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I call the meeting to order.
Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our first status of women committee for 2018.
Today we have a very special group with us that has come back to join us with more details. To begin, I just want to do a couple of housekeeping notes on a few things.
First of all, I'd like to welcome our new clerk for the committee, Kenza Gamassi. She's our new clerk and she will be with us. As well, Stephanie Kusie, from the Conservative Party, has now joined us. As you can see, she's a very welcoming person.
Today in one hour we have the Correctional Service of Canada, the Parole Board of Canada, the Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, and the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development.
By request, Anne Kelly, the senior deputy commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, has requested five minutes to start, and then we'll continue where we left off in 2017.
Anne, you have the floor for five minutes.
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Madam Chair, hello again.
I'm Anne Kelly. I'm the senior deputy commissioner of the Correctional Service of Canada, or CSC, a position that includes responsibility for indigenous corrections. I'm pleased to be joined by Dr. Kelley Blanchette, the deputy commissioner for women, who is responsible for the development and oversight of programs for all federally sentenced women.
I would like to thank you and the honourable members of this committee for the opportunity to appear before you again to resume the discussion we began on November 28 with regard to this committee's study on indigenous women in the justice system. Given that I provided my opening remarks when we appeared in November, today I would like to take just a few minutes to share some recent highlights from CSC's mid-year performance results for 2017-18.
[Translation]
As I noted at the November meeting, indigenous women represent a significant and growing proportion of the incarcerated population, representing 39% of all incarcerated women offenders.
I would also reiterate that CSC cannot control the number of indigenous Canadians receiving federal sentences. However, our work and interventions can ultimately have an impact on the length of time offenders remain in custody, their security level, and when they go before the Parole Board of Canada to seek decisions regarding their release to the community.
[English]
It is this latter part that is CSC's raison d'être: to encourage and assist offenders in the work of preparing for release so that they safely and successfully return to society. In this regard, I am pleased to note that CSC's mid-year results show that the number of offenders who are managed in the community is continuing to increase for both indigenous and non-indigenous offenders.
In terms of discretionary releases—that is, releases on day and full parole—women have the best results, with about 81% of their releases being discretionary to date. Moreover, increased reintegration success is being achieved, with more indigenous women successfully reaching the end of their sentence in the community. This positive result reflects the concerted efforts by the women and the case management team to ensure risk factors and needs are addressed through appropriate interventions in preparation for a safe and successful return to the community.
[Translation]
I would also like to highlight the results of two studies completed last year.
The first one looked at whether the aboriginal women offender correctional program (AWOCP) met its objectives. The results suggested that AWOCP is successful in improving the women's skills and attitudes and significantly decreases their rates of return to custody.
[English]
The second study focused on indigenous women who have participated in section 84 releases, which is a legislative provision that applies to offenders who express an interest in having an indigenous community collaborate in their release planning. The study found that 41% participated in section 84 releases over the course of the last five years. It also found, among other things, that women who participate in section 84 releases are more likely to be released on discretionary release and to be classified as minimum security prior to release.
[Translation]
While much progress has been made, CSC continues to address gaps and implement initiatives that best meet the needs of offenders and contribute to our mandate of keeping Canadians safe.
[English]
At this point we would be pleased to respond to your questions on the various aspects of CSC's work and on our progress.
Thank you.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thanks to all of the witnesses for being here.
I want to start by saying that I spent two days last week visiting five corrections facilities in Edmonton. The Edmonton Institute for Women and Buffalo Sage Wellness House were two of them. We can have a discussion as a committee as to the value of doing that. I certainly see it.
First I want to thank CSC for the fine work they are doing, and all of the amazing people who are working there for the work they're doing. I was incredibly impressed, especially at Buffalo Sage, with the work that's being done. I don't think you can possibly visualize a healing lodge without actually seeing it.
We participated in a circle with elder Claire with four of the women who were there. Some of my questions will be from that visit.
I heard repeatedly, over and over again, from everyone we saw, that the cuts made to the correctional service have had a devastating impact on the ability to deliver within whatever institute it was. You may not have this number, but do you know how much was cut from the budget for CSC from 2006 to 2015? If you don't have it, that's fine. Maybe you could provide it to the committee.
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—because I am very happy about them.
