginal head start program. I say reluctantly, as I had been made aware of three earlier attempts to establish a head start program in Vancouver, all of which were scuttled by Health Canada before they became fully operational. In the latest initiative, our agency was contracted to work with four other agencies and Health Canada as partners. The plan was to open as many as four separate sites involving appropriate institutions such as elementary schools, community centres, or neighbourhood houses.

Owing to space limitations, it was difficult to find adequate sites, and as a result, we were forced to concentrate on establishing sites at the Grandview Elementary School in Vancouver and at a neighbourhood house in Burnaby. Finding these sites and negotiating with school board officials not only took longer than expected, but obtaining the required municipal permits for licences for renovations were also time-consuming processes.

We were also forced, in part by Health Canada, to hire a new coordinator for our head start initiative at a very critical juncture.

Health Canada officials were aware of these delays. In fact, because of the delays, Health Canada “decommitted” our budget amount twice, moves that were later used against us as we came closer to an operational start-up date.

Along the way, we were advised by Health Canada officials to prepay for the renovation costs that were to be carried out by the Vancouver School Board in the coming fiscal year. That advice, as it turned out, was later used against us, and we were obligated to retrieve the $23,000 from the school board and return it to Health Canada.

On October 31, 2002, we were ordered by Health Canada to, among other things, halt all further work towards opening our site at Grandview Elementary School in Vancouver and to concentrate on the Burnaby initiative. We were told, by letter, that in the opinion of Health Canada we would be unable to operate two sites because of the earlier budget decreases.

I believe it was my November 20 response to this directive, wherein I had requested disciplinary action be considered against the regional official, that caused Health Canada's regional office to decide that our contract would be transferred to the reserve-based B.C. Aboriginal Childcare Society. This is one of the agencies we began our so-called partnership with.

The disciplinary action request was as a result of two of our head start employees being informed at a conference on November 15 that we were going to lose our contract and they were going to be out of work. We had not been given any official notification and we were in fact working hard to open both of the sites. We were also in the midst of writing our renewal proposal, a step all head start initiatives in B.C. were required to do.

On November 28, the acting regional director wrote to inform us that a review committee had met and it was unanimous in recommending to Health Canada that the Vancouver Aboriginal Headstart Coalition not be recommended for renewal. In fact, there was no unanimity. One of our staff members spoke with a member of the renewal review committee who stated openly that she had in fact supported our proposal, as she was aware of the many delays we had experienced and she was also well aware of our reputation as a service provider.

Despite this revelation, the acting regional director refused our request for an appeal of the decision. This refusal was formally given during a meeting convened one week prior to Christmas by the Honourable Stephen Owen, Secretary of State for Western Diversification and for Indian Affairs and Northern Development.

º (1600)

While Mr. Owen apparently wasn't able to change any minds at Health Canada, either at the regional office or in Ottawa, we were appreciative of his willingness to become involved in the situation. We had hoped he might be able to arrange a direct relationship with Health Canada headquarters in Ottawa and save our aboriginal head start program.

We have four other contracts currently with Health Canada, all of them directly with Ottawa, and we have yet to experience difficulty with any of them.

The aboriginal head start program was to have been an integral piece of an early childhood support program we have been building for the past two years in east Vancouver.

In the summer of 2000 the community's various agencies that provide children's programming came together to submit a multi-partnered proposal for a portion of an $8 million fund made available to the province from Ottawa. We felt at the time, and we still feel, that cooperation rather than competition should be paramount if the best interests of our children are to be served.

The resulting early childhood network is comprised of some 20 community agencies, with a core group of five aboriginal agencies collectively providing steering committee members. Using the nearly $1 million we received from the fund would have allowed us to hire a number of early childhood workers and deploy them to the various partner agencies.

Now, with the cancellation of the aboriginal head start contract, we have had to arrange our early childhood budget in such a way as to make up for the loss.

All of the network participants are in agreement that assisting children from ages three to five to prepare for schooling must be a priority. While we have been busy in community development, it seems Health Canada's only priority is in making sure the head start program meets all of its deadlines. If it doesn't, Health Canada will see to it that an outside agency, with no ties to the community, is brought in.

One of the saddest elements of this fiasco is that the Vancouver aboriginal community may have lost an opportunity to enter into a history-making partnership with the Vancouver School Board. They were going to collaborate with us in establishing a head start site on one of their school properties. And each year we were looking forward to presenting the school district with 40 or more aboriginal children who were better prepared than any other selection of grade one entry children. They would have been better prepared emotionally, physically, spiritually, and intellectually to enter the school system. And they would have been at home on the school campus and playgrounds, as they would have been on that property for almost two years. They would have been aboriginal children with a “head start”.

The challenge of the school district would then begin, to get this special group of students the rest of the way through the system to grade 12 graduation, and to begin to overturn the tragic 40% drop-out rate that aboriginal children now experience.

This was a wonderful, creative, and historic partnership and commitment that was within two to four weeks of becoming an operational head start site. This opportunity was casually dismissed by Health Canada, who arbitrarily refused to cooperate with the community and school board to the benefit of the children.

When we informed Health Canada that another agency would have to endure all the same bureaucratic, time-consuming requirements to require licences and permits, our reasoning fell on deaf ears.

We understand the B.C. Aboriginal Childcare Society has been informed by the City of Vancouver that the society will not be given any special consideration in its application for licences and permits.

The site we were working on with the school board would have been operational by now. The new contract with Health Canada will be months and months in establishing anything that resembles a head start site.

On this note, I will close my remarks with a recommendation. We recommend that Health Canada headquarters take over, on an interim basis, contract management of all aboriginal head start programming until such time as management and resources can be devolved to regional authorities or, where no regional authorities exist, to school boards.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this opportunity.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Demerais.

First, I'd like to say that when Health Canada officials appeared before us, Ms. Davies raised this issue--not, of course, in the level of detail we got from you, which was very helpful.

Normally, as you can imagine, it's not the role of committees to act as a court of appeal or to intervene in cases. However, Ms. Davies is going to help me out here because my memory is a little shakey and I was trying to work out with the researcher how we left it.

