Human Resources Committee on Dec. 2nd, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Then I'd like to take a second to thank our witnesses again. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedules to be here and to talk to us about some of these pressing needs.

Do you have any final comments before we head out?

Gordon.

[Gordon Van Tighem]

Just with regard to the comment about electricity, we are in the midst of an electrical pricing review. All of the communities in the territories are subsidized down to the Yellowknife rate, which is probably ten times that of Saskatoon. They're looking at ways to change it. Our fight now is to ensure that the changes introduced don't fly in the face of more competitive rates, such as those in Fort Smith and Hay River.

The biggest challenge with any utility, as you noted in comparing your riding with here, is that we have very few people to spread the expense over, and some of these things are very expensive.

As you move on, a common theme I've heard, both in the Yukon presentation yesterday and from all of us here, concerns the invitation to consult. Involve the people you will be dealing with in your discussions, but more importantly, once you have consulted, find a way to have their comments included in the recommendations that come forward.

I flew back from Inuvik one day and got into a discussion with a young lady who had made a very interesting dietary selection on the plane. I learned that she was from Health Canada. She had spent six months among the Inuvialuit people, working on an elder home care program concerning what would work within their culture. They had put together a package involving the people from all of the Inuvialuit communities. She went back to Ottawa, made her presentation, and was advised that nationally they would be using a model based on the Hurons.

When I was flying with her on the plane, she had just gone back there to tell these people, who had spent six months coming up with something that would work in their region, that they weren't going to be able to do it and that the program they were being given was actually counter to a lot of the things they had talked about.

So if there is a way of customizing as this goes through, that would be excellent. Please keep this in mind.

Ben alluded to this a bit. We have some unsettled land claims—treaty land entitlement initiatives and self-government initiatives. Anything that could be done to move them forward more quickly... If you go into the regions that are settled and that have self-government, you will see a quantum leap in knowledge, in pride, and in the activities in the communities. Anything to motivate the last two or three that remain to be done would certainly help our activities here.

Thank you very much for coming. We look forward to seeing what your report brings.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much.

We're going to suspend now, until 10:30.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

We're going to get back now to our study of poverty. I want to thank all our witnesses once again for being here today.

We have been doing this study for the last year to a year and a half across the country, in eastern Canada, in Ontario, and of course we've come west. It was suggested that we come north, and am I ever glad that we have come north. It's been interesting to see some of the different nuances.

We realize poverty is an issue across the whole country, but it's amazing to see... Those of you who are here could have told us that and are telling us that, and we appreciate what we've been learning since we've been up here. We were in Whitehorse yesterday, we are in Yellowknife today, and we will be in Edmonton tomorrow. We were in Vancouver on Monday.

I'm going to get started.

Michelle, we're going to start with you and we'll move across the witness table. We'll hear all your testimony and then we'll have some time for questions and answers.

You have translation here. Mr. Lessard will be speaking in French, and audio translation can be selected. I will take time to ensure that you have a chance to get your headphones on before Mr. Lessard starts, when we do our questions.

I'll wave at you when you're getting close to your seven minutes. If you're not done, I'll certainly let you finish your comments. Then, once we've heard all the witnesses with their opening remarks, we'll have a chance for the MPs to ask some questions around the room and follow up what you had to say.

Once again, thank you for being here today. We look forward to hearing you.

I'm going to turn the floor over now to Michelle Gillis. You have seven minutes; the floor is all yours.

[Michelle Gillis, Executive Director, NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, did you also want me to go through the recommendations I've made or...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Most definitely. We're here specifically for recommendations. If you want to, please give us some quick background. You represent the Northwest Territories Council of Persons with Disabilities, so you may want to talk a bit about your organization, and then you can get into the recommendations.

[Michelle Gillis]

Okay. As you said, my name is Michelle Gillis. I'm the executive director of the NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities.

Ours is a non-governmental organization. It is a territorial council that serves all persons with disabilities, right across the north. At present, the majority of our funding comes from a contribution agreement through the territorial government, private foundations and grant moneys, as well as fundraising.

We have a number of programs and offer a number of services, including a 1-800 number, a parking placard system, and community outreach. Right now we're in the process of creating some new programs for our new fiscal year, which begins on April 1.

I'm new to the position as of September, but I'm a lifelong northerner. I am originally from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut.

Our organization is run by a board of directors that is representative of people throughout the NWT.

Thank you, committee members, special guests, and stakeholders, for giving me the opportunity to address your organization today on this very important matter.

The NWT Council of Persons with Disabilities has a large clientele, with many different types of disabilities, right across the north. We provide information and assistance to whomever may require it.

Our mission is to achieve self-determination and full citizenship for persons with disabilities. We do this by promoting awareness, opportunities, choices, and participation in all aspects of life in the Northwest Territories.

