Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to participate in this session.
I'm Paulette Tremblay. I'm the chief executive officer of the National Aboriginal Health Organization. NAHO is an aboriginal-designed and -controlled body committed to influencing and advancing the health and well-being of aboriginal peoples by carrying out knowledge-based strategies.
I'd like to start by saying that according to the 2006 census, there are 1.1 million first nations, Inuit, and Métis people in Canada, which accounts for 4% of the Canadian population. It's the fastest-growing segment of the population, at nearly six times faster than the 8% increase for the non-aboriginal population in Canada.
Some 54% of aboriginal people live in urban areas, and 48% of the aboriginal population consists of children and youth aged 24 and under, compared with 31% of the non-aboriginal population. The median age—which is really important, because this is the halfway point—shows 50% of the Inuit population as 22 years old and under, and it is 25 years old for first nations and 30 for Métis, compared with 40 years old for the non-aboriginal population.
I'm stating these stats to show that the greatest need for improved health care services exists for the aboriginal population in Canada.
In 2004, at the first ministers meeting, $100 million was committed over a five-year period towards the aboriginal health human resources initiative. The goals of the initiative were to increase the number of aboriginal people working in health careers, improve the retention of health care workers in aboriginal communities, and adapt current health care educational curricula to improve cultural competence in health care providers.
With respect to access to care and wait times, there's no longitudinal data to show whether overall access to primary care and wait times have improved. There is a trend towards more community-based health programming in first nations and Inuit communities, but these programs represent a different type of service and are not equivalent to primary acute care services.
With respect to more aboriginal health human resources, again at this time we do not have a mechanism to track it. However, what we did was make an internal analysis. The information is sorely lacking at this time with respect to numbers, but we went back to the old data from the 1996 and 2001 censuses to see, if we could begin with a preliminary perspective, a glimpse of what the numbers are for aboriginal peoples involved in health care.
With that analysis, between 1996 and 2001 the count of aboriginal people in health care positions grew by more than 5,000 placements. The largest increase in the number of aboriginal health care providers appears to be among the Métis. In Ontario, the number of on-reserve aboriginal health care providers has increased to 90% from 78%, and the number of aboriginal physicians, dentists, and veterinarians has nearly doubled from 145 to 280. The number of aboriginal optometrists, chiropractors, and other diagnosing professionals increased from 40 to 80. The number of aboriginal pharmacists, dieticians, and nutritionists has tripled from 60 to 200 on reserve and quadrupled from 40 to 160 off reserve. And the number of aboriginal registered nurses in Canada has increased to 915 jobs.
This is a beginning, a preliminary look or glimpse; nonetheless, these figures are an indication that the numbers are increasing. However, we look forward to working with Health Canada and our other partners on our next analysis, which will include the 2006 census data and which will give us more of a trend. But there is an obvious need for more information and more analysis.
Continuing on the subject of aboriginal health human resources, NAHO, with the support of its partners and guidance of the Canadian Institute for Health Information and Dr. Gail Tomblin Murphy, one of the foremost authorities on health human resource planning, has taken the lead on the creation of a minimum data set that will be used to support needs-based health human resource planning for first nations, Inuit, and Métis communities.
Progress on finalizing the minimum data set for the aboriginal health human resources initiative has been slow. There are complexities surrounding the development of indicators and measures that are relevant to first nations, Inuit, and Métis and access to high-quality, comprehensive, and comparable data, and there are issues surrounding privacy rights, both individual and collective. However, regardless of the complexities, all stakeholders have been working diligently to address and overcome the issues, and progress is being made.
Finally, I would like to touch on health administration in aboriginal communities.