We certainly raised the issue, and I think we asked for some kind of response, did we not? Ms. Davies, can you remember how it was supposed to work?

º (1605)

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes. As a result of the meeting we had in Vancouver, which included about 25 people, there was a very common theme emerging over and over again, and part of it revolved around the relationship with Health Canada locally, not federally. We put together some sort of observations and notes from that meeting and I believe they have been circulated to the committee.

I was going to send those on to the officials who appeared here from Health Canada. When they came here I actually did speak briefly to, I forget his name, but the guy who was head of aboriginal head start. Actually, he was aware of the situation in Vancouver. What I urged them to do, from Ottawa, was basically try to convene some kind of meeting where people could actually come together, because, again, that was one of the recommendations that came out of Vancouver, that there needed to be a venue where people could get this out and talk about it.

One of the complaints was that locally Health Canada would never visit until they perceived a problem existed. In other words, there wasn't any sort of partnership developed, at least from the community's perspective.

As far as I know--I forget the fellow's name, but whoever it was who came to see us--Richard something, yes--

The Chair: Richard Budgell.

Ms. Libby Davies: Yes, he was going to follow it up. Personally, I was planning to do a covering letter based on the notes we put together and sort of remind him this is what needed to happen. He seemed quite amenable to doing that. That's where it stands, but if the committee can follow it up any more officially, I think that would be helpful as well.

The Chair: Let me test this, and I'll be very interested in your reaction to it. I move with caution on this because, obviously, we don't serve as a court of appeal, but given the fact that this is the second time this particular situation has been put on the record, we now have a transcript of what you've said.

I don't know if you have a written version that might be....Oh, well, that would be useful.

I think what we might want to do, with people's permission, is to ask the researcher, Julie, to write a letter to Mr. Budgell saying, you may recall this question was raised in our meeting with you, and subsequent to that we have had the following testimony, which is now on record, lots of disclaimers. While we're not in the business of being a court of appeal and we don't do casework, nevertheless we think that in the interests of hearing both sides of the story, since we now have more detail on this, you may wish to inform us so the committee has a fuller understanding, since the question has been raised with us.... Our concern might be at the same time that we would hope this is not a systemic problem, because that really would then be properly the concern of the committee and we can't judge the whole case, because we're not judges.

But before we come to Mr. Demerais, I wonder, Ms. Neville and Ms. Davies, how you feel about that as a general approach.

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): As a general approach, I would support it wholeheartedly. I think what is quite singular in this case, in the opportunity that's been lost, is the opportunity to hold it in a school.

I was quite struck at the beginning, when Mr. Demerais began his presentation--isn't this unusual for a school division to be cooperating in a head start program? That's quite singular, quite unusual, and very significant. To have that kind of opportunity lost as a model for other programs across the country, I think, makes it even more appropriate to do that.

I would go so far as well, Mr. Chair, as copying the minister on that letter.

º (1610)

The Chair: Ms. Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies: I certainly would love it if the committee were to send a letter. That would be terrific. But I think we should also stress that Health Canada needs to respond to a committee, us, but also they need to resolve this locally. They need to set up a meeting, and maybe someone from Ottawa, from Health Canada, needs to be part of that, because I think there are some difficulties there.

They basically need to begin a process where there's one clear communication, and also, whatever problems there are--and some of them may be systemic, I don't know--they need to be put on the table and sorted out. Otherwise, I think Lou's point is it's going to continue. I really would hope that someone from Health Canada with the aboriginal head start in Ottawa would help facilitate that and not throw it back to the people. The community is perceived to be the problem. Somebody has to act as the facilitator.

The Chair: If I may, I'll add in a phrase: that you may wish--it's Mr. Budgell we're talking to since I think we'll originally be directing the letter to him--to consider an Ottawa-based solution. What we would do, by the way, is append the transcript of this conversation so he knows what we're talking about. That would include Mr. Demerais' remarks and our reactions to them.

Mr. Demerais, did you want to add anything? Would this be a helpful letter?

Mr. Lou Demerais: Well, it might be a helpful letter, sir. Now, I don't speak for all those people who formed the advisory committee for aboriginal head start or our early childhood development program, but most of us, I would feel, are very reluctant to continue any kind of relationship with regional officials of Health Canada. We have been treated so shabbily. We've been lied to. We have had our reputations tarnished needlessly. We don't want to deal with those people anymore. We would much rather deal with some of the folks in Tunney's Pasture who we deal with now and get along with quite well. That's why I made my recommendation the way I did.

The Chair: Let me take advantage of this moment. Again, I'm in the hands of the committee, so you'll stop me if I sin.

Because there's the possibility that this is a systemic issue.... I see Mr. Summers looking interested, and that may be an indication of his desire to speak. Perhaps for the sake of the record we can get some sense of whether this is a regional situation. We have three regions represented here, so if you could, Mr. Demerais, please respond, and then maybe we'll move down the line to see if the rest have any reaction to this story.

Mr. Lou Demerais: In terms of systemic problems, I think those are there, and I think they're there because basically, when you look at aboriginal head start, you're looking at a cookie-cutter approach to programming in Canada. What might work at Odawa here probably would have some success in another urban aboriginal setting, but what works on reserves, sir and ladies and gentlemen, isn't going to work in an urban setting. The situation is all too different.

When I was listening to the other presenters, I remarked that one of the problems we all have in complying with the rigid rules Health Canada just throws our way is, how do we involve the parents when the parents are very much on a subsistence level in their own existence and are fighting day to day for survival? How can we force them to be involved in a head start program?

What we need is more preparatory time and energy and resources to bring those people to a point where they not only can be involved but want to be involved. You can't force people into anything, and that's what Health Canada is trying to do to all of us.

The Chair: This is going to be some transcript we're going to send to them, isn't it? But we're going to send it all, I'll tell you.

Mr. Summers.

Mr. Clifford Summers: This is just to add to Mr. Demerais' presentation.

