Evidence of meeting #63 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was yukon.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you, Susan.
We're now going to move to the Skookum Jim Friendship Centre. We have Michelle Kolla.
Michelle Kolla Executive Director, Skookum Jim Friendship Centre
I'm going to read from my notes. I did bring a copy. I don't know if you'd like them now or if you want me to give them to you later.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
I'll send the clerk around to pick them up, and he can distribute them.
Executive Director, Skookum Jim Friendship Centre
The Skookum Jim Friendship Centre opened in downtown Whitehorse in 1962. The friendship centre started as a meeting hall for urban aboriginal people to meet and socialize and support one another when they moved into the urban area from the communities.
In 1983 the centre was renovated and became a program and service delivery organization for urban aboriginal people. The friendship centre is status-blind and accepts all who come to the centre, including status, non-status, first nation, Métis, Inuit, and all others. The Skookum Jim Friendship Centre is governed by a volunteer board of directors made up of first nations members and Inuit.
The friendship centre is one of 120 friendship centres across Canada that provide employment training programs and services that empower aboriginal children, youth, women, men, elders, and families. It's a place where we gather to explore, learn, practise, and celebrate our cultures. The friendship centres are a safe place to access healing and support for our clients.
The friendship centre in Whitehorse offers an after-school tutoring program for urban aboriginal high school students, a prenatal program for moms and their infants, a diabetes prevention program, and a recreation and leisure program for children and youth. In that program, we're also providing programming at four elementary schools in the city four days a week.
We have a Skookum Jim annual folklore show, a student training and financial services department, a youth diversion program, and a traditional parenting program in which we take participants and elders out on the land. We have the Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centre, which offers youth leadership programming. We also operate the northern Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centre regional desk for the north, we have a youth emergency shelter outreach program, and we provide referral services to clients.
In the 2008-09 fiscal year, the after-school tutoring program provided aboriginal high school students with English, math, social studies, science, and life skills training. The life skills training included Food Safe cooking classes, first aid, driver training, and a summer booster camp. Thirty-seven urban aboriginal high school students from grades eight to twelve attended the tutoring program. Three of them graduated in June 2009.
The prenatal nutrition program had 63 registered participants in 2009, which was nine more than in 2008 and 21 more than in 2007. The recreation program had 2,159 participants over all of our programs for ages six to twenty-four. The aboriginal youth diversion program opened 46 youth files in 2008-09, with 61% of the offenders being female.
The student training and financial services program had ten ARDA CRF clients—six male, four female—and eight ARDA EI clients: five female and three male. The ARDA training included TDG, H2S, WHMIS, chain saw safety, first aid, driver training, website development, college prep, computer training, etc.
The NWT post-secondary program had ten female participants: nine accessing Yukon College and one leaving the territory to go to the University of Victoria. Post-secondary training was mainly accessed for college prep, office administration, and in one case business administration. The youth leadership program has six aboriginal youth council members who oversee it and 794 youth participants aged from 10 to 24 years old in 2009.
In the 2008-09 fiscal year, the youth emergency shelter had 267 calls from 60 different youth. The safe bed was accessed 187 times during the year. The majority of the youth self-refer to the emergency shelter program, and the majority are reconnected with their families.
Concerning poverty, what we've seen from our client base is lower levels of education in the urban aboriginal population, a school system not meeting the needs of our aboriginal children and youth, a low rate of high school graduation among Yukon aboriginal youth, low employment within the urban aboriginal population, an increased number of aboriginal births, a large number of single-parent families, insufficient housing for women and children, a lack of healthy food for the women and children, an increased rate of diabetes in the aboriginal people, an increased number of youth offenders, a higher rate of female aboriginal youth offenders, a gap in housing for youth 17 to 18 who age out for placement in care and are too young for their own housing. We see increased rates of substance abuse in youth and adults, youth with mental health and FASD disabilities, a lack of housing with supported living services, individuals with disabilities becoming victims of predators. We see a greater need for family support services and for safe transportation for our youth; elder neglect and abuse; a barrier to, and a lack of, adequate housing for our aboriginal elders. There are minimal support services and programs for urban aboriginal peoples; first nations and friendship centres and other non-profits; and inadequate infrastructure to meet the growing needs of the community.
