Human Resources Committee on Nov. 30th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the study of the federal contribution to reducing poverty in Canada will commence now.

I want to thank our witnesses for taking time out of their busy schedules to be here today. You may or may not know that we have been studying this issue of poverty across the country. We went to the east coast last year and then we had a break over the summer. We are glad that we are getting out to the west now and talking to people, where we can make some recommendations back to the government. Once again, we appreciate your taking time to be here.

When Ms. Small shows up we'll give her a chance to read into the record some of her comments.

Mr. Stewart, I'm going to start with you and we'll just go across for seven minutes each. After all the comments are made by the witnesses we'll have a chance to go around the room to ask some questions.

If you have briefs that haven't been translated, we'll make sure those get out to the members in due course. I'm going to just leave it at that.

We'll probably have time for one round of questioning. If we have more time, we'll certainly do what we have time for up to ten o'clock.

Mr. Stewart, thank you for being here once again. You're from the Aboriginal Homelessness Steering Committee. The floor is yours. You have seven minutes.

[Patrick Stewart, Chair, Aboriginal Homelessness Steering Committee]

Thank you.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for the invitation.

I'd like to first acknowledge the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh nations, on whose traditional territory we're meeting.

My Nisga'a name is Luugiyoo, of the House of Daxaan, Village of Gingolx. I'm the chair of the Aboriginal Homeless Steering Committee for metro Vancouver and president of the National Aboriginal Housing Association.

On behalf of AHSC and NAHA, I'd like to thank the committee for listening to aboriginal Canadians about the challenges that we face in trying to reduce and ultimately eliminate poverty across this country.

However, the time has come to act. This issue has been studied to death for decades. You yourselves have listened to hundreds of hours of expert and community testimony this year and last and have accessed dozens if not hundreds of studies on poverty. So now is the time for action. Your job is a big one, and we are counting on each and every member of this committee to advocate for legislation to eliminate poverty in this country, especially within the aboriginal community, where it is estimated that almost 50 percent of aboriginal children live in poverty.

Poverty, like homelessness, is created by people and it can be solved by people. It will take governments at all levels working with civil society to move this issue onto the public policy agenda and forge the necessary political will to eradicate poverty.

I want to say things that will be useful, but in the back of my mind I'm suspicious of this government, based on its record, especially given that the Canadian government voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People on Thursday, September 13, 2007. When this government voted against this declaration, they voted against aboriginal people in this country. So what am I to think?

I'm sure you've heard that over 150,000 children live in poverty in B.C. This is 13%, the highest percentage of any province. And for the sixth year in a row, it is higher than the national average, which is 9.5% . There are almost 700,000 children living in poverty right now, right here in this country. Children under 18 make up 37% of food bank users. One in four first nations children live in poverty. Nearly half of off-reserve first nations children under the age of six live in low-income families, compared with 18% of non-aboriginal children.

As an architect, I am frustrated working in first nations communities where sometimes 70% of the people living in the community are on social assistance. And the federal government is trying to push home-ownership in these communities. These communities are under-resourced. As a housing advocate, what do I tell a father with three kids living in a shelter that there are no apartments available at the end of the 30-day stay?

There is a lack of affordable housing being built. How is it in this country, this province, and this city that our one temporary adult aboriginal homeless shelter is at capacity every night, turning away dozens back onto the street? The aboriginal community does not have the same access to capital resources as the non-aboriginal community. However, on the program services side last year the AHSC members provided over 50,000 shelter-bed stays, over 40,000 meals, served 2,000 families at food banks, and provided over 9,000 people with services that helped to keep them off the streets.

Not that I'm an advocate for international agencies, but Canada is listed as one of the most livable countries on the UN Human Development Index—it moved from sixth to fourth this year. Yet there are 450 food banks in this country and aboriginal homelessness is increasing. For example, there was a 34% increase between 2005 and our latest count in metro Vancouver in 2008. This increase was attributed to rising unemployment, lack of affordable housing, lack of a living wage, and inadequate social assistance policies in this province.