I made a reference earlier to the fact that at our friendship centre, the Odawa Native Friendship Centre here in the city, we have acted as a sponsor for the Ottawa aboriginal head start for the first five years of the existence of the program here in the city. Our experience with Health Canada was similar in terms of our relationship with the regional office in that we ultimately lost the sponsorship of our program. I think that it's fair to say, and I've said so in meetings with officials from Health Canada, that the manner in which that came about was very questionable.

Not only was the loss of our sponsorship questionable, but from my point of view it really raised concerns because the reputation of the friendship centre was brought into question. I felt that the contract had been breached because we had not been given proper notice. We did raise questions about the way the decisions were made by a review or renewal committee.

Recommendations were made that the contract for sponsorship not continue with the friendship centre, which tarnished our reputation because we're an organization that's been in existence for 27 years in that city. We've offered and delivered programs with all manner of government departments at the federal and provincial levels and are now trying to cultivate relationships with the municipal government in this city.

We had a very unsavoury experience with the way things were managed by the officials at the regional office of Health Canada. I really wonder whether, as has been suggested, there are systemic problems in the delivery of the program at the regional office level.

º (1615)

The Chair: Well, it's beginning to sound systemic.

Ms. Hill, do you have any reaction to these two stories? You are in a slightly different situation. Have you had good relations with...?

Ms. Libby Davies: They may want to confer amongst themselves before they reply. They look as if they need to talk a bit.

The Chair: I don't want to put you on the spot; it's just whether there's anything you can contribute to this. Why don't you think about it? We'll move along and then we'll get back to you, all right?

Mr. Summers.

Mr. Clifford Summers: Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to add that with respect to the loss of the sponsorship of the aboriginal head start program by our centre, we did arrange a meeting with Ethel Blondin-Andrew, the minister who has some responsibility for children and youth. We did bring this to her attention, and it was something that was very disconcerting to her, primarily because she is the minister responsible for children and youth and should have been apprised of the problems that were happening with the local head start program. She was supposed to have been made aware of it and was not. We did bring it to her attention, but not much more has happened, and we decided not to pursue any kind of appeal on this.

I think part of what the program attempts to achieve is involvement by parents of the children in the program and in the operation of the program. I think the involvement for parents is supposed to be related to the program.

In our case, the parent council that comprised a sort of advisory committee to our board was put into a position by the officials at Health Canada of circumventing our board. As the sponsor, we had the financial and legal responsibility for head start, but when we lost the sponsorship of the program based on the questionable recommendation of the renewal committee, Health Canada officials basically displaced our organization with the parent council, which was not duly incorporated, was not duly elected, and didn't really even have a membership based on anything other than that they were parents of children of the program.

Those things, I think, all could have added up to a very strong case against Health Canada for breach of contract, because we were not duly informed; we were not given 90 days, as was prescribed in the contract. But we did not pursue an appeal only because we didn't want to undermine the parents who were being put in a position that was a little bit beyond their capacity. We just didn't want to make the already muddy waters any murkier than they were.

º (1620)

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I think this has been extremely useful--unintentionally so, but this is what we're here for.

Ms. Redsky.

Ms. Diane Redsky: It's pronounced “red sky”.

The Chair: “Red sky”, I'm sorry. Am I thinking Ukrainian or something? Excuse me.

Ms. Diane Redsky: I was the program developer for the aboriginal head start program now entitled Little Red Spirit in the West Broadway community in Winnipeg. I only want to speak to our experience; we only want to share that, being very clear that we don't want to take away from their experiences or the issues they raised, any of that. We're just presenting our experience.

Our relationship with the Health Canada regional office in Winnipeg is very much the opposite and has been right from day one.

The Chair: That's fair.

Ms. Diane Redsky: I don't know whether that has to do with the fact we've always had an aboriginal program consultant, right from day one. They've been very accommodating, very respectful, working together--you know, asking how we can make this work. We had a very good relationship, and still do to this day.

The Chair: That's fine.

Ms. Diane Redsky: One of the things around parental involvement that I want to touch on a little bit more, as far as my previous little blurb is concerned...and I'm going to be in a transcript, is that for real?

The Chair: You're going to be on CNN tonight. Larry King will be talking to you later.

Ms. Diane Redsky: I think that our success is because it's very much a family program and we're able to--in an urban setting--access additional resources for parents to be involved. It's not a requirement; they come because they want to come, because they're getting something out of it. It might be shopping day, and everybody kicks in their $20--because that's really all you have--and you buy bulk things, or for craft classes. They're the ones making the snacks and things like that.

I believe they've received some assistance from HRDC for leadership training for parents, where mothers, fathers, and members of the family are getting their driver's licence or leaning how to do a resumé or whatever. It's really an open opportunity for them to say where they're at and where they want to be, with a lot of celebrations and acknowledgement.

So again, our relationship to this day has been pretty consistent right from day one. It has been very positive. We've always had an aboriginal program consultant, and maybe that has something to do with it, I'm not too sure. Gary Ledoux is cool and Harrington's all right.

The Chair: Ms. Redsky, that's very helpful, because what it tells me is that while there are problems, there are also some successes. What we want to do, obviously, is increase the success rate and reduce the problems.

By sending the ever-lengthening transcript to poor Mr. Budgell, I think it will be useful information. It's useful information for us. It gives us a feel and is very helpful around a kind of common theme. It's useful for the department, I hope, so they can benefit from the good and the bad, and we can move on.

But we will also, on the particular case Mr. Demerais has raised, trust Ms. Davies to keep on the case. The committee will, in other words, write a letter, and I'm hoping Ms. Davies will stay in touch in a kind of caseworker way, if I may put it that way, since it's your part of town.

On that, I turn it over to Ms. Davies.

º (1625)

Ms. Libby Davies: We will follow it up, and I think the fact that you've come to the committee today and given more detail is really helpful.

But I actually wanted to broaden the discussion a little bit. Lots of issues came up in Vancouver, and I've been trying to think about what the fundamentals are. One of them was just this process of how things are developed.

