Koey, good morning.
My name is Isabelle Verret, and I am a program officer for Aboriginal Health and Human Resources Initiatives. I am here with my colleague, Michel Deschênes, a policy analyst. We work at the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Health and Social Services Commission.
We want to thank the Standing Committee on Health for inviting us to give a presentation as part of its discussions on first nations health resources. We hope that your government will take into account first nations realities and that the information we present will serve as a basis for a true partnership, one where Canadian government representatives are on equal footing with first nations political representatives, in an effort to develop policies and implement appropriate measures.
Created in 1994 by the First Nations of Quebec and Labrador Chiefs' Assembly, the commission was intended to help first nations communities and agencies protect, maintain and assert their inherent rights to healthcare and social services, and to help them develop and carry out these programs.
Under the commission's leadership, Quebec's first nations communities established the Quebec First Nations Health and Social Services Blueprint for the period of 2007 to 2017. It represents an important learning process for developing their skills, with a view to asserting their right to manage their programs and services.
In Quebec, 42% of our population is under 25 years of age, and first nations represent nearly 71,000 people. There are 10 nations spread throughout more than 40 communities. It should be noted that almost 70% of our population lives in the communities.
Certain first nations communities live in conditions similar to those in the third world: substandard housing, overcrowding, water problems, outdated schools, underemployment, poverty and so forth. In some communities, the dependency rate on social assistance can reach more than 50%. We can easily see that this difficult environment imposes specific limitations on education in the communities, especially with respect to students dropping out of school.
According to a 2002 study in Quebec communities, more than half of the adults did not have a high school diploma. That proportion is hard to reverse in youth, since half of all young people have already had to repeat a school year.
It is clear that, in order to develop health human resources in Quebec's first nations, they must first receive better access to primary and secondary education, access that it is comparable to that of the rest of the population.
To improve access to basic education, it is first necessary to give schools and communities adequate funding so they can acquire the staff and infrastructure they need to provide appropriate services.
In addition, particular attention should be paid to tailoring teaching methods within and outside the community. To that end, educating aboriginal teachers on first nations culture and society so they can better understand their students would make it easier for students to learn, thereby contributing to a more stimulating academic environment.
Just 3% of first nations students will be able to meet the requirements to access post-secondary education. And those who do manage to overcome the barriers face a number of other factors that make going to school difficult. Some of these factors are as follows: the distance of specialized training institutions in the field of health and social services, which requires students to be away from their families, friends and communities for prolonged periods; the lack of incentives and information regarding health training available in provincial learning institutions; the difficulty related to gaining proficiency in the language of instruction; and the racism endured by aboriginals when they leave their communities.
Furthermore, given the high drop-out rate, a number of students become young adults with families of their own, who must then deal with the obligations of having a family. So not only do they need additional financial assistance, but they also need better access to family housing and daycare. Efforts are needed to tailor extracurricular activities, so these students can have a well-balanced social life, despite being far away from their families and communities.
There is considerably less money spent on recruiting and retaining health professionals, as compared with health institutions in the Quebec network. As a result, Quebec's network is without question more appealing to first nations graduates. What's more, there is little in the way of measures to support health professionals and help them integrate into the communities. Well-established mechanisms should be put in place to address that shortcoming.
In spite of the structural barriers to the development of health resources for first nations, before we wrap up, we would still like to mention a few examples of initiatives and best practices undertaken in Quebec in terms of the recruitment and retention of first nations health professionals and stakeholders.
The Université du Québec à Chicoutimi, UQAC, offers youth intervention training, as well as a program through its faculty of medicine with an aboriginal component. A number of communities have established their own cooperative initiatives with respect to specialized training for their population, such as the human resources training and development centre in Wendake and the Job Education Training Association of Kanawake.
In short, the development of health human resources for first nations is highly complex and requires the involvement of a large number of government and non-government partners in both the education and health sectors. A one size fits all approach cannot be used for all of Canada, as needs vary by region. Solutions must be tailored to the specific reality of each region. That distinction is especially clear in Quebec.
We recommend the following: that the federal government encourage and provide financial support to first nations so they can develop their own health human resources strategy on a regional scale; that, in Quebec, the federal government agree to bring its programs and policies in line with the framework set out in the First Nations Health and Social Services Blueprint for 2007 to 2017; that the federal government foster the creation of post-secondary institutions tailored to first nations, in partnership with colleges, universities and first nations authorities; that the federal government fund training, support and cultural adaptation initiatives to prevent first nations students from dropping out of school for the duration of their academic careers; that the federal government agree to increase funding so that first nations can receive education services comparable to those available to the rest of the population; and that the Aboriginal Health Human Resources Initiative be extended and that the procedural requirements be made clearer and more consistent with the regional needs of first nations.