You want to know what to do about poverty. You really want to know? I say do your job. Act like a federal government. Conduct business like a nation concerned for its citizens. Act on the Prime Minister's apology to residential school survivors. Enact legislation for an aboriginal poverty reduction strategy.

There are over 150,000 non-profit organizations doing the job of government in this country. Why? Stop offloading jurisdiction to the provinces and territories. Otherwise we are just handing down to our grandchildren the problems created by federal policies and lack of federal investment.

In the aboriginal community, for example, there are high incidences of adult incarceration: 79% in Saskatchewan and 71% in Manitoba; women incarcerated: 87% in Saskatchewan, 83% in Manitoba and Yukon; aboriginal youth in secure custody: 31%; aboriginal homelessness: 35% in B.C.; domestic violence: 33%; lack of high school education for aboriginal people: 43%; lack of university degrees: 6% for aboriginal people compared to 26% for non-aboriginal people; and 40% of foster children are aboriginal, with a high in Manitoba of 68%, plus similar statistics within the aboriginal community across this country for addictions, unemployment, illiteracy, and HIV/AIDS.

An aboriginal poverty reduction strategy needs to be comprehensive. It also needs to reflect reality to include services and supports on and off reserve. Such an aboriginal strategy needs to address input by aboriginal people into the design, structure, and operations of the national strategy; affordable and adequate housing designed culturally appropriately; income security and financial transfers, meaning a liveable wage and support for workers. In 2004 only 38% of unemployed Canadians were able to access EI, meaning 62% weren't.

On education and training, accessibility is an issue in the aboriginal community.

On child care, more funded spaces are needed.

On employment opportunities: financial transfers directly to communities based on community priorities on a needs basis; appointment of a cabinet minister committed to reducing aboriginal poverty across this country and not just housed within Indian affairs, as it isn't set up to address all the dimensions of aboriginal people; provinces and territories mandated to have their own aboriginal poverty reduction strategy that fits their jurisdiction.

B.C. must implement a legislative poverty reduction plan that includes the appointment of a cabinet minister committed to reducing poverty in this province. The aboriginal poverty reduction strategy should have a target of reducing the number of children living in poverty—I know you know this number—by 25% over five years, renewable on a five-year basis over 20 years.

In closing, I'd like to read a quote by Robert Rainer, the executive director of Canada Without Poverty. He wrote:

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms both provide for the rights of “life, liberty and security of the person.” But people in poverty, in general, have shorter lives, less liberty and less security of their person than their wealthier counterparts. Thus we can see how by preventing poverty, the health of millions of Canadians can be improved, the lives of many of them lengthened accordingly, and thus their right to “life” (as well their rights to liberty and security of the person) better supported. Moreover, by seizing poverty as a human rights issue and combating it more effectively, governments in concert with civil society will help reduce health care system costs. This is part of the transformative opportunity for Canada if fighting poverty is central to the public policy agenda.

[Witness speaks in his native language]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you very much, Mr. Stewart.

We're now going to move to Mr. Lawson, from the First Nations Environmental Network of Canada. Mr. Lawson, the floor is yours for seven minutes, please.

[Steve Lawson, National Coordinator, First Nations Environmental Network of Canada]

Good morning, everyone.

My position as national coordinator for the First Nations Environmental Network of Canada is what brings me here. My position in life is to speak on behalf of the land and for the people. My family come from Shoal Lake, Lake of the Woods, Nishnawbe territory. I acknowledge the Musqueam territory here, and I'm thankful to be here.