I noticed our background paper--you guys don't have it, but we do--talks about the urban aboriginal strategy, and this was another very hot point in Vancouver. Here we have this theoretical model of an urban aboriginal strategy that even comes from the Privy Council, which was coordinating it, yet the on-the-ground experience, at least in Vancouver, is something really different. They've been struggling with this, I think for three years, and still don't have it.

It really revolves around the jurisdictional question, and I think this is a huge issue. For sure the federal government has responsibility on reserve, but when it comes to off reserve, it's suddenly no man's land, and everybody drops the ball.

Now, supposedly this urban aboriginal strategy is meant to deal with that by bringing together the province, maybe even the municipality, and certainly the community. So I'm very interested to know, because we do have three different regions of Canada....

I know what Vancouver's experience is, and Lou, you can offer more. I'm sure you want to say more about that.

Mr. Lou Demerais: Yes. Do you have all day and all night?

Ms. Libby Davies: I am also curious to know whether you are involved in your urban aboriginal strategy, where is it at, and if you feel it has been a good model, and is it actually resolving some of these huge issues that historically have not been dealt with. I know that's big, but maybe you have something to say about it.

The Chair: I'll take volunteers.

Go ahead, Lou.

Mr. Lou Demerais: As Libby has indicated, the urban aboriginal strategy in Vancouver is currently a joke, and it has become a joke among aboriginal people, I suspect, more than it has become a joke among federal senior bureaucrats.

The Chair: You can share the joke with us, anyway.

Mr. Lou Demerais: Never mind. There's no punch line to it, other than the sad fact that nothing is happening. I think that if you're going to have something called the urban aboriginal strategy, what you have to do is breathe some life into it.

We came to the table in Vancouver with some very concrete suggestions, one of which was quite simple. We said, bring all of your federal officials who come from departments that work with aboriginal people in Vancouver and have them bring their discretionary budget amounts, and we'll put those on the table, and then we'll sit, as a group, to determine what is the best use of that funding. At that point in time, it was determined that somehow the process wasn't working very well and that we had to stop, pause, while they figured out what the problem was.

The real problem, sir, and you alluded to it, is that none of the departments are willing to work together. We can't even get Health Canada involved in the urban aboriginal strategy in Vancouver. They didn't come to one meeting, not one meeting, and we held numerous meetings.

Those are my comments about the aboriginal strategy.

Ms. Libby Davies: What about HRDC?

Mr. Lou Demerais: HRDC was involved to the extent that they sent a person who was I think one level above a clerk position. I think she was a PM-4, or PM-3, or something like that.

The Chair: Just on that note, I'm not taking away from your time, Ms. Davies, but last week, unfortunately, you weren't here, and I wasn't here, but Ms. Neville was in the chair.

Anita, do you want to bring us a bit of information from the federal interlocutor, which may be of some help in this?

Ms. Anita Neville: Last week we had Minister Goodale here presenting on the some of the issues related to aboriginal people living in an urban setting, and dealing with just what you're talking about, the jurisdictional issues, acknowledging the very real problems of the jurisdictional issues, and acknowledging, as you did, Mr. Demerais, the difficulties in the federal government working together across departments--the term is horizontally--or the levels of government working together.

There has been, in the most recent budget, $17 million put into an urban aboriginal strategy, and we had somebody here from the Privy Council Office, because Mr. Goodale had to leave early, who indicated that they will be doing eight pilot projects across the country.

I was struck by your comments on the B.C. one, because it had been presented to me as a model that one should look at. I just received the documentation in my office two or three days ago. I haven't looked at it yet. It is on the pile to be looked at, so I will look at it with some interest. But there is an effort right now by the federal government to look at--I'll finish in a minute, and hear your comments--how it can work. There is no question that people, families, children, are getting caught between the issues of jurisdiction at all levels of government: federal, provincial, municipal, and education.

That was the nature of this discussion, and I commend you to get a copy of the transcripts from last week because it was quite a good discussion.

º (1630)

Mr. Lou Demerais: Mr. Chairman, I want to ask Anita a question.

Ms. Anita Neville: I might not be able to answer it.

Mr. Lou Demerais: My question is quite simple.

When you get to it, can you please send me a copy if I give you one of my business cards? Do you know what? In Vancouver, where we left off, I was the aboriginal co-chair of the Vancouver urban aboriginal strategy, and they still don't give me any information about what the hell is going on. If they have a pilot project going on in Vancouver, I would like to know about it.

Ms. Anita Neville: I have some papers on it, so I'll be happy to send them to you.

The Chair: Just for the record, we're having a wonderfully messy meeting, aren't we? Everything is falling down.

Ms. Anita Neville: I almost didn't make it today.

The Chair: This is how creativity works, folks. It's messy, but....

What is of interest to you--and I have bad news for you, Mr. Summers and Ms. Koebel--two of the three cities represented here are notionally part of the $17 million: Vancouver and Winnipeg are specifically stated. So we will make sure that we get you....

Can I ask staff to directly get in touch with Mr. Demerais and send him by e-mail the transcript from last week, and anybody else who wants it too, of course. We will send it to the three of you, then. We have e-mail coordinates. As I said, I wasn't here last week, but there may be an opportunity here. This is new money, and they say they want to do this, and we have people who want to do it. Children and families will be part of whatever it is we want to do, but not the whole story.

So back to Ms. Davies after this somewhat roundabout intervention.

Ms. Libby Davies: Actually, I'm quite happy to hear from the other presenters whatever views they have on this urban aboriginal situation.

The Chair: On the same question of--

Ms. Libby Davies: We've heard from Lou. Are any of you guys involved in it at all? How do you feel about it?

The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Summers.

Mr. Clifford Summers: While our centre is not directly involved, we have membership with the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres, which is the provincial organization of the 32 friendship centres that exist in Ontario. They are very involved in the urban aboriginal strategy. The member of our board is on the OFIFC board, and that's how we're contributing, or participating, in the strategy.

So I don't have any other comment other than to explain that this is how....

The Chair: In Ontario, the two centres that are listed are Thunder Bay and Toronto. Sorry about that, we didn't pick them.