Very quickly, in terms of education, we were at 84.3% at the end of December, versus 71% in 2015-16. For the average number of days from admission to first program, we're at 32 days, and for non-indigenous women it's 31.5 days, so it's about the same. In 2016-17 we've had the highest number of women released on day and full parole, as well as the greatest number of women successfully reaching the end of their sentence. Basically, the average percentage of time served before they get their first release has gone from 43%, which was longer, to 36%, which is good.
In terms of percentage released on day and full parole, we were at 75% at the end of October, and we were at 65% in 2016-17. In the percentage who have reached their warrant expiry date—meaning the end of their sentence—without being readmitted to custody, again we've seen an increase.
I would say it's a combination of things. For both men and women, we're seeing a higher number of them in the community, under supervision. I think it's also because of the programs we have.
I think you've witnessed the work of the staff who work with the offenders, and you'll find that if you visit our institutions or go to our community parole offices, staff are dedicated. They're committed to what they do. They believe in the mandate of the mission, which is actively assisting and encouraging offenders.
What we want and what we believe is that we want them to be better than they were when they came to us. That's why we work with them. We offer them programs and we have elders and chaplains in our institutions. Also, in terms of the review of employment, we're doing that so we can provide them with opportunities so that when they are released, they can get decent pay and can maintain themselves in the community. It's a combination of factors.
Like you, I also have many questions on the investment in indigenous women in our correctional institutions, and actually poverty as a whole.
Historically with government, there's no problem investing in highways, infrastructure, health care, or social services, but no one really wants to talk about investing in our most vulnerable population. We are sinking billions of dollars into trying to eliminate an issue such as homelessness, but no one wants to talk about the issue of how we treat young people and prepare them for independence.
A recent study has shown that 60% of homeless people had child and family services involvement, but they make up only 3% of the population. It often reminds me of the story of the two people pulling dead bodies from a river. They stood strong, pulling bodies day after day, until an elder happened to walk by and asked them what they were doing. They explained what they were doing and how hard they were working. The elder looked at them and asked, “Has anyone gone upstream to find out why all these bodies are coming down in the first place?” When we're looking at indigenous women issues, we still continually look downstream.
I've been working with this population for the past 25 years. When I started, we had children as young as seven working in the sex trade. No one tried to assist the families until it would hit the newspaper. Then the Ministry of Social Services would swoop in, remove the child, and put the child in an institution until they turned 16. It is now 2018, and some things have changed, but how government does business and how they treat this population has not.
In our society we have come through and continue to come through some very dark times for indigenous people. There were the residential schools and the sixties scoop, and now they are continuing to place our children in protective services institutions, taking away their liberties, punishing them for being victims of circumstances beyond their control. In Saskatchewan they have resurrected orphanages by putting babies and infants in 14-bed group homes. We are raising yet another generation of children with abandonment issues who will grow up with no ability to form relationships and who will not know how to bond.
These current practices are expensive and damaging to children and their families. These practices create the conduit to a life of dysfunction into further poverty and institution-based care, such as our correctional facilities. The sad truth to this is that assisting them to become contributing citizens is cheaper and has more of a positive impact on the long-term cycle being broken.
I have a couple of theories to share and ask that you come to your own opinions.
Indigenous and poor people are a huge industry. Jobs in helping and correction professions create a large middle-class labour market that is supposed to serve and protect this population. In my 25 years' experience, I have met many dedicated individuals in government who want to create a better life for those less fortunate, but I often shake my head. Looking at it from an indigenous perspective, they see the government doing the same thing over and over even though it isn't working. This often leaves a further sense of mistrust and hopelessness.
Individuals who experience the current system feel if they were to work on solutions to eradicate the issue, the problem would be gone, and so might their jobs. Can it help you to understand how those less fortunate believe nothing is being done or being put into changing cycles for poor people?
When serving this population, community-based organizations and their clients are expected to achieve desired outcomes in a set period of time. Often trauma, previous abuse issues, addictions, and mental health prolong this person's inability to achieve the desired outcome.
For a moment I would like to turn the tables and ask these bureaucrats why they are not sharing their outcomes and possible ramifications if they are not being met. How did the meaning of what is public service become less important than trying not to embarrass the government of the day?
As politicians, are you guys asking the right questions of individuals tasked with making recommendations and bringing them forward to government? May I suggest a few questions?
What are the communities saying? What are the families saying? What are the outcomes you are trying to achieve? Are these outcomes realistic and achievable? How can we support initiatives as government?
I'm here today to speak about our experience as the first organization in Canada to do a social impact bond. This bond was investing in keeping mothers and children together and out of the child welfare system.