I have experienced poverty, and I can tell you that it's not pleasant by any means, but what I see across the nation in the years that I've been travelling is a poverty that speaks at a far deeper level. The people I deal with on a daily basis are experiencing... When you don't have clean water, when the water carries chemicals and disease, and your families are dying--your elders, your children--no amount of material goods can make up for that, when the soil and the air are poisoned. The people in the communities that I speak to are like canaries in a coal mine. They live invariably next door to these resource extraction industries. It's something that's going to affect all of us, as people, as humans, but it always seems to affect them first, and hardest and most tragically.

It's a sad thing. As I say, no amount of material wealth can remedy that. When it comes down to what really makes us human, our emotions and what comes from our hearts is what is really important. We all recognize that, and when our days come to an end, our lives, we review our lives and think about what is really important.

One thing that appears to be happening across the country is that both government and industry, and now sadly, environmental groups, have been formed to facilitate the removal of resources. And when you have poverty on one hand and vast amounts of money being offered on the other, people have to make a really tough choice in taking the jobs, in taking the money, when it's going to ruin their land, it's going to ruin the future for their descendants. I was speaking to one young man yesterday who had worked for ten years earning a high wage driving a truck in the tar sands. He's now working for all he's worth to remove that industry from his territory, because he sees the deaths, the cancers. There was a doctor in his community who was charged with eight various trumped-up charges. He's been cleared finally, after several years. Just last month he was cleared of the last charge. He had to leave the community. Charges were brought by the industry against him because he brought to light the fact that people were dying of rare cancers. I've met some of the young people, in their early twenties, who have these rare cancers. They're living downstream from this type of industry.

There's more to poverty than financial means, and as I say, this is something that's happening all across the country. I'm heartened that there are people from these communities--elders and young people--who are very strong on this issue, but they're having a hard time because they're elected officials. All of the processes that have been put in place by the government are the ones that are being used against them. Their own people have turned against them. In virtually every community I know, they're divided. This is a position that's put forward by government and industry and these large foundations with vast amounts of money that are fronting themselves as environmental organizations. There is a lot of money changing hands, but it's bringing this type of long-term poverty that we're going to have a hard time ever pulling out of, because it takes a long time to remove the toxins from these places and to undo the tragedies that have taken place.

That's an aspect that I wanted to bring to this table, because it's something that I see all the time. It's really difficult. Government has to look seriously at its position and what it's doing, and if my voice can somehow bring that to the fore, then I thank you for this opportunity. It's all I can do, and I'm hoping that you will take this message seriously and take it to your heart, because it's going to affect us all.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Mr. Lawson. I appreciate that.

We're now going to move to Ms. Small, from the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society.

Ms. Small, we welcome you. You have seven minutes as well for your presentation. When you're ready, please begin. Thank you.

[Sherry Small, Program Manager, Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society]

Thank you, and good morning.

My name is Sherry Small. My Nisga'a name is Anslutiksgah, having spiritual and moral worth.

As you heard, I am originally Nisga'a, born and raised there. I chose to live in a city. I am married to a black man from the United States, so I know what unity really means. I was raised with it and I live with it.

First of all, thank you for the invitation, which I got on Friday afternoon. So I come to you just as I look, with absolutely nothing other than a few scratchy notes here.

What I find at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre is, number one, why does the urban aboriginal community exist? It is because of colonization. What did colonization do? It created poverty among the aboriginal people. How? It was because of the segregation of families, as you heard the former speakers talk about. Poverty does not necessarily mean just financial poverty. Also, due to the Indian Act, we are segregated from families, and many people at the urban aboriginal Vancouver centre are not there by choice. They are there because of the various types of disenfranchisement. If they were to return home, if they were eligible, they would not be able to fit in, because the segregation has been too long. Number one, people don't know them as closely as they should; number two, the land base is too small. Another thing is the fact that we grew up where we were taught how to live with the land, which means it had a lot of natural resources to live off. We were not chosen to live on the land, where we take from the land and not live with it, so our resources are very limited.