I'd like to begin with the words of a participant at the Feeding Change forum held in Ottawa, Ontario, in 2007, who said that the poverty of aboriginal people may be better addressed by righting inequality rather than focusing on poverty itself, which could be a symptom of inequality.

This is very much the same for persons with disabilities. At present, persons with disabilities do not receive the same opportunities as other people and are, for the most part, low income, impoverished, or a paycheque away from poverty. This is very sad. People with disabilities lack enough income to properly cover the burdens of a disability.

Increased health care costs and prescription coverage, mobility aids, adaptations to the home and workplace, as well as other essential items, in addition to their regular living expenses, make it almost unbearable. People with disabilities have so much more to worry about, and the majority face poverty because of the inequality surrounding their disability.

In terms of the right to education, work, and a livelihood, we as a country and a government are not ensuring that persons with disabilities are getting a proper education right from kindergarten. We're not allowing each person in Canada the right to education. In the north, we are very remote and lack educational resources. People have little or no access to public spaces and institutions. We're setting up our people for failure later on.

How do we as Canadians expect people to look after themselves when we do not even give them the opportunity to educate themselves and become self-sufficient? We need to encourage our government to ensure that all persons have the right to education, the right to live and play in all areas, and to grow and flourish.

Children with disabilities often require a higher level of care, which can create increased stress for a family and can mean families must sacrifice school and work opportunities to provide the necessary level of caregiving. Parents who cannot work or go to school because of the extra demands of having a child with a disability may be more likely to experience poverty, which can affect the health and well-being of their children and themselves, as well as threaten the stability of the family unit.

Providing proper support to parents who have children with disabilities can increase the strength and capacity of families, decrease burnout, and allow other family members to access employment and educational opportunities. All of these things are essential in breaking the cycle of poverty for a family.

The other issue, which is a very important one, is the issue of the working poor. This relates to those who do have a good job, but because of the extreme cost of their own or their family member's disability, in addition to the high cost of living, are actually below the poverty line. This also makes them ineligible for social programs, as the government usually only considers income levels and not the circumstances or the related expenses.

So perhaps a review of government program eligibility criteria is a good idea.

Poverty often creates secondary disabilities in addition to the primary one. For example, an individual cannot work because of a primary disability and cannot afford groceries. He becomes malnourished and develops a whole host of secondary disabilities.

People need to adjust their perceptions, as well as provide opportunities for persons with disabilities. Persons with disabilities are shut out of everyday opportunities because people are looking at their disabilities instead of their abilities.

When people do not access these vital tools, they become welfare recipients. Even worse, they may end up homeless, in jail, or even, sadly, dead. When persons with disabilities end up living off social assistance, they already have higher expenses to account for, but they are not always given the opportunity to find their niche.

It is assumed, due to ignorance, that because individuals have disabilities, they have nothing to contribute. Our clients end up barely getting by and being hungry because their system has failed them and hasn't trained them for the normal workforce.

Everyone has something to contribute. We just have to change the way we think and provide these opportunities to everyone regardless of disabilities. Let's not discriminate; let's amend our present workforce to account for these part-time positions or adapted positions to help employ disabled persons.

On affordable and accessible housing, all across the country people are in poverty because of the national housing crisis. The worst housing conditions are within aboriginal communities. The lack of affordable and accessible housing is a reality for people with disabilities. If people are lucky enough to gain housing, it is often substandard housing that they have to accept and there are no alternatives.

Often low-income housing is used for persons with disabilities and not properly adapted for them. Housing without proper adaptations can cause accidents or death among the disabled. People often don't leave their homes because of worry about falling or injury. They often don't bathe as much as they would like because of unsuitable washroom facilities, and they are more prone to infection because of this.

Because of the small number of homes that are available, people most often live with other family members in order to make do. Often the disabled are then taken advantage of and even sometimes abused.

When there is overcrowding and hidden homelessness in the north, you have sexual abuse, incest, and other violent situations. This is no different for people with disabilities, as they are often fragile or in a vulnerable state. We owe our communities the opportunity to have adapted housing but also, for the privacy of individuals, the right to independent living.

On affordable food and necessities, at present the cost of food is a huge problem for people in the north. The federal government has implemented programs to help assist with this cost. However, the savings are not being passed on to the customers in many different communities. Suppliers or retail outlets often take advantage of these savings, and at present they are not mandated to pass these savings on to the consumer. Individuals who are low-income and/or on welfare are the people who need to get the lowest prices. However, not having luxuries like credit cards makes it impossible for people to take part in these programs.

Essentially, the people who need this program the most don't benefit at all. Persons with disabilities have extra cost burdens, in addition to food and shelter. Factor in medical costs and prescription drugs and this makes it impossible for someone to survive from day to day. This is the very reason why there is malnutrition. In each community across the north, access to food banks has increased and more and more people are fighting to get food on the table each and every day.

