Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chair, thank you very much. I think I will monopolize the first ten minutes of it. Allow me to begin with acknowledging the Algonquin Nation, who inhabited the land we are sitting on today. My name is Jeffrey Cyr. I'm the recently appointed executive director of the Nationa

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I wholeheartedly agree. The demographic trends have been shifting pretty rapidly in the last decade and a half. This isn't a trend limited to Canada; it's around the world. Migration to urban centres is an issue for all countries, and in particular it's an issue for aboriginal pe

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Absolutely. If I return to the long-term funding of the AFCP, it hasn't received any funding increase since 1996, and even the issue around 1996 was that it was cut back dramatically at that point. Essentially, it's received an ongoing deficit of the cost of living per year: 1.4%

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It's a tough question. The first part of my answer would be that the best department would be the one that's funding us properly. Let's put it like that. It doesn't matter where it's housed. If it was in the Department of Transport and funded properly, that would be different. T

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Sure. At a national level the other major program is the cultural connections for aboriginal youth, referred to as CCAY. It's run out of the Department of Heritage, as is Young Canada Works. As far as I'm aware--Conrad or Tricia can correct me--they haven't received funding inc

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Specifically, I need the committee to have very loud voices very often in advocating for friendship centres, and particularly this core aspect of funding. I also think the committee members should look at the government of the day and say that if we need a service partner, a part

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. This picks up a question earlier from Mr. Bagnell. Indeed, the reality is changing. The reality of aboriginal people in Canada is changing, and this migration shift that's been going on for decades and increasing means that more than half of all aboriginal people now are o

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think it was before my tenure as executive director. But my understanding is that the consultation with NAFC on some of these criteria changes was very limited. I think it would behove the officials to actually look at what the real situation on the ground is. The real situat

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, I'm aware that the UAS is up for renewal. I guess that the short answer is yes. Now I'll make it a little more detailed for you. The UAS has been around since 1997, first as a pilot project, then as a strategy. The friendship centres and the board of the national associat

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Sure. I tend to think of the friendship centres as a spectrum of services for aboriginal and non-aboriginal people alike. Let's start with the head start program. You're talking about childhood development learning programs and parenting programs. A lot of places will provide ch

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. It's almost solely due to the programming side.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are a lot of gaps, so I'll try to pick a couple of the key ones.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes. I'll come back to the spectrum of programs that a friendship centre provides for a person's entire life. One of the programs has to do with employment and labour training and that sort of aspect. There are some programs being run throughout the federal government on this,

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thanks. It's a great question. In the beginning part of my presentation I talked a little bit about own-source revenue and how it's a very small part, but it's an increasing part of something friendship centres do. From a strategic sense, in Red Lake a lot of that, as you point

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, and we find that a lot. We find that people associate with the friendship centre, they identify with it, it's part of their life. It's been part of mine. And if you look around you find a lot of people involved in the friendship centre movement. This isn't uncommon. It's bec