The bond was simple, the math was straightforward, the outcomes were achievable, and it provided an opportunity for us to show that with support and guidance, mothers with children can change and desire a better life for themselves and their children.
The idea for this project with the social impact bond didn't come from government. It began a year earlier with Carolyn Schur, who was doing a study on sleep disorders in high school. After completing her studies, she came to the result that young persons didn't have sleep disorder: they just had nowhere to sleep. This lady began with putting $50,000 of her own money into a solution. We started a small group to work together to look for solutions. What began as a community response blossomed into what we have today.
Our first investors became interested not to make money but because they could see the difference an investment can make and they could see where their money was being spent.
The then Minister of Social Services, June Draude, proposed the bond as a way to invest in our vulnerable population. We've worked hard to create deliverables that in the end benefit those we serve. We provide an extended continuum of care that enables mothers and their families to stay together. We support young mothers to become educated and successfully employed. We foster independence and self-reliance in young women and their children.
The bond strengthened integrated partnerships within the community, as well as with Connexus Credit Union, the Mahs, private and corporate donors, the Government of Saskatchewan, and the Government of Canada.
The expectation of the bond was that in five years, we were going to have 22 children leaving the program and remaining out of care for a minimum of a six-month period. If these outcomes could be achieved, the bond would pay for itself.
Since June 1, 2013, Sweet Dreams has supported 39 high-risk mothers and 54 children; 33 of these mothers maintain custody of their children to date.
Five mothers and nine children currently reside at Sweet Dreams, and two of the mothers are currently attending the University of Saskatchewan.
I know I'm not going to have time to go into some of the stories of the kids who come into the program and their successes, so I did make a couple of copies if anybody is interested.
In addition to this, we've created an additional four bedrooms and an 18-space child care centre attached to Sweet Dreams. The Mahs, one of the initial investors, are donating back their half a million dollars plus interest so that we can do more for the mothers and the children in need.
In closing, I'd like to say a couple of things.
Investment in indigenous women creates hope for the future and will go a long way in helping keep women out of our institutions. We need to begin to create prevention programs that start at birth and work hard to keep family units together.
Child and family programs need to reflect an industry based on people's futures and a life after being in care. We need to ask these women what they need and how government and the communities they live in can make the difference.
The task seems daunting, but so does doing the same thing over and over again, because it isn't working. Let's start by going upstream to tackle the issue.
Thank you.
There's some really cool stuff happening in your province. Thanks for sharing that.
Good afternoon, honourable committee members. My name is Lisa Lalande. I'm the executive lead for the Mowat Centre's not-for-profit research hub. I am joined by my colleague, senior policy associate Joanne Cave.
Mowat NFP is a research arm of the Mowat Centre, which is an independent public policy think tank located at the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto.
Mowat NFP focuses on applied policy research relevant to systemic issues facing the non-profit and charitable sector, both in Ontario and across Canada. Our research agenda looks at how this sector can be effective in creating thriving communities and improving the well-being of Canadians. We examine issues such as sector labour reform, finance and funding, data, and legislation and regulation from a systems lens, looking at how individual issues are connected to and impacted by each other as a collective whole. More recently this has translated into research on measuring outcomes and impact, looking at what is needed to better understand and evaluate which interventions are working and which aren't.
Many people participate in programs or services without any significant or lasting impact because those programs fail to address the root causes: violence, trauma, hunger, illness, and poverty. These root causes are historical and complicated and cannot be isolated and tackled individually. Applying a systems lens to the concept of impact recognizes that the social and environmental issues the sector works to address are highly interconnected.
We understand that a social impact bond is one tool being considered to address the proportion of indigenous women in Canada's criminal justice system. While we cannot speak to the experience of indigenous women in the criminal justice system, we will focus on the challenge of understanding impact and how government funding can be used to support the best results possible.
Selecting and measuring outcomes is often the most challenging aspect of a social impact bond contract. Given that, our presentation will advance two key recommendations: the establishment of a Canadian What Works Centre, a unique type of evidence institution that is proven to be successful in the U.K. and the U.S.A., and the creation of a national outcomes fund, a vehicle that could provide capital to invest in proven interventions and explore innovative approaches. Our briefing note complements this presentation by outlining several key considerations for implementing a social impact bond.