What we see as needs for urban aboriginal people and others within the community are: access to housing for all groups, including women, children, single-parent families, elders, and the youth; specialized housing for those with mental health issues or addictions and for the elders; family support services—we find that even if you do provide housing or other services, they need somebody there with them—youth substance abuse treatment programs; access to healthy foods; access to educational funding, including living allowances, on-the-job training opportunities, post-secondary training in the area of trades and at the college level; employment opportunities; entry-level training positions within the local government; increased funding for ARDA training dollars for urban aboriginal people, and monitoring of the ARDA training dollars for urban aboriginal people to ensure that the funding is being used for the urban population; government and business looking to aboriginal communities to fill the labour shortages; partnerships to move urban aboriginal people forward; infrastructure dollars for non-profits delivering programs and services; friendship centres input on urban aboriginal policy sought by all levels of government.
In the north, access to services is difficult for individuals living in poverty, because of transportation, weather, and living conditions. The northern safety net is small, which causes a high rate of burnout among service providers and the communities.
To meet the needs of the north in reducing poverty, partnerships between all levels of government and non-profits is required to access housing and home ownership for individuals. As well, the delivery of a careers program to assist individuals in securing a variety of educational opportunities that meet their needs and result in meaningful employment will further assist in reducing poverty.
Thank you.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you very much.
We're going to start with Mr. Savage, for seven minutes.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you for coming this afternoon and telling us what we need to know, which is how we come up with an anti-poverty plan for Canada.
There are many things that can be said that some people will agree with and some people will disagree with. But I think the one thing that just about everybody in the country would disagree with is when somebody arrives and says, “I'm from Ottawa and I'm here to help.” It seems that everyone figures that doesn't make sense to begin with.
The solutions to the problems that exist in Canadian communities are in the communities. I think the aboriginal friendship centres are a perfect example of that.
I want to read you something from Campaign 2000's report last week, when they were on Parliament Hill to talk about the 1989 declaration to eliminate child poverty by 2000. I'm just going to read from page 5 of that:
By 2006, the result of steady growth in Canada’s urban aboriginal population was that more than half—54%—of aboriginal peoples lived in urban centres. Yet funding for the Aboriginal Friendship Centre Program serving...off-reserve communities with culturally enhanced services has not increased since 1996. This results in pressure on limited core funding and resources to meet community needs.
We've heard from aboriginal friendship centres; we heard from one yesterday in Vancouver. We all know aboriginal friendship centres. It seems to me this would be one very sensible recommendation. I don't think you specifically asked for more funding for aboriginal friendship centres, but I expect it would be helpful, wouldn't it?
Executive Director, Skookum Jim Friendship Centre
Yes. We actually did a lobby day on the Hill on November 17. I participated in it, and we met with a number of MPs to talk to them about that issue. We have been lobbying our local MP as well.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Your local MP has lobbied many others.
I had a visit from the aboriginal friendship centre folks. I think we all agree that they do a fabulous job, and it is something that should definitely be in our report. Thank you.
Brooke, I am the godfather of a fetal alcohol syndrome girl. She is fabulous. She's doing pretty well these days. My sister and her partner adopted her in Ontario. It's a struggle all the time, but they have some resources to deal with it. It would be enormously difficult in a community in which you didn't have a lot of money or support to deal with fetal alcohol syndrome.
In your presentation, when you say that 13% are totally homeless and 7% are generally homeless, are we talking about people with FAS, or are we talking about women who are pregnant who are at risk of having an FAS baby? Who are we talking about?
Executive Director, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon
I was speaking specifically about our client population, which is those who have a diagnosis of FASD.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
They are diagnosed with FASD.