Ms. Hill, do you want to add anything?

Ms. Josie Hill: We're not formally sitting at the table. Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc. is a service-providing agency, so we haven't been formally invited to sit as part of the urban aboriginal strategy. Diane has made a couple of presentations to the urban aboriginal strategy committee people, talking about one-way services and those kinds of things. In theory it all sounds wonderful, but we've always said we need a little bit of Health. What we do does not involve just one department. We need a little bit of Health, a little bit of Heritage, a little bit of those kinds of things. So we'll have to wait and see whether in fact that's going to work or not.

Do you want to talk about your presentation, or the things they're asking?

º (1635)

Ms. Diane Redsky: Just that the initial involvement all started with the whole north end wellness strategy that came about from a number of organizations in the north end sitting down and saying we needed to do something to create a wellness strategy. It was at this time that we extended an invitation--I think it just went throughout the federal level--to see who would show up, and it turned out to be Health Canada with the urban aboriginal strategy. So from there, they were involved in the development of the wellness strategy, as observers I suppose. Since that time, we've made presentations to the larger group about how we came up with the strategy and what the strategy is, and what our plan is, and whether they had any money. Then they didn't have any money, so we haven't really been involved since then.

The Chair: Shall we just bounce around a bit?

Ms. Neville.

Ms. Anita Neville: I have all kinds of questions and comments. The Little Red Spirit head start program I know well. I know the program well, and maybe you have visited it or not, committee members. It's in the West Broadway area. I would ask Josie and Diane if they would describe what's going on there to the committee, because it's really a holistic approach to dealing with children and families. I think it's quite successful, which is not to say there's not much to be done yet. But it's an important initiative of a community, and various parts of the community, working together to make things happen.

I don't want to put you on the spot, but I think it's important that this be on the record as well.

The Chair: Sounds like time for bragging rights.

Ms. Anita Neville: It is a little, but it's a good model.

The Chair: Go ahead.

Ms. Diane Redsky: The Little Red Spirit aboriginal head start program is located in the West Broadway Community Centre, so there is a large gym to have access to. Right from the beginning there were members of the community who were instrumental in developing the program. Even back then, my role was really doing the grunt work, and I did that in close collaboration with Health Canada. Betty-Ann LaVallee was our program consultant, and she was very helpful and encouraging, as I said earlier.

In terms of the aboriginal head start, I think what makes it genuine and really places a focus on what the program does is that they enrol families. They don't enrol children, they enrol the families. So right from the beginning the family is being enrolled. The family is mother, father, aunt, uncle, grandmother, so whoever within the family can be involved has an opportunity to be involved.

On any given day, there is one room for the children participating in a number of very culturally appropriate learning opportunities. The children, when they graduate from the program, are counting to 20 in English and in Cree, or Ojibway, whatever language, and they're real keeners.

On the other side of the head start is the issue of space, and to realize what we talked about before, ensuring that you create opportunities for families to be involved, you need to have the space for families to be involved. On the other side, physically, there is an opportunity for the parents to gather.

So there's training going on, there are people having coffee, they're sewing things, and so on. The parents are the ones who develop the calendar of the activities that are going to be done not only in the classroom, but also for them, the kinds of things they want to do when they're not taking turns going into the classroom as helpers. The parents are the ones who determine, brainstorming on a weekly basis, the snacks the children are going to get. Then they take turns preparing the snacks for the children.

So there's every opportunity for parents to be involved, even with little report cards for the children. They're involved in that as well.

We've created partnerships within the community. The West Broadway BIZ is very supportive of the head start program. So every year there are family portraits done, for example. For most of our families, although it might be $20 at Sears, it's still $20 out of their food budget. To have family portraits done is very meaningful.

There's also the BIZ, and that's all the businesses within the West Broadway area, who are also extremely supportive of a parade that happens every year. It's a big community event when our children graduate from the head start program and are moving on to kindergarten. We shut down streets for the kids, because it really is a celebration of a milestone in a family's journey. We recognize that and celebrate it.

There are a number of cultural opportunities around, so that the families are going to sweats with the kids and participating in those types of ceremonies. You're always chasing that buck, so we're even looking at circus tickets and things like that, which are also key components of supporting families outside of the hours of aboriginal head start.

So the focus really is that when you want to enrol, your families are being enrolled, not children.

º (1640)

The Chair: Very interesting.

Ms. Diane Redsky: Also, we're looking at ways for them to co-facilitate some things and earn some extra money to help out or to do something specific, taking turns. It's really to the point that if somebody's not showing up, you have two other women who are already walking over to her house, or his house, and knocking on the door to see what's going on, and saying, why aren't you here and do you need some help?

The Chair: That's well worth putting on the record, I must say. Thank you.

I know you have lots of other questions.

Ms. Anita Neville: I have lots of questions. One of my questions is to each of the different presenters.

We certainly heard, Mr. Demerais, about your frustrations and your challenges. What, in your mind, can the federal government do in terms of coherence among other departments--and we've heard about the health issue--to assist you in the work you're doing? One of the areas which I am particularly interested in and want to know about in terms of supports to families is the area of adult education, the opportunities for the parents of the children who we're supposedly focusing on.

We've just heard Diane talk about the importance of families. Do you see a role for the government? What's your biggest wish, probably, from the federal government?

Mr. Lou Demerais: I guess my biggest wish from the federal government is for resources and to have those resources devolved or decentralized to the extent that we have a minimal amount of involvement.

We simply want the resources to be able to do the damned job ourselves. That's it. We have developed institutions that we think are capable, if they're resourced properly. We have developed organizations such as the one that I head up administratively. And if we could just get the resources that we need and if we could have people get out of our way and not become too involved in our day-to-day issues or our day-to-day work, we think we'd have a whole lot more success.

I've been saying this since 1972. I've appeared before committees and subcommittees such as this one, so what I'm saying is nothing new. Something that we've always said is, we'll live up to your rules, provided that they're not too stringently applied, and we'll do a better job now.