In summary, how do we break this cycle? It is simple. Ensure that persons with disabilities are treated equally and have the same rights and freedoms as each and every other Canadian. In this way they can make lives for themselves so that they can teach their children to contribute to society.

Let's make training and employment opportunities for persons with disabilities. We also need core funding for vital social programs, like the Council of Persons with Disabilities. Let's adapt our buildings, schools, and public spaces so that all persons can take part in daily activities. But let's also adapt the way we think as a society.

People are often discriminated against or not supported simply due to ignorance. This will ensure that people learn, work, and apply themselves. It will also ensure that those persons who absolutely need social programs are able to access them. Let's help people help themselves.

Just because someone is disabled does not mean he or she is not capable; all persons have abilities. This will not eliminate poverty, but it will help reduce it. We must start somewhere.

If I could, I'll go through the recommendations, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Sure, but be quick.

[Michelle Gillis]

The recommendations are: provide educational resources for home schooling; provide adaptations to the classroom when required; make all public spaces accessible for daily living; provide proper instruction for those who are disabled; provide more accessible and affordable housing; provide funding to adapt washrooms and living spaces to accommodate the disabled; make changes to the current welfare system so that it is a work-to-earn system in whatever form people can provide assistance to society—it may not be your typical understanding of what work might entail; have the government verify, through a complete audit, that persons on welfare actually deserve it and are in need of it—this will free up money for those who actually need social assistance; a thorough review of the territorial supplementary health benefits and national non-insured health benefits system; ensure that those benefits are actually helping those whom it is designed for—this also means a complete review of the approved medication list for NIHB.

To continue with the recommendations: more shelters need to be created in the north, as very few exist and there is overcrowding; a thorough action plan needs to be designed to help abolish poverty, and let's look at what other northern regions have done and create something for the NWT; support services are required for families who have children with disabilities, such as respite care, community level supports, and day care that accepts children with disabilities; there should be a complete review of government-subsidized programs for persons with an income who are ineligible for assistance but in dire need of it

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for allowing me to make this presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Gillis.

We're now going to move to Arlene Hache from the Yellowknife Women's Society.

[Arlene Hache, Executive Director, Centre for Northern Families, Yellowknife Women's Society]

Thank you very much for allowing me to participate in this panel.

I want to begin by describing who I am and who I work with. I came to Yellowknife in 1974. I was hitchhiking and homeless and I came to Yellowknife, basically trying to escape violence and incest in my own home, and I ended up in a great place called the north.

As I became more a part of the community and recovered from all the trauma related to living that kind of life, I worked with my peers and my friends and we established a centre that was designed to support other people in the very same living conditions and to support families who were struggling.

I want to explain a little bit about who we are so you have a picture of that, and it doesn't focus on statistics. The Centre for Northern Families is celebrating our 20th year this year. Over the past three years, 3,500 families have come to the centre each year to access a broad range of programs that are supportive. The majority of participants who come to the centre are aboriginal--50% are Inuit, 30% are first nations, and 5% are Métis. About 10% are immigrants and new Canadians and members of visible minorities.

The women who come to the centre create a collage of personalities that reveal strength, courage, compassion, and humour. They're very committed to their families. They have a keen sense of community within particular cultural contexts. It's different for not just every nation, but actually for every community.

They have a strong spiritual base, and it reflects an underlying sense of interconnectedness and responsibility for each other and caring for each other. The women and the families who come to the centre are actually pretty incredible people who are often cast in a different light. Most of the women are marginalized, and they struggle with a whole range of challenges, including making the difficult transition from small communities to an urban place and making the transition from another country to Canada or to Yellowknife.

Many of the women and families suffer the impact of trauma related to colonization and ongoing oppression around racism, systemic discrimination, and family and community violence. Some of the impact of that trauma shows up in addictions, psychiatric illnesses, family breakdown, poverty, illiteracy, and homelessness. The intergenerational result of residential school systems have also impacted family dynamics, particularly as it relates to gender relationships and parenting styles.

Generally, women who come to the centre are unlikely or unable to access other community resources, particularly if they have really rigid expectations or eligibility requirements, or if they have consequences for not functioning in a way people expect them to, or if they have consequences for not functioning in a way that is acceptable to those services.

I want to focus in just a little bit, because part of the work we do at the centre is to run an emergency shelter. When I first came to Yellowknife I stayed in an emergency shelter, so that particular group of women are really closest to my heart. Women living in the emergency shelter and in transitional housing tend to be at the more extreme ends of trauma. They range in age from 18 to 67 years old, and four of them are elders who essentially live there. Many of them have lived there for many years. One of them actually was on the radio yesterday talking about having been at the centre for six years.