What is the solution for that? Obviously, there are early intervention and education programs. What are the things we should look at in our report to deal with FAS?
Executive Director, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon
I don't think there's one solution. I think one of the challenges is that there are multiple needs. Foundationally, I think each person has said that supported housing would be one of our strongest needs. If we can provide supported housing, both for individuals living with FASD and for women who are pregnant, then we start to have a foundation to deal with some of those other things, whether it's substance abuse or mental health concerns.
Really, what we see is that our systems are set up to work with a part of an individual. We have mental health services. We have addiction services. We have health services. An individual with FASD would be accessing almost all those services. What happens, oftentimes, is that someone will age out of the youth services, which are often quite structured. Whether they're living in foster care or living in a group home situation, if they're not living with a biological family or an adopted family, all the supports that have been there end at age 17 or 18. Michelle talked about the gap period of time.
In a developmental approach, what would be a typical developmental approach, you would normally reach adulthood and you would be able to live independently. What we see with individuals who have FASD is that those supports need to continue for a lifetime. As a system, both federally and territorially, we haven't necessarily addressed that need for lifetime support in supported housing. We may do it on an individual basis. One person, if there's a strong advocate, may get a supported living situation.
As a system, it's our way that individuals, from an early-intervention perspective, could look at lifetime supports rather than at a segmented or siloed approach.
I'm not sure I answered your question.
Liberal
Executive Director, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon
I didn't, but I can. I've written all over it.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I understand it's the need to have the interlocking services so that people can navigate the system and understand where the supports are for somebody who's diagnosed with FASD, but if you have specific recommendations in terms of how you think the federal government could either work with the territorial or provincial governments or otherwise, through Health Canada or some other department, I'd be very interested in seeing it so that we could consider it in the report.
On mental health, Mike Kirby appeared before our committee in the spring, and when we asked him what is it specifically that can be done for mental health consumers and clients, people who have issues of mental health, he said two things: first of all, housing. We've heard that from everybody, that we need housing, and there are good models.
There's a model in my own community, in my own city of Dartmouth in Nova Scotia—I'm from Nova Scotia—called affirmative housing, whereby adults who have had experiences with mental health issues have a housing project where they can actually pay rent but build up equity in the house. That sense of purpose and that sense of dignity makes a huge difference. It's very successful.
I think when we look at housing for people, whether it's persons with mental health issues or disabilities, whether it's low-income seniors, whether it's lone parents, mothers with children, I think we're getting to the place now where we realize we don't just build the most basic of housing and say, okay, we've done our job, but we need to integrate that into the community. It needs to be mixed residential and it has to have good housing and this certainly has that.
The other thing Mike Kirby said, and I'd like your thoughts on this, Susan, is that for people who've had mental health issues, either diagnosed or undiagnosed, the social infrastructure of Canada is not designed to assist them. In part, it's episodic illness. In terms of getting sickness benefits under EI, it doesn't work. We don't have a very flexible social infrastructure system for a number of people, including people with disabilities and people with mental health issues.
I wonder if you have a thought on that, on maybe how it works up here.
Administative Coordinator, Second Opinion Society
What stood out for me from what you said was about dignity and empowerment. I think that if people are given the chance, people who've had psychiatric diagnoses.... First of all, I think it's one in five Canadians. I'm not very sure about the statistics.
Administative Coordinator, Second Opinion Society
The other thing is that something like 90% of everybody has depression or whatever, grief issues, loss at some point in their lives. So part of improving things would be to remove the stigma.
I think if people learned to take care of their mental health the way we're all being told.... I remember when I was a kid hearing that the 60-year-old Swede was in better shape than the 35-year-old Canadian, and then, suddenly, in school we were all running around doing more in phys. ed. than we had before. I think that kind of basic down-to-earth approach to mental health as being something you need to take care of ought to be looked at.
