Status of Women committee  We're not scared of embarrassing government. We're not scared of the ramifications. We're an organization that believes in our kids. When we first started our housing, we started with one home, and it was for young indigenous women who were involved in the sex trade. We now have a total of 15 homes.

Status of Women committee  I think social investment also can be really good, but again here my honesty is going to bite me in the butt. There are some really good community-based organizations out there, but there are also some really bad ones. We call them “pamphlet programs”. They come out with a piece of paper and tell you the wonderful things going on in our community, but they do nothing for the people.

Status of Women committee  Again, from the social impact bond, we've created external longer-term housing for these young moms. Keeping them together and dealing with all of that crap is.... I have this statistic in my head and I have to spit it out. Then I can refocus. Putting an infant in a group home now costs $600 a day.

Status of Women committee  It's like my fish story I used on some people some time ago. Use fish; don't use dead bodies. My point in this whole thing is that we have to start looking upstream at the reason, It's like everything. It's like the sixties scoop and the residential schools if we keep doing the same thing.

Status of Women committee  If you look at indigenous women—and again, I've worked with them for 25 years—you see they have always been kind of the anchor in the home. They've been the provider. They have made sure they kept the family unit together. If you look at young women and that whole of flow of where we start, you see we often start at birth when we take their children away.

Status of Women committee  Communities are different. Wherever we go, communities are different. I hear lots of, “Well, we're indigenous-friendly” or we're this-friendly or we're that-friendly. Even with indigenous communities, elders have different ways of doing things. Everybody has different ways of doing things, and the people receiving the service have different ways of doing things, but we need to be asking the kids or the people in those communities.

Status of Women committee  I believe the social impact bond was more than just a social investment. It was an investment in people, and it mobilized our community. It brought together federal and provincial.... It brought together community, and it continues to answer that whole need. Our biggest challenge was fighting the bureaucracy.

Status of Women committee  With my 25 years' experience, I honestly believe that governments, for years and years and years, just keep doing the same thing, keep doing a lot of the same things over again in looking at social issues. It's not just provincial; it's federal also. They are often scared to ask the tough questions.

Status of Women committee  Thank you. Like you, I also have many questions on the investment in indigenous women in our correctional institutions, and actually poverty as a whole. Historically with government, there's no problem investing in highways, infrastructure, health care, or social services, but no one really wants to talk about investing in our most vulnerable population.

Human Resources committee  I can tell you that with our Sweet Dreams program, as well as all of our residential programs, we have three elders on staff to assist our clients with their needs. The majority of our clients are first nations or Métis, so it's important for them to have that culture. What I really like about it is that when I talk about first nations, Métis, aboriginal people being a big industry, it was actually an elder who brought that up while she was advocating for a youth in court.

Human Resources committee  We have a number of different homes. We have a baby steps home that has two bedrooms. If we have a mother and her children in care, they can move into the same house and they provide the care while being supervised by staff. Sweet Dreams to me is a lot different. It is is for mothers who have taken their children out of care and need that extra opportunity.

Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  Yes, that's one of them.

Human Resources committee  On our social impact bond, we didn't have the intermediary. It was a one-million-dollar bond so we didn't have an intermediary. Deloitte will be doing the independent audit of the program. That's it, unless you would like me to expand further on that. That's what we did. It was very respectful.

Human Resources committee  I just want to quickly go over the myths of program delivery. We will take the easiest clients to make the program successful. I want to say that's false. Every client entering the Sweet Dreams program completes a motivational interview to look at risk factors, such as violence, addiction, and mental health.