Why build the evidence base? Governments are increasingly facing greater scrutiny about how funds are spent, what outcomes are achieved with those funds, and how evidence of what works is driving the policy-making process. A strong evidence base is an important component of readiness for outcomes-based funding arrangements. This is particularly important for social impact bonds, which rely on proven, tested programs and interventions to attract investors. High-quality evidence is required to assess community needs, select appropriate interventions, define outcomes, and clarify how they will be measured.
Evidence institutions are organizations that possess the technical expertise to review and produce robust policy research as a resource to the public and to policy-makers. While Canada has existing research expertise, we have very few evidence institutions that focus specifically on indigenous criminal justice issues.
What Works Centres emerged in the U.K. and are one type of evidence institution that could be adopted in the Canadian context. What Works Centres are typically independent from government. They are unique from other evidence institutions because they focus on engaging end-users of evidence—for example, front-line staff or beneficiaries. What Works Centres put end-users at the centre of the process, and they often shape how the evidence is collected, interpreted, and used.
For example, the U.K. What Works Centre for Crime Reduction focuses on how front-line police officers understand new evidence about policing and change their own behaviours as a result. Another What Works centre in the U.K., the Centre for Ageing Better, puts the perspectives of seniors first when developing their research agenda. In doing so, centres use citizen input to ensure that the programs and services address what matters to them. This in turn results in cost savings for governments and funders because resources are allocated more effectively.
Our research indicates that a What Works Centre, co-led with existing indigenous organizations and research centres, has the potential to make a significant difference on issues such as this one. Using this model, indigenous stakeholders could co-lead the organization's governance model, co-design the research agenda, and define what outcomes and impacts could look like.
But who pays for this—the exploration of new approaches and the scaling of proven ones?
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We encourage the committee to also explore the opportunity for a national outcomes fund to identify and scale what works over the long term.
A national outcomes fund is a dedicated fund that offers matching contributions to other orders of government adopting outcomes-based funding models. In the U.K., many outcomes funds draw their resources from dormant bank accounts rather than the federal budget. The Bank of Canada estimates that there are approximately $678 million in unclaimed assets that the government could potentially draw upon for the outcomes fund and What Works Centre.
In B.C., this approach is used to apply a portion of unclaimed funds to the Vancouver Foundation for philanthropic purposes.
A national outcomes fund could provide capital for outcomes-based funding arrangements like social impact bonds in addition to grants to test and evaluate new, innovative programs. This blended approach to risk allows us to use resources more efficiently and to innovate.
A Canadian What Works Centre could be associated with the outcomes fund to define the measurement approach, agree on common indicators, and inform funding allocations. It could also help organizations build capacity to measure their own impact, making the outcome fund's investments more targeted and effective over time.
We applaud the committee's commitment in addressing this important issue. Social impact bonds and social finance tools are one approach to mobilize the capital needed to achieve a successful outcome. We consider the proposal for a What Works Centre and a national outcomes fund to be preconditions for exploring a social impact bond contract.
Furthermore, we encourage the committee to focus on indigenous-led solutions and invest in the long-term infrastructure that is needed to create meaningful social change. A national outcomes fund, with support from a What Works Centre, could work together to explore outcomes-based funding arrangements with the existing evidence base and also experiment with new, untested programs and services.
Thank you for your time and attention. My colleague and I welcome any questions you may have.
Good afternoon, members and members' staff.
I represent the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing at MaRS Discovery District in Toronto. We partner with governments, non-profits, and investors to direct capital to social problems. We advise governments on how to deliver better outcomes and results for vulnerable populations in Canada.
We cannot speak to the experience of indigenous women in the justice system. I was listening to the questions in the last session and I would have been able to answer none of them. However, what we can speak to is the chance to approach the problem in a new way.
I'd like to make two hypotheses to this committee: an outcomes-focused approach to the issue will enable those working with indigenous women to get better results, and a new tool, called a “social impact bond”, can facilitate the transition to an outcomes-focused approach.
Let me explain. Our public and philanthropic funding system spends an extraordinary sum on programs designed to rectify social problems. Governments pay non-profits to deliver many of those programs. How does the government pay for these programs? It writes a list of activities in which the non-profit may engage. The non-profit also has a list of eligible expenses.
The non-profit runs the program, stays within the bounds of the sanctioned activities, and submits its eligible expenses. The government pays those expenses and asks for a report on how many people went through the program, and it may hear something about how the program has helped those people.