What we find at the friendship centre is we have a day care, we have sports and recreation, we have cultural activities where we allow people to practise eastern-style song, dance, and drumming and western-style song, dance, and drumming, on different nights. There is AA and Narcotics Anonymous. We have mental health advocates, where we as caregivers teach them how to advocate for themselves. We have the urban aboriginal representative who works this job on the side of their desk, because it is legislated in the province that child and family services have an urban aboriginal representative. This means that if you are of aboriginal descent but do not fit under the Indian Act--as defined by the Indian Act as Indian--and therefore are not affiliated with a band, you no longer exist anywhere. So urban aboriginal representatives are aboriginal people, by blood, but with no homeland base, with children in care, with all the luggage that comes with that.

As well, we have an urban aboriginal shelter, which we run very differently. We are very fortunate to have received an extension on this. We do not treat that as a homeless shelter. We allow our workers to assist in getting ready for their guests. We give dignity and respect with all the services that we provide. In the last three years it has worked absolutely wonderfully, but one thing we don't have is money. So we scrimp, scrap, and save as much as we can. In that area we do have poverty.

The urban aboriginal population is closing the gap between being part of the economy, but we are still behind—no doubt the statistics are right in your face—in education, employment, housing, child care, and health care, specifically mental health care. We are slowly changing, but as we get successful our money gets pulled back, and we have no money to operate in the way we would love to operate. That's what makes our programs and services unique. We build our programs and services based first and foremost on the philosophies and values of aboriginal people.

With that, I would like to say thank you very much for your time and thank you for listening. I hope you got a different definition of poverty.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Small. It was just over five minutes, so it was within the timeframe.

[Sherry Small]

Sorry. Thank you for allowing that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Don't be sorry. Thank you very much.

We're now going to move to our last witness for this panel. This morning we have Ms. Elsie Dean, from Women Elders in Action.

Welcome, Ms. Dean. The floor is yours, and you have seven minutes.

[Elsie Dean, Research Director, Women Elders in Action]

Good morning.

My name is Elsie Dean, and I'm a member of Women Elders in Action. I thank you for inviting us to appear before you today and present our observations and recommendations on reducing poverty in Canada.

Women Elders in Action is an organization of volunteer women elders in B.C. whose purpose is to provide a voice and raise awareness to improve socio-economic issues and justice for older women. In our work, of course we observe the growth of dependence on food banks, growing homelessness, and inadequately housed people on the street. We also know that many older women are living in dire circumstances and paying far too much of their income in rent. We focus on single women 50 years of age and older because far too many in this age group are experiencing unemployment or low-waged work leading to poverty in their later working years and of course into their retirement years.

It is well documented that there are systemic patterns linking women's higher rates of poverty compared with those of men. Women in this age category suffer as a result of a lifetime of inequality. So we recommend that government renew its commitment to equality and apply a gender analysis to all its macroeconomic policies and its budgets and make a commitment of resources for programs that will make real change.

Women's disproportionate poverty and reliance on social programs, including social assistance and related social services, are well documented. Legislation and transfers that establish social programs and determine funding levels for them are indispensable practical vehicles that enhance women's human rights. We recommend the revitalization of the Canadian social union and a re-engagement of governments in the work of developing and sustaining social programs and services that meet Canada's human rights commitments to all. Give particular attention at this time to the need for the provision of affordable houses and adequate public services. We see particular groups of women who are experiencing even more difficult situations. Those are aboriginal women who we recognize as the poorest of the poor in Canada. We recommend that the government pay particular attention to ensuring that the human rights of aboriginal peoples are taken care of and are met, in particular the needs of women, by increasing social assistance, housing and health programs, increasing funding, and giving assistance for the aboriginal nations to develop their own sources of wealth.

We urge this government to get on with the land settlement on disputed lands. There's another group, which is immigrant women. Women from certain countries must live in Canada for ten years between the ages of 18 and 65 before they can collect even one-fortieth of their old age pension. This leaves many who are ineligible, even though they are Canadian citizens or have landed immigrant status, to live in dire poverty and work well into their old age, thereby destroying their health.