Most of the women have partners and children, but they're not living with them. Many of the children have been apprehended by child welfare systems. Most of the women suffer from some type of mental illness, including post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal ideation, and clinical depression. Four of the residents regularly experience auditory and visual hallucinations. The majority of residents use substances, including alcohol, street drugs, prescription medication, and hair spray. Several are chronically addicted.

Women are sometimes directly discharged from the hospital to the centre, and they flip back and forth between services. Other women are not admitted at all to the hospital or psychiatric treatment centres. In fact, one of the women wasn't even admitted to a correctional centre. She was sent south, far from her home, because they said they can't accommodate her in the north.

Most of the women experience male-to-female and peer and street violence every day, and there are high levels of same-gender sexual assaults. Many of the women have partners, most of whom are violent, homeless themselves, or incarcerated.

Many of the women have resorted to violence to protect themselves, or they have become perpetrators of violence. Some are involved in criminal activity, including selling drugs, prostitution, petty theft, and vandalism. Several women have been incarcerated for crimes of violence against their partners.

Generally the women have experienced extreme levels of oppression from birth and therefore have not developed a strong internalized sense of self-determination. They have low literacy skills in English, which are necessary to work in the wage economy, and they have minimal financial resources, which leave them few options for economic independence.

They often are not eligible for subsidized housing units or income security benefits. Most of the women have children, but they have lost custody, though most children see their mothers through the centre.

There was a pan-territorial study on women's homelessness that covered the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and the Yukon, and you might be interested in the outcomes of that.

Part of the outcomes indicated that every woman who was homeless—and there were a significant number—was in a state of overwhelming stress. They weren't only homeless, they had a whole range of challenges they were trying to address. Most had addiction problems. Almost all of them had unsatisfactory and complicated or conflicted relationships with income support, child welfare, legal aid, housing authorities, and landlords.

Most of them had chronic symptoms of trauma that were related to short- and long-term memory loss, the inability to retain information, and difficulty following instructions or understanding a step-by-step approach--those kinds of challenges prevented them from accessing welfare--or they were deemed to be obstructionist or not participating, or a whole bunch of negative terms like that. Most of them were disassociating. They were hypervigilant. They suffered huge grief reactions and long-term physical problems.

With the odd exception, people coming into Yellowknife are from smaller communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. A large number of them are Inuit from Nunavut. Homeless women themselves estimate that there are between 300 and 500 homeless women in Yellowknife alone. If you look closely at the housing situation in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, there are families who are grouped en masse into housing units, which has created some of the problems my colleague referred to around family violence and incest.

Homeless women have developed a broad range of coping skills; some of them are great and some are not so great. The most prominent need expressed by homeless women was to have somebody on their side. They don't often feel as if they have that. They feel very alone, and they feel targeted by society as bad women.

A major hurdle for service providers is the women's lack of understanding about the long-term effects of trauma, neglect, violence, poverty, addictions, brain damage, and degradation. Without a thorough appreciation of these factors, they can't get the types of assistance and services they need. Training information, core funding for support services, and resources to secure the safety of women are needed.

There are two clear things you might want to know about. One is the fact that in the Northwest Territories most of the housing is owned by the Government of the Northwest Territories, the NWT Housing Corporation. Women or families living in communities outside of Yellowknife don't have access to market housing; it's all owned by the government.

The governments of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are exempt from expectations you would expect of normal landlords. For example, every time you rent an apartment in Yellowknife, your lease continues on forever. A landlord can't just up and boot you out just because they would like to. In the Northwest Territories, housing authorities and housing associations are exempt from that, and most of the housing authorities are entering into three-month leases with families to determine if they're good families or bad families. Once the housing authority makes that determination, they can oust you just because they've ended the lease. The only option for people to fight back and say, “I need a place” or “There's no reason to boot me out” is to go to the NWT Supreme Court.

It's very challenging for anybody to go into the Supreme Court to defend your right to have a home. The last time I was in the NWT Supreme Court there were 17 people from a small community who were being evicted. Not one of those people showed up, of course, because they don't even know what that is, and then to show up is pretty challenging.

Just as an observer in the court, I stood up and said, “I have no standing, but I'm worried because not one of these 17 families showed up to say, 'Don't boot me out of my home'.” And the judge said, “You're right, you have no standing, so sit down--but I'm worried too.”

There is a real challenge around housing in the Northwest Territories.

One of the big recommendations we're looking for is a national housing strategy that has a gender lens applied to it and has special considerations for looking at the north and the housing situation in the north, which is primarily controlled by the government.

The other thing you might be interested in is that this Thanksgiving we got a picture of a turkey in Arctic Bay. It cost $200 to have a turkey for Thanksgiving. The milk cost $13 for three litres. The price was dropped on the turkey when CBC phoned the store and said, “What's that all about?” All of a sudden the turkey cost $90.