Let me give you an example to bring this to light. A homeless shelter is funded based on its activities—namely, the number of clients housed. Shelters take in individuals in need, but do not have the resources to treat the underlying causes of their homelessness, such as illness or chronic depression, for example. Because the system does not focus on making the individuals better, but rather simply on whether the shelter filled its quota, the cycle of homelessness continues.
At the end of projects like these, we know the non-profit spent the public's money on the items on which it promised to spend the money. We can check off that basic accountability box, yet at the end of the project we very often don't know what the project achieved for the people it was meant to serve. We cannot check the accountability box that asks the value the program earned in return for the public's money.
That is way too simple a story, of course. Non-profits sometimes report on outcomes and academics and governments sometimes study social problems, but day-to-day social service delivery rests on what non-profits do, not on what they accomplish. That approach leaves too much potential—community potential, non-profit potential, government potential—on the table.
How else might the government pay for a social problem? The government might pay for social programs based on a program's results. It might pay for a program to the extent the program achieves the result it is set to achieve. Let me give you an example.
Roca Inc., a U.S.-based non-profit, has spent many years keeping young men out of prison. Roca is now delivering some of its services under what it calls a pay-for-success contract, which you may know as a pay-for-performance contract or a results-by-payment contract. Under that contract, Massachusetts agrees to pay Roca on its success in reducing prison days among young men already involved in the justice system. Roca, unlike many non-profits delivering social programs, knows its precise goal: to steer its clients away from prison. At the end of the program, Roca and Massachusetts will know about how to accomplish that goal. This is very similar to what Don was talking about earlier.
Another example is closer to home but is on a different social issue: heart disease and stroke, which kill many in Canada each year. High blood pressure puts people at risk, yet we know the modifiable behaviours that can curb this negative trajectory. In two weeks, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada will kick off a program designed to stabilize and reduce blood pressure among people approaching high blood pressure. The Public Health Agency of Canada has promised to pay for the program depending on how well the program actually helps people stabilize and reduce blood pressure. At the end of the project, the agency and the Heart and Stroke Foundation will know more about how to combat rising blood pressure in an aging society.
Both Roca and the Heart and Stroke Foundation did something unusual. They asked investors—foundations, financial institutions, corporations, individuals—to invest in their programs—not donate, not grant, but invest.
Like most non-profits, Roca and Heart and Stroke cannot take the financial risk that their programs do not work. They need money up front to pay the costs of their programs. They cannot wait a month or a year until they report results, so they ask investors to put up this upfront money.
The investors—and not the non-profits—are taking the risk that the programs do not work. If the programs work, the governments will pay a return; if the programs do not work, the investors will lose their money. This arrangement is called a social impact bond.
Social impact bonds in particular, and paying for outcomes in general, come with their own share of problems. Picking outcomes is not easy. Deciding the metrics to capture the change is difficult. Tracing cause and effect between a program and its results is a nuanced task. These steps are additional to the current grant and contribution process, and yes, when a program works, the government pays more: the cost of the program, plus a return to investors.
Might the benefits outweigh the costs? That's what we are here to find out. Social impact bonds are a tool devised to reframe how we think about funding social problems. The real value is not in the investment but in putting results first. If we put results first and build our response to a social problem with constant reference to a precise goal, won't we do better by the people we're meant to serve?
We have not answered that question yet, but given the stasis in too many social problems, we think it's a question worth exploring. We believe a focus on outcomes may help communities better serve indigenous women in the justice system.
Thank you.
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With my 25 years' experience, I honestly believe that governments, for years and years and years, just keep doing the same thing, keep doing a lot of the same things over again in looking at social issues. It's not just provincial; it's federal also. They are often scared to ask the tough questions. As was just presented, they don't want to embarrass their minister. They don't want to embarrass anybody. Oftentimes it comes at the expense of young people.
I have a story I'd like to share. It's really quick. One mom who came into Sweet Dreams was gang-involved, and her child was in care with a family member. She had an addiction to crystal meth and suffered from severe anxiety. Today she's a functioning member of the community who has completed treatment, attends school daily, works with counsellors, attends play therapy with her son regularly, and is a mentor to her peers. Since coming into the program, she's acquired her driver's licence, bought a vehicle, and has worked diligently to build trust and to repair damaged relationships with her family and with her community.
When I heard the first presentation, I was taken aback. With our program and with these kids, we need that motivation. We spend billions and billions of dollars trying to help those who don't really want help, yet we're scared to help, or we don't want to really invest in, those who need help to help deal with what they need to deal with. They want to become contributing citizens. We're sometimes so often chasing our tails.
