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Results: 16 - 30 of 126
View Rachel Blaney Profile
NDP (BC)
Thank you so much.
Mr. Sheppard and Ms. Formsma, we've heard clearly, and our offices have had conversations with you, about the resources that are needed and the fact that the minister's office is often referring people to friendship centres, and they don't necessarily have the capacity to address those issues. I'm wondering about how that works, and if you could expand a little on what that experience has been like for you during the pandemic.
Jocelyn Formsma
View Jocelyn Formsma Profile
Jocelyn Formsma
2020-12-01 12:54
I think the FES, as it was called earlier, talked about the $926.7 million. I think about $90 million of that went specifically to urban. What becomes a challenge is that we don't want to be looking at on-reserve in-the-north communities as a comparator group for urban indigenous people. I think there is enough need and enough capacity within the urban settings that we should be thinking about it as a group on its own. We don't want to get into “does it go here or does it go there?” Every resource going to first nations, Métis and Inuit governments for the work they're doing in the communities is absolutely needed. That's probably not enough to build the capacity. We're trying to close gaps from a historical lack of investment in our capacity and infrastructure.
Standing on our own, trying to convince levels of government in different departments about the need for culturally specific urban indigenous supports and responses to COVID, has been a challenge. We work well with Indigenous Services, the group that we have our federal program with, but I had conversations early on with other departments where I was starting from scratch about why it's necessary to fund a network like friendship centres or other urban indigenous organizations.
Our respective provincial-territorial associations were in constant contact with the provincial governments and relaying that information to us as well, as we were relaying information to them. It was quite frustrating earlier, because each level of government was looking to the other: “This is your jurisdiction” or “No, this is your jurisdiction”. Meanwhile, we have friendship centre staff cooking meals out of their own homes to deliver to people.
I don't mind taking up those fights at the national level or trying to get people to talk to each other. Where I think it's unfair is that the local friendship centres, just being out there, providing those supports.... I don't think it's fair that they are the ones who have to fight and really convince people of the needs. They're doing it, and they're going to do it out of their pockets or in terms of the financial health of their own organizations.
We're just trying to make sure that people know the realities and make sure that people making decisions about funding and policy and program designs are aware that this is a very real thing that's happening. Specific responses are needed outside of the current structure that we have.
View Gary Vidal Profile
CPC (SK)
Thank you, Mr. Chair. At the two-and-a-half-minute mark, please transition for us, if you want.
I have one quick question for Mr. Sheppard and Ms. Formsma. It's around the community support funding. The original round of community support funding included $15 million for urban indigenous. I know there was some concern at the time about the recognition of the need. Another $75 million was added to that sometime after that. My question goes beyond that. When we get to the next round of the community support fund, out of about $300 million, about $160 million of that was for an application-based process.
It actually closed just yesterday, if I'm not mistaken. We're well into the second wave, and the application process closed literally yesterday. There was another announcement yesterday of some more money under the community support fund. I don't know how that will roll out.
I'm looking for your comments in regard to the application process. Was it burdensome or helpful? I'm just wondering how you felt about that process.
Jocelyn Formsma
View Jocelyn Formsma Profile
Jocelyn Formsma
2020-12-01 13:00
Early on, because the National Association of Friendship Centres has an existing agreement with Indigenous Services through the urban programming for indigenous peoples, as well as the urban indigenous coalition tables, it was our position that there was already an existing mechanism to at least release dollars immediately. It wasn't going to be a perfect process and certainly there was time to open it up to other organizations, but we felt that would have been at least an immediate release of funds that could have gone to the friendship centre network and the urban indigenous coalition table network as an interim component.
That wasn't utilized in the beginning, so it resulted in our having to wait weeks after other indigenous organizations received funds. It didn't mean that the work stopped. We went ahead and did it anyways without a guarantee that there would be funding.
That was my experience. I'm going to hand it over to Chris to fill in from his perspective.
Christopher Sheppard
View Christopher Sheppard Profile
Christopher Sheppard
2020-12-01 13:01
I think we were in front of committee right around when that was happening in the first round. Being someone who works in the region and works with individual centres every day, I was extremely frustrated that while people were getting direct investment without delay, we were having to contact centres whose staff were working in the now and ask them to stop and start collecting data and information so that we could get an application into Canada to get the support to help people.
I felt frustrated in round two when the same thing happened again. You're delivering funding to indigenous organizations, but you're treating urban ones differently by forcing them to apply.
We're now in round three and it's the same process again. Even if Canada had looked at our pre-budget submission and looked at what we had submitted as a need, in that submission was the request for money to create an urban indigenous health framework. We submitted those things previously.
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Sheppard.
In the spring, you mentioned that the friendship centres were not involved in the national urban indigenous agenda and that Canada needed to start looking at them as partners.
In the context of the pandemic, how has the federal government mobilized friendship centres to adopt urban indigenous-friendly approaches?
Christopher Sheppard
View Christopher Sheppard Profile
Christopher Sheppard
2020-12-01 13:11
I think recognizing that Canada and friendship centres have a 70-year history, a once-permanent program history that has been developed to.... It's a self-determined structure created by our own people to move ourselves forward. We have been a welcoming place to collaborate, to do work and to make sure our people are looked after, not just during the pandemic but at all times.
On the back end, and even in public policy, urban indigenous people aren't included. StatsCan data tells us every year that it's not like urban migration is slowing down or stopping. It continues to happen. However, we as a country seem unable to say the truth, which is “You are all important”, and we need public policy that says that. Why is it that if you did an analysis and a scan of how urban people are funded comparably, it would be nowhere near equitable?