So there's a huge challenge around food in the north. There's more of a freight allowance or freight subsidy for junk food and for alcohol and lots of other things than for food. Issues around nutrition/malnutrition are really critical in the north.

There's also an assumption that traditional food or the hunting lifestyle is going to sustain families, but that's really changed over the years. Not only has it changed because families have changed, but the animal patterns have changed, the caribou patterns have changed. We're really concerned about the perception that people rely a lot on traditional food or wildlife to supplement their food.

The other thing you might want to know is that the housing authorities, for example, charge $5,000 in Paulatuk for a shack with the wind blowing through it. That's $5,000 a month rent that they're charging families, and then they say they're subsidizing it. If you ever hear the government's position that in the Northwest Territories we have the best benefits in the world, it's because they're relying on that rent to say they are subsidizing northerners to a huge degree. The fact is the rent is based on how much the housing authorities or housing associations have in terms of what they need to operate. A housing authority can say they need so much money to operate, and they'll divide the cost of the units in the community, and that's how they come up with the rent. So it's really interesting, because community people don't actually get to say how much it costs to run that organization; they just get to pay for it.

The other thing you might be interested in knowing is that in Yellowknife--I can get a schedule of all of the fees--people on welfare get $5 a day for each child to feed their children. Each child or each person gets $5 a day to eat. That's pretty astounding when you're looking at a $200 turkey, I can tell you that. If anyone wants more details on exactly that challenge, I have those available. I just didn't want to get too much into statistics.

The final thing I would say is that I've been here for 34 years, and I've been working at the community level for 25 of those years. I've been through the changes around welfare, the welfare reform, when it began years ago. The first round of social reform or welfare reform had a devastating effect on northerners, who I believe entered a really inhumane period when the CAP disappeared. I saw it. I saw children who were malnourished, with their bones sticking through their skin. It was horrific to me to watch. I saw a change in the attitude around people who provided the service. Before, when CAP was there, people actually appeared to care. You could get some resolution to the fact that people should be treated humanely. After CAP disappeared, so did the compassion. It was like it came to a grinding halt. So some kind of framework around income security is really necessary.

I believe the federal government can't abrogate its responsibilities around housing and welfare by passing it on to the provinces and territories. The really critical thing that you need to understand here too is that in the territories there's a different relationship, especially for Inuit, first nations, and Métis people. They are at a disadvantage here because of the public government.

I'll give you another example. Fifty per cent of the children in care in Canada are aboriginal. In the Northwest Territories, 95% of the children in care are aboriginal. In the provinces, bands and first nations communities have band representatives who can go to court and say, “We have a stake in what happens to that child, so we're here to represent that child because they are a band member.” In the Northwest Territories there's no such thing. Every time federal money is announced for first nations, in particular, they forget there's a total northern population that they've left out of the equation. So it would be great to have a real look at the inequities around what's being experienced by first nations, Inuit, and Métis in the south, and what is happening in the north too.

I'll leave it at that and then answer any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Arlene. You've given us lots to think about.

We'll move to Ms. Jean McKendry.

Thank you for being here today, Jean. You have the floor for seven minutes.

[Jean McKendry, Individual Presentation]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of this committee. My name is Jean McKendry. I'm an academic librarian at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, in Surrey, British Columbia. It is pure serendipity that I am here today, and thank you for letting me speak.

I'm visiting Yellowknife for 10 days to do legal anthropology archival research at the courthouse in Yellowknife and at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre, but my doctoral research at the University of British Columbia is about homelessness. When I was listening to the CBC Radio this morning, I heard about this committee and decided that I would stop in on my way to work.

I can't speak at all about the poverty issues in the north, but I'm aware of homelessness in other areas of Canada. My doctoral research at the University of British Columbia in the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies is what to do for homeless men in public libraries from an architectural point of view. In my doctoral research I've learned that homelessness costs Canadian taxpayers about $6 billion per year. I've also determined that about 0.5% of every community in Canada is homeless.

There are three stages of homelessness. First of all, there are the hidden homeless, and they don't want anyone to know they're homeless. They can survive for about six months. They do not go near the shelters or other homeless people because they are so stigmatized that their life is at this crisis. After about six months, these people will move towards availing themselves of the services at the shelters.

In my community in Surrey, British Columbia, most of the shelter beds are now occupied by the working poor. They get up in the morning and they go to work, but they don't have enough income to support themselves and their food and daily living costs and housing, so they live in the shelters. But after about two years of living in shelters, a lot of the people become the absolute homeless, and they're the people who we see on the streets pushing the shopping carts. They don't live in shelters. In Vancouver they're lucky because the temperature is warm enough that they can live outdoors most of the year.