We got a lot of flak from government because we used the motivational approach versus an assessment. It was actually one of our investors who said, “You can't use these assessments. They're disrespectful to women.” It was all negative and about why they took their children.
To go back to the first presentation, it was kind of interesting when they were talking about knitting classes. I have pictures. I'm sorry that I only made three copies.
The initial investment in the social impact bond was $1 million, and now the total investment is worth about $3.5 million with the day care. It's kind of cute. We have an action to employment program that works with young people, and we have young people who provide services to seniors. It gets no government funding, but a lot of these young women went into the homes when we were doing the renovations on the old part, because we didn't have any funding for the old part except for community people like Home Depot. They came in and they ripped out the flooring and they did the painting. That's the thing with a lot of our thinking on women and indigenous women, and I see that all the time: our expectations are really low on what their possibilities are. They should be taking the same thing as men. You know what? We had these kids working in this house for about seven months. Two of them went into trades school. They wanted to be carpenters.
I don't know if I answered your questions. I get off the target sometimes; sorry.
Thank you to each and every one of you for taking the time to be with us today.
I want to start off by directing my questions to Don.
Don, first off, I want to thank you for your work. Your boots are clearly on the ground and you're working very hard in order to serve a vulnerable population very well. It sounds like you're leading a team of people in a whole community approach to this, which is very much appreciated. Thank you.
Your organization is really the first one to use a social impact bond in order to create a difference within a community. Clearly you've made a very big difference for these women and their children, making sure that they have a vibrant future ahead of them, so I commend that.
Now with that, the question I would have for you is why, in your estimation, has it worked so well to do a social impact bond to approach the situation, the social concerns that we have, in this way?
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I believe the social impact bond was more than just a social investment. It was an investment in people, and it mobilized our community. It brought together federal and provincial.... It brought together community, and it continues to answer that whole need.
Our biggest challenge was fighting the bureaucracy. We all make a living off poor people. Researchers come in, they do their research, and they leave. We're there in the community and we stay in our community.
If you really believe.... I think this was the easiest thing we ever did, because we believe in our parents and we believe in indigenous people. We believe in the potential. None of these mothers who have come through the programs since 2013 are in an institution. They're all caring for their children, where they should be.
I think what's made it so successful and what continues to make it successful is.... In meetings I've had with bureaucrats and ministers, the investors aren't these big, bad people who just want to make money off the poor people. They want to see the difference. I've had many conversations with the Mahs. For them, it's about showing that you can make a difference.
I think what happens is—and I've seen it with the people in Ontario trying to do a social impact bond—the bureaucrats got involved, and they just overloaded it instead of looking at what you want to do and what the impact is. All of these other things about people going to university and people being employed are all the extras. That's over and above the cost of the bond. With no disrespect, do I care what the cost saving of that is? No, because that's not what the bond was about. The bond was a contract, and all of these other social....
We talk about whether it's too early to see if these are successes. You're damn right they're successes, and I could have brought 30 women here today to show that they're successes. It's not because somebody studies it or somebody says, “Well, maybe it's too early.” No. We kept mothers and children where they belong.
When we start building 14-bed group homes, orphanages for our children, because indigenous people are coming in at such an alarming rate, that's something we need to look at and worry about.
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Communities are different. Wherever we go, communities are different.
I hear lots of, “Well, we're indigenous-friendly” or we're this-friendly or we're that-friendly. Even with indigenous communities, elders have different ways of doing things. Everybody has different ways of doing things, and the people receiving the service have different ways of doing things, but we need to be asking the kids or the people in those communities.
I'm working with this kid. She's 17. She's involved in a gang, and I'm trying to help her get out of the gang. She has actually been asked not to be involved in the gang because she's working with a white guy who works for a community-based organization, so it brings heat on her. I asked her today what is going to keep her out of an institution. I said, “I'm going to do this presentation for some nice people today. What do I tell them? What do I tell them to keep you from going into an institution in the future?”
She said, “Don, you have to make sure I have a good place to live and that I'm safe. You need to make sure my mental health issues are dealt with, and you need to continue to fight for me to get proper services”—because she has been diagnosed with PTSD, anxiety, and depression—“and you need to believe in me, and you need to make sure that I have a proper opportunity for an education.”
When we're asking the people, why don't we lay off our committees and institutions in asking the women what they need?