Slowly, I think other people are getting it and they're getting out of direct services. In British Columbia the whole world of child welfare is changing, and we're, of course, behind the eight ball now because we've talked about this for so long that it's becoming a reality.

The problem with us now is that it's happening too quickly. It's not being phased in over a long enough period of time. Nonetheless, we still think that despite problems that will arise and mistakes that will be made, because we're all human, at the end of the day we'll wind up with a better system.

So to recap, give us the damned funding. Get out of our way. We'll follow your rules to the extent that we can, provided that we're not hamstrung by those rules, and we'll get the job done.

º (1645)

The Chair: Are there other comments?

Ms. Koebel.

Ms. Jaime Koebel: I want to talk to what Mr. Demerais said. For our friendship centre, really what I've seen is commitments of multi-year funding just to have that continuity there. Especially in friendship centres, a lot of it is program-based, so we're always on a two-year, a five-year, or a three-year basis, depending upon the program.

At the Odawa Native Friendship Centre there really are wonderful programs for children right from prenatal programs, post-natal programs to.... Just this past weekend we had a powwow, which included a welcoming ceremony for all of the babies who were born in the past year. How that works is that the parents stand in front of the community with their newborn baby and the elders go around in a circle and the honourable members of the community go around in a circle and honour the baby, and then all of the community members go around and shake the baby's hand, welcoming the baby into the community. That's really important.

My children had their welcoming ceremony when they were five years old. They were welcomed into this community by actual community members. They were welcomed by elders and healers and storytellers and people who really care about them.

It really matters at that level, even for babies and the women who are in the prenatal and post-natal stages, to feel that support. You are supporting the parents. You are supporting the mothers. And it goes on to the aboriginal head start programs.

There is a gap for 7-year-olds to 13-year-olds within our centre, and then it goes on to the youth, where we have the dreamcatchers youth program. But we do have that gap here. You go from the head start program to the dreamcatchers youth program. If there's anywhere for children, especially aboriginal children, to fall through the cracks, they're going to find those cracks--at any age, but especially at those ages, because in our organization we don't have a program to facilitate that age category.

The Chair: Do Ms. Hill or Ms. Redsky wish to add anything to this?

Ms. Josie Hill: I have a big wish list.

The Chair: But would you echo the comments of Mr. Demerais in terms of saying, give us the damn money and get out of our hair? That's my summary, but it's not a bad summary.

Ms. Josie Hill: Yes, I would agree with that. We know what we're doing. We've been around for a long time. We know what needs to happen. We want to employ our own people. We need to build our own capacity. And you know what? We need to make our own mistakes too.

Lots of other departments and lots of other organizations have made some mistakes. We've made our share and I'm sure we'll continue to make them. But there should be some allowances for that. I'm not saying run away with the bag of money or something, but we have to develop and we have to build our own capacity within the community to deliver some of those programs as well.

The Chair: That's a very important theme, I think.

Let me, if I may, come in with a few comments that I would really like your reaction to. But first of all, let me begin by thanking you for really helpful presentations from a variety of parts of the country.

The kinds of questions that come to my mind as I hear you are things like this. As I think of the social service needs of people, or the needs of people, what I haven't quite gotten clear, as I think of this file, is what is the difference between services that you might call universal or not so culturally specific--in other words, homelessness, poverty in the sense of more money, maybe health care, although there can obviously be a cultural dimension to it, versus things where culture is really front and centre such as aboriginal head start being in the appropriate language, the kind of reference to welcoming babies into the community, or the cultural dimension of education? As to whether anybody has an internalized division between those two things and whether it's even helpful to think about that, I'd be interested in your reaction.

This leads to a second reflection on the nature of community, because one of the great things about the stories you tell us is that we certainly have a sense, as it were, within the city of an aboriginal internal community. What I'm trying to sort out are questions such as to what extent that is like a geographic community. In some cases people just happen to be hanging around the same part of town. And can one take advantage of that because it produces, for example, neighbourliness and so on? On the other hand, is it more like belonging to a religious community, not in the sense of being a nun or a priest but in the sense of belonging to a denomination? As with the church, you might welcome in children through baptism or through some process like that, or like being Jewish. So it doesn't matter so much whether you're geographically located in an area; you have ways of coming together to honour something culturally specific.

I'm trying to find analogies here, I guess, in terms of how we talk about community. By definition, unless you're completely cut off from the world, you'll be also part of the larger community and there has to be some interaction so we can support each other as fellow citizens and so on. That issue of the definition of community seems to me very important to get clear in our own heads, and you can be helpful there.

Part of that when it comes to the aboriginal community is what's the institutional base. If it were a religious community, we know it's the church and the church hall and Sundays, or Saturdays if you're Jewish, or whatever it is. We know about that. In your minds, is the friendship centre the fundamental building block of the urban aboriginal community, or is it a network of building blocks. Or are we talking about friendship centre plus aboriginal head start, which may exist in schools? Those are the sorts of issues I'd really like to have a feeling for.

Finally, because this is nothing but a series of questions here, we did have representation from the Métis, from non-status aboriginal folks, and from the Congress for Aboriginal People and the Inuit community--the urban Inuit, if I can put it that way. They were suggesting--and this is like a subset; I don't want to put words in their mouths--there ought to be separate streaming for those different sets of folks, whereas friendship centres tend to bring in everybody, as I understand it. I couldn't sort out in my own mind the validity of further subdividing the urban aboriginal community into those categories. I didn't think it was up to me to make the judgment.

Those are just a few level questions and you're welcome to swing a bat at any of those balls. I'm just as much as anything else thinking out loud here, so please indulge me.

Yes, Ms. Koebel.

º (1650)

Ms. Jaime Koebel: I'll attempt to touch on some of those things.

Community means different things to different people. You can have a boys and girls club, and that's one kind of community. You can have a church, and that's the church community. But friendship centres are really inclusive and welcome into an urban centre in an urban setting Inuit, first nations, Métis, status and non-status, on-reserve people, and off-reserve people who are increasingly coming into cities.