In my community, in South Surrey and White Rock, I am one of the people who sit on the community board that looks into the issues of homelessness and housing in South Surrey. A lot of people are amazed that there are even homeless people in our community, but 0.5% of every community are homeless people. So in my community, in White Rock, British Columbia, I determine that there are about 100 people who are homeless, even though there are only about three people visually on the street who are absolutely homeless. We have to take into account all of the homeless, not just the visibly homeless.

After about two years of living in shelters, the absolute homeless stop using these services because they realize that there is no housing strategy and they aren't going to get housing, and they give up. And most absolute homeless people do not celebrate their fiftieth birthday. They die. And they have nowhere to die. They die on the street or in the parks or along a roadway. The number of homeless people who are dying in Vancouver is more than the average for the mortality of that age of the population. That's a separate issue.

What I also know is there's a disproportionate number of aboriginal people who are homeless all across Canada. Four per cent of the Canadian population is aboriginal, approximately, 4% to 6%, but more than 25% of the homeless are aboriginal. I kept asking myself why is this so disproportionate, and I kept looking for reasons why.

What I have determined is that there is a problem with the matrimonial property rights on reserves in Canada. I realize in the north the Inuit people do not live on reserves, but here's what happens on reserves in Canada. There is a certificate of possession that has to be signed from the band office for anyone who lives in housing on the reserve. One signature goes onto that certificate of possession, and if a marriage breaks down, which is more common than off reserve, it is usually the mum and the children who leave the matrimonial home. The matrimonial home goes to the person whose name is on the certificate of possession, and the family members who are not on the certificate of possession are often evicted from the reserve and they leave the reserve with no child support, no equal division of property. There is nothing for them, and they are the next generation of homeless children. They go with their mums, and in the Lower Mainland, they end up on the downtown east side of Vancouver. Those are the aboriginal mums who end up as prostitutes. Those are the mums who ended up, a lot of them, the victims of the Pickton fiasco we had in Vancouver. I know this sounds a little bit embellished, but it's not.

The Indian Act also has a clause in it that says wages cannot be garnisheed, which means children don't get child support. So there is a mum, probably with no high school graduation, who is trying to look after maybe up to three children, and she is under age 21 in Vancouver trying to survive. It's a really tough life. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Nobody wants to be homeless.

Here's how this ties into my research. Literacy is fundamental for Canadian society to function. Being illiterate is a severe handicap, but it can be overcome. When I talk to people about my research, I don't tell them I am working on homelessness because it is so stigmatized. I just tell them I am working on a public health crisis, and that's what I believe homelessness is in Canada.

What has literacy to do with poverty and homelessness? I think it has lots to do with it. For example, without an address you can't get a library card at most public libraries in Canada. It's a fact that children who use public libraries do better in school and have a better chance of succeeding because they are literate. Public libraries in Canada are trying to be more inclusive and welcoming to the at-risk people in our communities, especially aboriginal children and families. But many communities in Canada do not issue library cards to families who live on reserves. This is true in my own community. The Fraser Valley regional library system, which serves from the Fraser River on the south side all the way up to Boston Bar, will not issue a public library card to a family that lives on a reserve because they don't pay property taxes. I think this is discrimination; if you can't pay property taxes, that shouldn't stop you from being eligible for a public library card.

To wrap this up, I would like to encourage everyone to encourage the Honourable Chuck Strahl, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians in Canada, to please pass Bill C-8, the family homes reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act. It has only had first reading, and that was last February. If that bill were passed, aboriginal women and children in Canada would have more opportunities to be independent and we would give them the same matrimonial property rights that the rest of Canada has enjoyed since the Divorce Act was enacted in 1968.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Jean, thank you very much for your testimony.

We're now going to move over to Shirley Tsetta.

Shirley, welcome here today. The floor is yours.

[Shirley Tsetta, Individual Presentation]

Thank you.

I'm originally from Ndilo, here in Yellowknife, born and raised. I'm here as a private citizen. I'm not here on behalf of my first nations. I am actually here to listen to Kate Wilson. I'm a social work student and Kate is my supervisor. I'm doing my practicum under her for today and then I go back to the homeless shelter at Alison McAteer House. As a student and as a first nations member of the Northwest Territories, I do see a lot of social issues in regard to first nations aboriginal people.

I want to talk a little bit about housing and the problems we see in our community.

In my community, in particular, and also in the surrounding Northwest Territories communities, we have a lot of problems with people not being eligible to move into social housing because of the criteria that's set. One of the eligibilities in order to get into social housing is based on income. A lot of the smaller communities don't have economic development or a lot of jobs. They would be eligible to move into social housing and they would get subsidized to live in social housing, but they won't be eligible to become homeowners. To be a homeowner, you would have to meet a certain wage level. So these people end up in social housing.