I think that currently people still see it as either the luxury pursuit of the worried well who have lots of money and can go to therapists or the opposite end of the gap of people who are just out on the street. I think that if people saw it as.... Yes, I guess I'm arriving at an answer here, which is that if people saw it as something that was worth doing something about because it is part of something we need, like decent food, then we would. So a change in attitudes, and how do you do that, a government campaign....
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I want to just nail down what you said. You had three recommendations for us, or spoke about three things, which are in the notes I had. One was supported housing. Understood. The other was it's cheaper to provide support for people who need assistance rather than dealing with people in crisis, maybe in the criminal justice system or in hospitals. And the third was peer support. Are those the three main things?
Administative Coordinator, Second Opinion Society
Yes, that is correct, but I guess I took it even further with the idea that peer support is something that people should be able to just access at any time. If people were more knowledgeable in that area, it wouldn't be such a spooky kind of thing to talk about. But, yes, peer support is very inexpensive.
The problem is that people with mental health issues tend to be reclusive. They don't want to tell people about them, so they go off and hide instead of coming out and saying yes, I'm fine, like this guy who works in the United States, Obama's—whatever he is. It's in one of my articles.
They need to talk about it. It needs to be talked about more, and more money needs to be spent. I think in the Globe and Mail article, which you ought to have, the guy talks about how it would be relatively easy just to spend a little more money and make quite a big difference, that Canada's spending on mental health is actually really low compared to other countries, and they could change that quite easily.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
We took a step in the right direction with the Mental Health Commission, which is a positive thing.
We have talked a lot in the last couple of days. We were in Vancouver yesterday, we're here today, we're in Yellowknife tomorrow, and then we go down to Edmonton and Winnipeg. We did hear from a number of people.
We are coming to this crystalization of the idea that it's more expensive not to do something about poverty than it is to invest now, whether it's in mental health or support for youth at risk or investing in child care instead of prisons.
We can make a choice as a country either to invest in prevention and healthy living or else we're going to pay the price down the road. I'm sure you'd all agree it makes more sense to invest now.
Executive Director, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Society of Yukon
Just on that note, it's a reframing of the idea of the public and the idea of the political. Often with prevention, we don't know what we've prevented. It may take longer.
Building more jails is quite tangible, and we can say we've done this. I think it requires a shifting of the paradigm at a public level and at a political level.
Liberal
Michael Savage Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
It does.
This committee is a good committee. This is a committee that's been working well, every member of this committee, and a lot of us aren't here because of an incident in Ottawa. I feel very positive that what you're telling us will translate into some kind of a report that maybe will make things better. When it does, we'll thank you for your contribution to it, as we thank you today.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Dean Allison
Thank you, Mr. Savage.
We're going to move to Mr. Martin. Mike used half your time, sorry. No, it's seven minutes, go ahead.
NDP
Tony Martin NDP Sault Ste. Marie, ON
First, like everybody else, I wanted to thank you for coming and for your information.
I hope we're coming to the end of this work and soon we're going to table a report to Parliament asking for action on poverty and all the attendant symptoms and reasons. I've said this a number of times, and the committee is probably getting tired of hearing it, but for me three pieces stand out that we need to address particularly, among others, I'm sure. One is income security. Another is housing, which everybody has mentioned today at least once, if not three or four times, and supported housing. And the third is one I think the three of you spoke to very nicely this afternoon, the whole notion of social inclusion, that we have to somehow reorganize our communities to be supportive of people with special needs and to include them in the ordinary day-to-day life of that community in a way that is healthy.
We are told the Yukon is developing a strategy on social inclusion, and the corollary of social inclusion is social exclusion. They're going to be looking at things like poverty, housing, education, employment, and social participation. I like the way it's framed. It will provide evidence-based research and measures and social indicators to help the government take appropriate action toward the goal of supporting all members of society and promoting healthy living.
Are you engaged in that? Are they engaging you? Are you involved in that process? What do you think of it? Any one of you can answer.