I guess the difference between an organization like ours and an organization like Tungasuvvingat Inuit, Métis centres, and first nations is that the line is drawn somewhat at politics, in terms of representation. The Métis nation would speak on behalf of the Métis people in political settings. Friendship centres are more service-delivery oriented and we don't have those lines of separation.

I still see a need for those kinds of political organizations in terms of advocacy, but I really see friendship centres as all-inclusive service delivery centres. I've been in friendship centres since I was 12 years old and that's how I've always seen them.

Thank you.

º (1655)

Mr. Clifford Summers: I would just echo those comments and add that we see our organization as being in essence status-blind. We don't draw any distinction between political affiliation, what nation you may come from, or even what part of the country you come from.

The aboriginal friendship centre movement across the country is probably one of the foremost organizations in terms of service delivery. Friendship centres have been in existence for about 50 years now. Some centres in Manitoba, Toronto, and parts of Ontario argue about whose centre was the first to be established.

Ms. Jaime Koebel: They started in the basements of people's houses. People would just come over for tea and coffee. Somebody's home was the friendship centre.

Mr. Clifford Summers: It has certainly vastly grown beyond those very humble beginnings. In Odawa's case, we have helped to establish a sense of community in Odawa as well as be the catalyst for other types of development. There's a native housing organization in the city, known as Gignul Non-Profit Housing Corporation, for which we were the sponsor.

There's also a health access centre in the city called the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health. Again, we played a very important role in the very embryonic stages of that organization, to the point where we even became the first sponsor. It's now a stand-alone organization. And that was the role we were trying to play with the aboriginal head start program in this city.

So in terms of community, yes, we very much try to make every effort to be the centre for the aboriginal community. But beyond that, I think one of the important roles we see ourselves playing is helping to reach out to the non-aboriginal community.

In terms of Odawa, probably one of the better known established cultural celebrations in Ontario is the Odawa Pow-wow, and it's an event we've held every May for the last 27 years. We invite people from the city to come and participate in a way that they can be exposed to aboriginal culture and hopefully demystify it for mainstream citizens in this country, to help them understand about what an Indian taco is, or coming to participate in a tribal dance at the pow-wow.

Beyond what we're trying to do in terms of cultivating the community and the community centre, we see an important role in helping to dispel stereotypes that people may have about aboriginal people, by sharing our culture, inviting people to come to our centre and so on.

We had maybe 300 or 400 people over the weekend at our centre, despite the storm we had. So I think that is the kind of thing we have really played an important role in.

And now our involvement is becoming even more sophisticated in some of the urban centres. For example, I know in Vancouver we hear a lot about the involvement of the community in terms of developing their own urban governance models. Toronto is doing a similar thing. Winnipeg has similar models, where they have even grown beyond the service focus to be more representative. So it's a very sophisticated and evolving community.

» (1700)

Ms. Jaime Koebel: In places like Victoria, you have stuff like Raven Tech, which does programs on computer programming. So going back to your analogy, I guess, for friendship centres and whether or not they serve as a sort of over-arching, umbrella organization, I still think other organizations are very important and we are on a sort of equal level.

The other comment I wanted to make was that I've never been to church, so I'm not really understanding that analogy in that way. But if I were going to explain friendship centres, I would put it on a holistic level, in that it does.... I'm not sure how aware you are of a medicine wheel and its teachings, but it does really capture the spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual parts of the person. In Cree we call it nehiyaw, which means four parts, and we call ourselves four parts, which really means feeding those four parts of ourselves as an individual. So it's a way of life. Friendship centres are a way of life, is how I would boil it down.

The Chair: Thank you very much. That was extremely helpful. I don't whether either Mr. Demerais or Ms. Hill and Ms. Redsky would like to pitch in on that, or anyone else.

Mr. Lou Demerais: Yes, I want to respond to some of your musings, I guess we'd call them, around culture and so on. Maybe if I can explain a little bit about what happens generally in Vancouver, it will give you some idea of what it might be like across Canada as well, although we're all a little bit different, one from the other.

I would begin by saying that as an aboriginal group of people in Vancouver, we're as diverse as the Latin American population in Vancouver. When I say that, I mean we have people who are highly educated, we have people who are poorly educated, we have everybody in between and everybody at every stratus of the economic rung of life. So we have people who are highly specialized in some jobs and many of our people not even having jobs. That's exactly the way it is with the people who come to us from South and Central America. We're no different. They have many, many poor people as well. They have people who congregate around the fact that they might be from one particular country. We have people who congregate around their particular tribal grouping.

When I listened to what happens in Winnipeg at the friendship centre and Odawa at the friendship centre, our situation is not much different. Every Wednesday of every week we have what is called west coast family night. That is the time when all of the people whose original tribes come from the west coast or from British Columbia can go there with their entire family. Each Wednesday is hosted by a different group, so you might get the Haida people hosting one Wednesday and the following Wednesday it would be hosted by the Kwakiutl people, the following Wednesday hosted by the Tsimshian people, and so on.

It has become a responsibility that I think is taken very seriously. Along with hosting are all of the other things, including the food preparations, making sure that all of the elders are able to come, and making sure the children are looked after while all of these things are going on.

From my knowledge of the Latin American community in Vancouver, it's very much the same. They have criminal elements. We have people who are involved in crime, I'm sorry to say. They have some very wealthy people. We have very wealthy people as well. So you get all of that kind of thing.

I guess at the political level we have something called the Vancouver Aboriginal Council, which for the most part is the only real political organization we have at the civic level. It's not even supposed to be a political organization. It's become that by default because the organization that was supposed to represent us has failed miserably to do that.

This organization, the aboriginal council, is made up of about 40 different aboriginal agencies that provide services, such as the one that I work for. We divide up the way it's organized around different issues that we're all dealing with. Quite naturally, I find myself in the health portfolio as well as being the vice-president of the organization itself. We have other organizations that focus their energies and time, to the extent they can, around issues involving youth, women, education, and early childhood development now. The list just goes on and on and on. We have an arts and recreation portfolio and so on.

We also have the friendship centre. That's where all of these groups eventually all come together. When we have monthly forums, we probably have about 100 people who come into the room, representing all of those various organizations, agencies, and so on.