If they ever do get into a job, there's a level that's set by GNWT on how much rent would be assessed. I think it's 25% of the income that is taken for rent. A lot of the people can't afford that. They end up being in social housing, getting a job, and then getting their rent assessed at 25%. With the high cost of living in the remote communities, they end up having to leave their job just so they could stay in a subsidized unit. So that's a huge problem.

Also, if they were needing to get income support to help, they have to not be working. If they are working, then their income support gets taken away. The incentive now is to stay jobless or unemployed, because then you are eligible for subsidy and for income support. There's not a lot of incentive to go and work, especially because these people are not eligible to become homeowners. That's a huge problem in the communities. I think when Canada is giving money for housing in the Northwest Territories, it's based on a per capita basis. That doesn't work because of the high level of need in the Northwest Territories.

I just want to move over to education. We have a huge problem in the Northwest Territories with graduation rates. Although it shows there are a lot of graduates coming out of our schools in the Northwest Territories, because of that there is this thing called “certification of completion”. These students go through the grades and they can come out at the end of grade 12 with a certification of completion, but that is really just a social pass. It's not an actual diploma, a completion of a grade 12 diploma. Now, these students are not actually grade 12 students. If they want to move on to college or university, they are not eligible because they don't have that level of education.

Then they need to take what is called I think the university access program, and they need to upgrade in order to get into the program. The GNWT has put a cap on post-secondary funding--I think it's six years--so now these students who come out of grade 12 and who need to get into university are going to tie up their funding for the first year or the first two years just trying to get access into that program. So there's going to be a problem if that cap continues to stay in place.

The other issue I wanted to talk a little about was transportation into the communities. I think a feasibility study needs to be done to look at alternative ways to provide transportation into the communities. One of the alternatives I'm thinking of is the railway system instead of the actual highway system. If you go into the communities with the highways, then you're going to increase traffic and you're going to be bringing more vehicles into the north and more gas stations into the north. With our delicate ecosystem in the Northwest Territories, I don't know how long we could sustain that level of impact from vehicles and from gas emissions, so I would strongly encourage an alternative mode of transportation into the north, one possibility being the railway.

Homelessness in Yellowknife is a huge issue because of the people not being eligible to become homeowners. I think they need to teach these young kids who are in high school how to budget, and they're not teaching that right now. Maybe that can become part of the curriculum of high school.

I come from a generation in which my mom and dad never spoke English. They were hunters and trappers. My dad had a dog team, and I still have a lot of pictures of them. Both my parents are gone now. But just from their generation to my generation is a huge leap. My kids are getting into the wage economy, and that's their generation, but there's a huge push from our first nations to continue to keep our kids tied to the land and to the traditional way of life and their culture.

Even though there is a high demand for the wage economy to go up into the communities, I don't want to impose anything on them that they don't already want for themselves. So if I'm making any recommendations that the wage economy has to go up in the community, I don't want that to be an imposition on them. I think they need to know that if the issue is that wages need to go up, then they need to determine that for themselves.

The wage economy is something that's just in my generation and my kids' generation. Before that, my parents were part of the traditional economy. Although that era of traditional economy is dying out, I think there's still a great need in our first nations to continue that way of life for our first nations people.

I think there's a great need for our first nations to be able to deal with their social problems. There are a lot of alcohol and drug problems in the communities, and we have one treatment centre in the Northwest Territories, in Hay River. We do have some counselling services here in the Northwest Territories, but if you want to take a 28-day program, you would have to go to Hay River or even outside of the Northwest Territories, further south.

Because of the high level of addiction problems in the Northwest Territories, I think more treatment centres are called for up here.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Shirley.

We're going to start with Mr. Savage, for seven minutes.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you all very much. Those were very interesting presentations, and we very much appreciate you taking the time to come.

My name is Mike Savage and I'm from Nova Scotia.

One of the key things that I think we need to nail down in our report is to take on the idea that some people still have, that as an economy grows, everybody benefits, that the best thing for the economy is that there is wealth generated. But we've found in Canada generally that even when times are good there's still poverty, and in some cases, poverty actually rises. It may be particularly true in Yellowknife, more than anywhere else in the country.

I'm looking at the average median annual after tax income of the five cities we're visiting this week. For private households, the average after tax income in Vancouver is $48,500; in Whitehorse, it's $58,000; in Edmonton, it's $54,000; in Winnipeg, it's $44,000; and in Yellowknife, it's $84,000. The GDP in the Northwest Territories rose 55% from 2001 to 2006, so there has been wealth generated, but it hasn't done anything to alleviate poverty. Food bank use is going up and the demand for shelters is going up, so I'm going to assume, unless somebody tells me otherwise, that you do, first of all, believe there is a huge role for government to play. In terms of direct income support, housing support, health support, community support, and support for education, direct government involvement is going to be necessary if we're going to alleviate poverty.

