Yes, thank you very much, Mr. Savage.
Specifically, we've got a community services department located in our health and wellness centre. I am in one of the meeting rooms in this building, as we speak.
One of the programs we have, for example, provides some of the basics of getting a job. I'm talking about how one presents himself or herself to an employer, getting some of the basics down so that they know how to dress and they know how to maybe answer questions for the possibilities of employment. We provide some of the tools and basic knowledge.
If we are addressing poverty, that's where we've got to start. That is the one area that needs funding. We don't have enough financial support from outside governments to help sustain that, so we have to inject dollars into that process ourselves. It would certainly be nice. I suppose we're fortunate in that regard, because we'll find ways to help bolster these programs, but many other first nations I know simply cannot do that. They just do not have the resources or the moneys to create this. Those issues are essential.
When you are talking about poverty and the poorest of our poor, they have to have those means and they have to have support. Sometimes giving support is handholding in some cases with our community members. Poverty is a factor here. Some of our members are experiencing alcohol and drug abuse. So poverty in a family.... If you've got the mother or father, or in some cases both parents, in that situation, what about the kids...? What is the dramatic impact they have in their everyday functions? Getting up in the morning, having a lunch packed so they can go to school, going to school...what if that particular child needs support in the schooling system, tutoring or whatever, and you have parents in that alcohol syndrome or drug abuse? That impact on the child--you know, thoughts of suicide and so forth--those are the issues.
We have that in our community. As far as our schools go--substance abuse in schools, for example--they look for what is going on in the home life and how that gets passed down to the child. There are programs in that regard for the proper counselling of the child, and for knowing when the parents have to be told there are problems with the child at school, and told that we think it's a factor of home life. We tell them they've got to work with us if they want their child to be successful. We tell them we can't do it without their help.
Those are the types of things that have to be addressed. There is an immediate need. If you miss one child and that child subsequently goes off the rails, you've got another potential family in another generation consumed by poverty. So it's an issue that has to be addressed quickly. You have to start from the basics and go from there.