» (1705)

We don't go by Robert's rules. If people want to stand up and speak, that's allowed. It's more of the longhouse kind of thing. And that seems to be working quite well. What troubles me is that there are some who, I think, would want us to be in a more apartheid-like setting. That troubles me greatly.

The Chair: People from within the community, you mean?

Mr. Lou Demerais: From within our community. And I suspect that is as a result of a long, long history of colonization in which we have never been able to make our own decisions properly. On the one hand, while we're desperately trying to hang onto the remnants of our cultures, I don't think it's very healthy if we take all of those things and just say, okay, we don't want to have anything more to do with the rest of the white-dominated world, because obviously that isn't going to work. But there are some people who think that way.

One of the reasons I mentioned the west coast family night is that people such as me who aren't originally from British Columbia aren't allowed to attend the west coast family night. What all of the people who came from other parts of the country have to do is get together on Tuesday night and figure things out. Well, that's slowly starting to happen too. But my god, why did we create this division? It's going almost to the extent of saying, well, if you're not status, you can't come in the door. And it has me worried; it really does, because on the one hand, we're dealing with the problem of pan-Indianism, where we're all getting thrown into a great big pot and boiled up and we all come out supposedly as Indians or aboriginal.

It takes me back to where you started coming from. When you started speaking, I was thinking, obviously he's been talking to someone, or he's been thinking along somewhat the same lines as I have, because I want to keep our culture strong, but I don't want to put us apart from the rest of society. I think that would weaken us dearly.

The Chair: Ms. Davies.

Ms. Libby Davies: Actually, Rob has just come in here. I don't know if our presenters know, they probably don't, but today in the House at 3 o'clock we tabled what are called the main estimates, which is basically coming from the budget. There's an interesting thing in here that we might want to follow up and you guys might want to follow up. Under the heading of transfer payments, then under grants, and then under Canadian identity, one line says: “Grants to Aboriginal friendship centres, associations specifically representing Aboriginal friendship centres, Aboriginal associations, Aboriginal women’s groups, Aboriginal community groups, Aboriginal communication societies”. And the estimates are really the budget. Last year, 2002-03, the amount was $5.7 million, and this year it's $2.8 million.

» (1710)

The Chair: Whoops.

Ms. Libby Davies: These are huge books lined up, but we just noticed that one. It's something for us all to maybe look into a little bit further in terms of whether that means money is coming from other departments or other sources. This is under a grants program. But if it is truly a decrease, that is, it's not being supplemented from somewhere else, it would be something of significance to all of us to watch out for and pay attention to.

The Chair: May I suggest on behalf of the committee that we ask our researcher to see if she can noodle through, because sometimes these things get transferred over to other funds--

Ms. Libby Davies: Right. That's what we have to do.

The Chair: --before we panic and start stomping around.

I realize we've gone past our time and I don't want to abuse you, but I wonder if you have comments.

Ms. Diane Redsky: Do we get the last word?

The Chair: Absolutely. You got it.

Ms. Diane Redsky: All right. Well, I was a little upset, but we get the last word, so that's good.

Just to respond to the three kinds of questions or observations you've had--

The Chair: Designed to provoke, of course.

Ms. Diane Redsky: As for first nations, Métis, non-status, that is very much a political identification, and funding of course is geared that way. I hear what Mr. Demerais said and I certainly agree with that. You don't want to take away, as an aboriginal community, how we define ourselves. I really don't have the answer. As far as youth and most families are concerned, they don't necessarily jump up and down and say, I'm first nation, and that kind of thing, at the same time celebrating our uniqueness.

It's rather a confusing answer to that question.

As for the definition of community, we as an agency have defined that and what that means to us. We are in the city of Winnipeg, and within the city of Winnipeg we have per capita the largest aboriginal population. So we really see ourselves, even aboriginal people, in neighbourhoods. We're very much a neighbourhood-based organization.

We have five sites in highly populated aboriginal neighbourhoods, and we're very focused on being community-driven. If that makes sense, we're neighbourhood-based and community-driven. The whole aboriginal community being the community-driven piece and being neighbourhood-based. This gives us an opportunity to do the natural kinds of things. How we as aboriginal people care for one another in neighbourhoods provides that opportunity, given that it's community-driven.

There is another thing about the friendship centres being the institution or the churches or whatever. It has certainly been our experience in Winnipeg that really any kind of natural gathering places within communities or neighbourhoods that exist are where you will find aboriginal people. We're a very gathering kind of people, so it may be the friendship centre or the Thunderbird House or maybe a community centre or maybe a number of.... To speak to one, as long as there's a lot of space and something going on, that's where you'll find us.

Ms. Josie Hill: The food is always good.

Ms. Diane Redsky: Yes, and some kind of celebration or something.

From our perspective of working in Winnipeg and being in Winnipeg and being a part of a community in Winnipeg, that's been our experience.

The Chair: I want to thank all of you. This meeting has taken some interesting twists and turns that I might not have predicted. We've dealt with very specific situations. We've dealt with very general situations.

The thing I take away is that in making recommendations we sitting here in Ottawa have to be really sensitive to the local realities and specifically the local strengths. One of the wonderful things about your presentations is they have given us a sense of specificity--the idea of the west coast Wednesday family nights and the welcoming into the community. This gives us, I think, a real feeling.

You do want to go with the natural networks. I think you're quite right. You don't want to be too mechanistic in saying.... Even though the friendship centre movement might say that's an obvious one, I guess the issue is to find some organic strength and create a network and be sensitive to neighbourhoods and all the rest of it.

But I think I must say, speaking personally, I've derived a huge amount from this afternoon. I don't know where we're going to go with it, mind you, but this is what we're in, the exploration phase. We want to work with what is clearly working and get out of your hair when you obviously know what to do, and be supportive. That's the general feeling that I hope I'm conveying on behalf of the committee.

What that will look like in recommendation form in June I have not a clue, but I want to tell you that you've been extremely helpful and gracious in coming. We thank you.

This committee is now adjourned.