We did an analysis of the COVID response money. Canada says that they want to make sure there's a gendered lens on the work that they do, and there is not. I can tell you that COVID is no different. When we look at how to do work post-COVID, in some regions, we're already looking at a gendered lens response to ensure that indigenous women, who typically are the backbones of communities, are supported to recover their communities collectively.
Christopher Sheppard
View Christopher Sheppard Profile
Christopher Sheppard
2020-12-01 13:13
We have such a long history of working together, but oftentimes, we aren't there in the on-boarding, the development, the creation or the design, which can be extremely problematic when you're trying to measure impact or even to have impact. If you read the statements I've made to a committee, I almost always say that we welcome the opportunity to work with you and to bring our experience. I still genuinely feel that there are so many opportunities that go missed with urban organizations, and not even just our own. We're on the ground making those connections with other indigenous organizations or others—literally anyone who will work with us—just to make it more efficient.
View Sylvie Bérubé Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Minister Miller.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the council of Gespeg has taken the necessary measures to reduce the impact of the crisis on its members. However, like many other communities in similar situations, the community of Gespeg was shut out of government support programs.
That is still the case, so should the government introduce programs that fairly and more effectively address all the needs of communities, to give all indigenous people access to supports?
View Marc Miller Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Ms. Bérubé.
Another layer of the challenge I was describing concerns urban indigenous communities. We provided funding to the Gespeg nation to address many of its needs. Whether a community is covered by an agreement or not, whether a community is located in an urban area or not, our goal is the same. All indigenous communities deserve appropriate high-quality health care, something they have been denied for far too long—well before the pandemic. We are endeavouring to do what is needed to keep COVID-19 out of communities.
Juliette Nicolet
View Juliette Nicolet Profile
Juliette Nicolet
2020-11-19 15:38
Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
I am in Toronto, and I would like to acknowledge that Toronto sits on the traditional territories of a number of different first nations who shared this area for all sorts of reasons. My house in particular sits very close to a former Seneca encampment.
I want to thank Ms. Camille, because she gave an excellent description of the work of friendship centres in so many communities across Canada. Her experience is reflected in Ontario.
With respect to the range of services provided and the challenges around housing, in Ontario we have a demographic situation that is slightly different from other provinces. For example, 85.5% of indigenous people in Ontario live off reserve. Ontario has the largest population and the largest proportion of indigenous people living off reserve. Many seek housing and experience extreme housing insecurity. Of course, COVID-19 has made that worse.
The friendship centres in Ontario and the OFIFC have really been at the front line of providing housing for a number of years and have seen that activity increase in the last six to eight months. Friendship centres directly provide 151 units of housing. There are 29 friendship centres across Ontario that directly deliver 151 units of housing. That number is increasing all the time. This is a relatively new development because the need is so great. The friendship centres have actually begun delivering housing directly themselves.
The OFIFC is also one of three shareholders in a housing non-profit, the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services Corporation, which owns upwards of 2,400 individual units that are supplied in a variety of ways, with preference to indigenous clients.
I think the critical thing to understand is that the success of friendship centres in Ontario in creating a real kind of economic, social and civic shift in the indigenous community relies very much on the provision of culture-based services. When the national housing strategy came out, it was a great disappointment to us that there was no specific indigenous set-aside. This would have created space for culture-based services in housing and self-determination in housing by organizations such as ourselves and others to address the issue of housing in this country. Of course, COVID has come along and has demonstrated just how dire the situation is, so here we are.
It's important as well to understand what “indigenous-led” means. When we talk about things being indigenous-led, we're talking about things being governed by indigenous people, managed by indigenous people, administered by indigenous people, delivered on the ground by indigenous people, research done by indigenous people and evaluated by indigenous people. This approach has led to the great success of the friendship centre movement across Canada, and certainly in Ontario.
With respect to what the OFIFC would like to see, which is the development of a national strategy on urban, rural and northern indigenous housing, it is also important to understand how this might intersect with enabling legislation on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and that the self-determination aspect is a critical piece to ensure that service providers with the greatest expertise are able to continue to do their work.
I'm going to leave it at that for now.
Thank you very much.
View Leah Gazan Profile
NDP (MB)
Thank you, Chair.
My first question is for Madame Nicolet. You indicated briefly in response to the questions from Madame Chabot how friendship centres support urban indigenous people in securing safe and affordable housing. I concur. I think the funding amount is grossly inadequate.
I know that your organization has done a lot of advocacy on prioritizing an urban indigenous housing strategy as a way to end homelessness and housing insecurity. In fact, you're quoted as saying, “The absence of any reference to urban indigenous communities in the national housing strategy constitutes a barrier to ensuring [that] the needs of urban indigenous people are rendered visible across government.”
Can you expand a bit on that, briefly? I have a few questions and limited time.
Juliette Nicolet
View Juliette Nicolet Profile
Juliette Nicolet
2020-11-19 16:02
I'll try to be brief.
That comment needs to be put in the context of the three-streams approach that the federal government takes as an approach to all indigenous things. Three streams—FNMI, or “distinctions-based”, however you want to call it—necessarily elides the existence of urban indigenous communities in engaging exclusively, at an official or formal level, or quasi-exclusively with only the “representative” organizations.
Juliette Nicolet
View Juliette Nicolet Profile
Juliette Nicolet
2020-11-19 16:04
It becomes very difficult for urban indigenous concerns and legitimate demands to be advanced from a policy perspective and then to actually get any kind of traction around implementation. The fact that it doesn't get mentioned is a continuation of the erasure of urban indigenous realities across Canada.
Does that answer your question?
Results: 16 - 30 of 126 | Page: 2 of 9

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