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If you look at indigenous women—and again, I've worked with them for 25 years—you see they have always been kind of the anchor in the home. They've been the provider. They have made sure they kept the family unit together. If you look at young women and that whole of flow of where we start, you see we often start at birth when we take their children away. We start taking their home away right from birth. We take away any kind of hope that they have for a better life, right at birth.
We kind of do things really backwards. We do things to indigenous people that we would never do to.... I see things on a daily basis that happen to these young women, and there's no way they would treat my daughters the way they treat these indigenous women.
The way we need to really start looking at is that when you talk to indigenous women in institutions—and my God, I've dealt with hundreds of them over my 25 years—often there's that feeling of hopelessness. Often you see that unresolved trauma, that unresolved abuse. Right from childhood they get punished for being victims of abuse and victims of our current system.
Until we start respecting and appreciating that, it's not going to change. They're in these institutions. They're angry and feeling hopeless. Giving them a sewing class is not going to help them once they get out of the institution.
We have a proposal in front of Status of Women right now. We want to get business in our community involved in helping young indigenous women to create and set up businesses and become contributing citizens in that way. We all have this mentality of “Here, have a welfare cheque and everything is going to get better.” It's not.
These kids I work with on a daily basis are no different from my kids. When they get out there and start to work and earn money, they want to earn more. They want the same things that all of our kids want, the same things that all of us wanted growing up. Until we come to that realization and have those expectations.... I'm sorry, but as long as we continue having sewing classes for indigenous women, it's not going to get better. We're not preparing them for life outside of the institution. The sewing classes don't cut it; I'm sorry.
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Again, from the social impact bond, we've created external longer-term housing for these young moms. Keeping them together and dealing with all of that crap is....
I have this statistic in my head and I have to spit it out. Then I can refocus.
Putting an infant in a group home now costs $600 a day. Can you imagine how much support we could parachute to these young women for 600 bucks a day? We could have somebody living with them and supporting them 24 hours a day.
The issues are so complex, but what you need to have is.... We have ongoing 24-hour support for our young moms. When there's an issue and they call and they need help, you need to be there.
We had a video company come. It was called HitPlay Productions. They wanted to bastardize the social impact bond, but after about a week of being there, when she was leaving, she said, “Do you know what? I realize why this bond and why this is working so well.” I looked at her and I said, “Finally, you're going to admit that it's going to work.” She said, “Yes. It's because you guys are there after the cameras are off.”
After the problems and after the issues and once the healing journey begins, because there are challenges, we need to be there after the cameras are off. We need to support women because their issues are so huge. Indigenous women are more likely to be sold on our streets in Canada than any other ethnic individuals. They're vulnerable. I think what we need to do is spend more time and more resources on healing. They don't want to see counsellors all the time, but they want to have better lives. That ability to move ahead is the best healing for any women, or anybody, really.
We need to set up our bonds or whatever we're looking at doing. We need to get our business involved. We need to get our community involved, because this committee that we have set up, if our proposal is accepted, is going to bring business, and they're not getting anything. Their investment is their time and their expertise, so we need to invest.
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I think social investment also can be really good, but again here my honesty is going to bite me in the butt. There are some really good community-based organizations out there, but there are also some really bad ones. We call them “pamphlet programs”. They come out with a piece of paper and tell you the wonderful things going on in our community, but they do nothing for the people.
If you're honest in what you're looking for in the bond, there's nothing to be scared of. That was one of my biggest questions: are you scared of the bond? Absolutely I was not scared of the bond. The bond and my investors helped me get through the government bureaucracy when they tried to change the contract midstream. We had an agreement with the deputy minister to pay us so much extra for the moms, because we were getting nothing for them. Halfway through, they took that away without an explanation, but our investors stepped in and asked what was going on. We had one of our investors tell the minister at that time, “If you touch one word in this contract, we'll see you in court.”
If you always look at the worst, you can always find a reason not to do anything. I think when people are making an investment, investing in people, we should be looking at the reasons for doing it and how we can do it most easily and to the most benefit.
At the end of the day, we shouldn't be here to make a lot of money. We should be here to make a living. When you're looking at your investment, look at who's going to ultimately win. Is it going to be the community-based organization, the investor, or is it going to be our moms and our children in our case?
When we weighed all that, ultimately all this extra that is happening in Saskatoon, because we have a community that cares, far outweighs any risk we have in the bond.