Canadian Heritage committee  Yes, it's worth pursuing. I think it's perhaps slightly more complex than it looks on the face of it. Aboriginal students have very low grade 12 education rates, and low rates passing through secondary school and getting to universities and colleges. There's a host of reasons wh

Canadian Heritage committee  No. Well, potentially. There are 119 friendship centres, and I don't have all of the programs at the tips of my fingers. There are some, but not on campus. There are a lot of aboriginal student associations on campus, but they don't provide.... There isn't a large host of service

Canadian Heritage committee  Sure. There have been piloted projects. The Métis have done them in the past, and first nations, and other areas, where you can provide support to students going to college to help that transition that's going on. Essentially, they are coming to a city, and they need to know how

Canadian Heritage committee  The short answer is absolutely. The long answer to the question is how do we responsibly deal with the issues the country has created over 200 to 300 years of history? I think that would show a maturity in terms of us as a country dealing with the issues. I think it deals with

Canadian Heritage committee  Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres.

Canadian Heritage committee  I wouldn't attempt to speak for all the other nations in the country, by any means, but I will provide some perspective on what I think about the issue of the 150th birthday and perhaps the perspective of some aboriginal people within my organization. I believe there would be a

Canadian Heritage committee  No, we weren't really engaged within that.

Canadian Heritage committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair and distinguished members of the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage. I wish to acknowledge the traditional lands of the Algonquin Nation upon which we are meeting today. And I want to thank you and the committee for the opportunity to present to you

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

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  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  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