Does anybody disagree with me on that? I'd like a brief comment, if you could.

[Michelle Gillis]

I agree entirely with what you're saying. I'm new to the Council of Persons with Disabilities, but for 10 years I worked as mayor in one of the northern communities and lived my life in Nunavut and NWT.

One of the things I touched on was the working poor. It includes those persons with disabilities who are struggling to get by, who are often the first families to enter a shelter. There is hidden homelessness in the north, because many northern communities don't have shelters. We're lucky here in Yellowknife to be able to have a shelter. A new building actually just opened the other day, a day service, to compensate the Salvation Army and other locations.

But oftentimes the working poor are struggling to get by with the increased cost of fuel and utilities. You see the commercial from time to time with the roof coming off the house. You're always deciding whether you're going to be paying for your rent or paying for your food. She is deciding between a can of coffee and the rent. That is very true for people in the north. You're struggling to decide whether you're going to lose your house and move in with another family and risk incest, abuse, and other social problems. So you're always deciding what you can afford, because you can't afford everything.

They have income, but because rent is going up--there is no cap on rent in the private market--those people who are trying to escape social housing, who are trying to provide a life for themselves, who are trying to use their life skills to budget and to be able to create livelihoods, are working, but they're barely getting by. They're barely able to cover basic expenses. As soon as you add into that prescription medication and everything else, people don't have enough to survive.

Income levels are quite low. You try to use resources such as income support to compensate, but if you do have income coming in, you do not get income support. It's simply deducted from your income support. Oftentimes I think there is a higher number of working poor who are struggling to get by.

In terms of the issue with fuel--

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I just have a point on that. When the minimum wage is $8.25 per hour, and the average income is $85,000 for households, that's a huge gap between the lowest and the highest. With the higher cost of everything up here, and in your case the added burden for the people your association is dealing with--persons with disabilities--I don't know how you could possibly, conceivably, live in your own place.

[Michelle Gillis]

With positions opening up, let's say, in resource development and mining, so many families are coming in from the south, because they want to take part in the mining industry or otherwise. With the housing crisis the way it is right now, with the very limited rental units available, they're taking up these valuable housing units that become available, so landlords are increasing rents and maximizing.

There is no cap on what rents can be in the north. So rather than going to the rental market, you go to social housing. Unlike first nations reserves in southern provinces, where the band council can design the bylaws and decide the legislation, here we have GNWT rather than the Inuit and first nations telling us what low-cost social housing is going to be.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Could I get to two points? We have a limited bit of time and I want to get at this issue.

Arlene mentioned that it's actually worse that the government controls the housing than it would be if it were private. Arlene, you were saying that. They're not subject to the same sorts of rent controls and conditions.

[Michelle Gillis]

I'll let her answer, but I agree, yes.

[Arlene Hache]

There are a couple of things that are really interesting about the north. One is that all the benefits from diamonds and all the economic activity in the north actually go to Ottawa first. Not only is the federal government responsible for setting the tone in terms of how Canadians are sort of equally treated related to resources, but I think in the Northwest Territories it's extra harsh, because none of that actually stays in the territories. It goes to Ottawa first. They decide what we get and what we don't get, actually.

It is interesting to me, because there was a lot of concern about the diamond mining and the oil and gas development and what the impact would be on the communities in terms of a lot of social disarray and all that kind of stuff. What I found really interesting was that people in the communities, lots of people, got jobs in the diamond mining and oil and gas industries. It created a certain level of pride. They went out and bought tons of stuff. In fact, in one small community I don't think there was one house that didn't have a few Ford trucks--those big Ford trucks. It was kind of interesting to watch how a whole community went from income support to Ford trucks within months. But now, three years later, they have to pay all that back. Now what we're having is whole communities, or lots of people in communities, owing money to what I call loan sharks.

In fact, we had an interesting court case the other day. The loan sharks, as I call them, went to court and said they wanted to take all these families' belongings, because they owed them money. The court didn't agree, because they had been charging illegal rates in the Northwest Territories.

It was just interesting to see how that influx of money really had a devastating impact three years down the road.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

I just want to get, specifically, to some recommendations.

Michelle, on persons with disabilities, one thing you mentioned was support for the Council of Canadians with Disabilities and the Association for Community Living. You'd want them both to be supported by government more strongly.

[Michelle Gillis]

Yes, both should be supported by government. Right now our organization does not have core funding. You'll find that both Nunavut and NWT do not actually have funded departments to deal with persons with disabilities. Currently the portfolio lies with health and social services. However, we don't have assigned core funding, whereas you'll find in the Government of Yukon they actually have a department of diversity.