We feel this policy contravenes the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we recommend that access to the old age pension be granted to all who have lived in Canada for three years, are Canadian citizens, or have landed immigrant status. We believe that government has the economic capacity and the social responsibility to eliminate poverty and to provide a fair share of Canada's wealth to all peoples living in Canada. This can be done by implementing a progressive taxation policy, which we feel has been eroded over the last 20 years, and by designing adequate social transfers. We know that the system we live in is not perfect in its distribution of wealth, and it is the job of government to make it so.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you, Ms. Dean.

We'll now start, as we always do, with a round of questions of seven minutes. If we have extra time, we'll go to a second round. I'll first have my colleagues over here on my left, starting with the Liberal Party and Mr. Savage, to have seven minutes for questions and answers and then we'll move to Mr. Martin and then Ms. Cadman.

Mr. Savage, the floor is yours, sir.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you very much.

Thank you all for coming and for the very impassioned presentations that you've given us.

As the chair has mentioned, we've been working on this for a long time. The way Parliament works is that committees sit while Parliament sits, and this started before the last election. Earlier this year we went east, and we almost had to change our schedule again because of what was happening in Ottawa. That's why it's a little bit smaller contingent this morning, but we need to get this on the record and we need to produce a report.

Mr. Stewart, you said that we've done a lot of study on poverty in Canada. We have. I have all kinds of reports here that make recommendations, so we have an idea of what needs to be done. We do need some political will. You mentioned the UN Convention on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Canada hasn't signed. Canada also rejected a recommendation from the UN on the periodic review that recommended that Canada have an anti-poverty strategy. And they rejected that while this committee is holding anti-poverty hearings, so we're hoping that the good intention and the strength of our Conservative committee members here, who are working very hard on this, will mean that the federal government will decide we need to have an anti-poverty strategy, as six provinces have. B.C. doesn't have one as yet.

Is B.C. working on some kind of anti-poverty strategy? Are any of you aware of that?

[Patrick Stewart]

I haven't heard.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

A number of you mentioned food bank usage. As you know, the food banks came out with their annual report recently. I'm going to read you part of it here:

For the most recent year, self-identified First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people comprised 12% of those assisted by food banks. Provincial figures vary considerably, with Aboriginal people accounting for 91% of food bank clients in the territories and 35% in the four western provinces.

In B.C. about 20% of food bank usage is identified as aboriginal, and I think in B.C. the food bank rate went up around 15% on the food bank support of a couple of weeks ago.

What we want to do is identify the best strategies that we should put in a report to reduce poverty, and in our draft report in June there were a few ideas that were specifically referencing aboriginal people. Let me read a couple of them to you.

Following up on commitments originally made in the Kelowna Accord, provide adequate resources to improve the living conditions and infrastructure in aboriginal communities, provide better support to indigenous educational institutions, improve access to post-secondary education, address the gap in well-being between aboriginal children and other non-aboriginal children by providing additional funding to social programs such as aboriginal head start, the Canada pre-natal nutrition, community action plan for children, funding for child welfare agencies.

And there's the housing piece. Not only do we have to have the right housing strategy, you then have to get the money out the door. If you read The Globe and Mail this morning, there's a story there that only 1% of money identified for social housing, going back to last year, has gotten out the door.

I'd like to ask each of you if there would be two specific policy measures--by specific, they could be broader than one targeted measure, but give me one or two things that you think should be a priority in dealing with the issues that you face every day.

[Elsie Dean]

I feel at the moment that there should be a housing program. We have to get the people off the streets. This is disgraceful. Secondly, I feel that our health care is being eroded. Presently, of course, there's a court case where the private for-profit clinics are challenging the Health Act and the B.C. Health Act, I believe. This is of great concern to many people, because of all the programs that are important for older women and men, it is health care, adequate housing and adequate health care.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you.

