Thank you, Martha.
In preparing for today, we read through the transcripts of the meetings that came before, and listening today, we are impressed with the breadth and rigour of all who have appeared before this committee. In light of this, we won't repeat evidence that's already been given. Instead, we're going to focus primarily on the fundamental value of queer, trans and two-spirit community centres or service agencies as access points to both a supportive and safe community, and a larger continuum of health care.
We have four recommendations, as indicated in our submitted brief.
First is the creation of a dedicated federal funding portfolio for LGBTQ2 community centres and networks. Like other provinces, Saskatchewan has been experiencing great legal and political victories in recent years thanks to engaged community organizations and individuals. That said, the experiences of queer people in Saskatchewan and throughout the Prairies are unique, but are often under-represented in national research and programs. Not only that, but the political climate in Saskatchewan creates roadblocks to our community, including minimal provincial supports and no provincial strategy, whether in education, health care or social services.
The lion's share of the support for LGBTQ2 people in all of these areas comes from the few—actually only four—community-based centres spread out across the three prairie provinces. Surprisingly, OUTSaskatoon is one of the largest LGBTQ2 community centres in the country, a fact that is directly the result of our efforts to serve a geographically and culturally vast community through an outwardly facing, one-stop shop. That is something that I know other witnesses have expressed a need for in this study.
Community centres provide the social connections for people who are isolated. They provide education for those who hold on to divisive beliefs. They provide the counselling and health care needed to improve mental health outcomes, which means reducing anxiety, depression and loneliness. We see these benefits taking place every day.
As an example, last year we watched an individual move from coming in for counselling for depression to applying to be a volunteer and now volunteering in our drop-in centre, providing peer support to others going through the same thing.
We've also seen huge steps forward in the last year to increase partnerships between queer centres, including two national gatherings of centre leaders, one taking placing in Saskatoon and one in Ottawa just a few months ago.
Through these gatherings we've created a network called Enchanté Canada, whose mandate is to build and maintain a thriving network of two-spirit, gender, and sexually diverse community groups, and that hopes to support the development of many more centres than exist today—and especially, I want to stress, in more rural and remote areas where such services are all but absent. As well, the 2Spirits in Motion Foundation has formed to create a safe and supportive environment for two-spirit peoples across the country.
These networks both demonstrate the pivotal role that community centres have in the spectrum of health. Their value cannot in decreasing reliance on primary health care cannot be overstressed.
The $20 million included within the new federal budget for capacity building and the community-level work of Canadian LGBTQ2 service agencies will support the life-saving work that is already taking place. We recommend that these funds be distributed by the Department of Women and Gender Equality in order to better integrate social, mental and physical health while prioritizing gender, sexual and cultural diversity within future initiatives across the country.
Alongside the alarming statistics about our communities, as have been widely studied and canvassed in this study, queer, trans and two-spirit people also represent rich and diverse cultural groups. We are innovative in our methods of care. We are progressive in our labour practices, programming and policy development. There is much for other sectors to learn from the queer community, particularly in relation to meaningful engagement with principles of intersectionality, decolonization, anti-racism, feminism and disability rights as many LGBTQ2 organizations work hard to incorporate these into their daily work.
At OUTSaskatoon, we have spent years building reciprocal relationships with indigenous communities, and this has made our work and our centre better.
To this end, our second recommendation is for a commitment to meaningful reconciliation and decolonization, including the central positioning of two-spirit people in organizations within this work.