Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and good morning to the honourable members.
I'd like to extend greetings to you from National Chief Phil Fontaine. He regrets that he's not able to be here to present today, and he would welcome the opportunity to spend perhaps more time going into detail with respect to this unique relationship between the Government of Canada and first nations and what the funding relationship should look like.
We have tabled with the committee a comprehensive pre-budget submission that goes into great detail and covers such areas as the truth with respect to first nations funding. This morning Mr. Jock and I intend to focus on one particular aspect, which is child welfare--the effect of funding of first nations with respect to our children. We have other examples that we can present to the committee, perhaps when there's more time; health would be a really good thing for this committee to get into.
It is estimated that there are at least 23,000 aboriginal children in the child welfare system overall. This is almost three times the highest enrollment figure of residential schools during the height of their operations. The high during that time was about 9,000. Indian and Northern Affairs data confirms that between the years 1995 and 2001, the number of status Indian or first nations children entering into care rose by an astonishing 71.5% nationally. In Ontario this number rose by over 100%.
The federal government agrees that the level of funding it provides to first nations child welfare agencies does not allow them to meet their own statutory obligations with respect to child welfare. On-reserve first nations agencies receive far less money than their non-aboriginal peers. Indian and Northern Affairs provides some 33% less funding per child to first nations child welfare agencies than the average province does. This is an annual shortfall of $109 million. The current formula drastically underfunds services that support families and allows them to safely care for their children in their homes and in communities. There's not much money, even within that, that is targeted at prevention.
This chronic underfunding means that for most first nations children, removal is often the only option considered--not a last option, the only option.
The status quo clearly isn't acceptable. The social cost of this crisis is beyond calculation. It leads to dependence and dysfunction and to a lot of the social issues that other programs are trying to deal with.