Ms. Small.

[Sherry Small]

Thank you for the question.

It's very difficult to put a priority on something like that when you're thinking from an aboriginal perspective.

Food banks--can I give you ideas on each of those very quickly? I see what's working at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre. We don't rely just on food banks. We're now re-teaching our elders how to can salmon and all the various foods--vegetables and fruit--because that's the way we used to be. But where do we get the money to access salmon, vegetables, and fruit? Through donations. But if we had adequate resources that could go a lot further than just our elders.

Education... At the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre we are appalled by the lack of understanding of the history of aboriginal people, the real history in a non-threatening way, right from the very well-educated to those walking on the street. We teach shared cultural experience at the friendship centre. We share with them what this means, the colonization, how to understand today's issues in relation to that and how to go forward in partnership. So education could be done slightly differently.

Housing... At our shelter we provide dignity to people; they are guests, not people off the street. We provide life skills because that's what they're hungry for. They wonder how they're going to survive in the event they get into a home. We've had over 100 people put into a home without life skills, how to maintain a home. Then of course we're gradually getting them into education and jobs.

[Michael Savage, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Let me just say the aboriginal friendship centres do a marvellous job across the country in taking a holistic view of their clients.

[Sherry Small]

If you want to take a 10- to 15-minute tour, I'd love to give it to you, and you will see first-hand what we're talking about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Dean Allison]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Savage.

That's all the time we have. In the last couple of weeks I had a chance to visit our own friendship centre in the Niagara area in Ontario, and I echo what Mike says: you guys are doing a fantastic job.

Mr. Martin, sir, the floor is yours, and you have seven minutes.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Thank you very much.

First, I want to say that Libby Davies sends her regrets that she can't be here this morning. She would have loved to have been. She tried really hard to organize her time so that she could, but as Mr. Savage said earlier, things are happening in Ottawa today and that has called a lot of us back who would have been listening to you. I have to tell you we're listening and we'll take back what we hear and we will work together to try to come up with a strategy or a national plan that will honour and respect your experience and your input.

The further down the chain you get, it gets very complicated. What I'm looking for is if there's something at the federal level that we could do that wouldn't take forever, that would be strategy, an initiative that would touch all the people you speak so eloquently about to lift them to a place where they can live in dignity. You mentioned a national aboriginal anti-poverty strategy, housing, education, and health care. Is there something specific we could take back and say if we do this, this will make a difference? Maybe since we heard from Elsie and Sherry just a few minutes ago, we'll give Patrick and Steve a chance to speak to this.

[Steve Lawson]

There is one thing I can think of. I'm just going to pick this one example. In the area where I live on Vancouver Island—I've been there for more than 50 years—there are five of the six un-logged, un-mined, natural, wild in a sense, rivers. In this area there is a huge concentration of fish farms. Our salmon in that area are on the verge of extinction. They are in the same situation as the salmon in the Fraser. It has been proven scientifically, peer-reviewed by the best fisheries scientists around the world, that the cause of this demise is, for the very most part, the proliferation of sea lice by the fish farms. There is no way the fish farms can exist in that area and produce these billions and billions of sea lice that prey upon the young salmon as they come out of the rivers. Those fish farms must be removed from the ocean if there are going to be fish to feed the people, the bears, the wolves, the eagles, and all the wild creatures we exist with. When we speak about poverty, this is a looming reality.

Studying it in a commission for the next two years—I don't know how long it is going to take to write another report—is just buying another cycle of fish leaving and returning. This has to be done immediately.

That is one example of the things I'm dealing with that could be done in a short time, and the moment it is done it will remedy the situation.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

Patrick.

[Patrick Stewart]

The one thing I was thinking of is that Libby Davies' bill has been passed, as I understand it.

[Tony Martin, NDP, Sault Ste. Marie, ON]

No, it hasn't. It is in committee. We'll be dealing with it when we get back.