Human Resources Committee on March 31st, 2010

[Peter Dinsdale]

I think again it's important to emphasize that, yes, it's true, of course, in rural and remote communities that there absolutely are access issues. I think it's hard for a middle class Indian like me to get a family doctor here. It's much harder when you're street-involved to get a family doctor or to have the proper pediatrician afterwards or the proper follow-up care. So the challenges are terrific. Again, it's access to health care, as the previous witness talked about. It's not merely to say it's there; it's actually having it accessible to people in communities where they go. It absolutely remains a challenge.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you.

Mr. Lessard, please.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I also thank our guests for coming here today to speak on behalf of the National Association of Friendship Centres.

In the context of these studies on poverty, we note that a number of factors impact importantly on the conditions which underlie poverty. Among these factors, there is of course employment—you have raised the issue of access to employment and job retention—and affordable housing.

In 2007, a special rapporteur of the United Nations came to Canada to study the issue of affordable housing among Aboriginal peoples. In addition to other observations, he noted overcrowding and the lack of housing and raised the issue of water and sanitation services. He recommended to the government that it: “Intensify measures to close the human development indicator gap between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Canadians.”

In regards to housing, he added this: “That adequate housing in a large number of Aboriginal communities be declared a priority objective Make adequate housing a priority in many Aboriginal communities and that adequate credits, investment and other resources be appropriated to solve this urgent problem within the shortest possible time frame.”

Since these recommendations were made, have you noticed any changes? If so, which ones?

At this time, are there significant projects that are likely to improve the housing situation?

[Peter Dinsdale]

The quick answer is no. We haven't noticed an improvement certainly since 2007. I think there has been $300 million in off-reserve housing, which has gone to the provinces. We think the delivery really has handcuffed a lot of folks in terms of having results on the ground at the end of the day.

I think part of the challenge we have in Canada with respect to social housing has been the success of the homeless programs. We've lost our focus from market-based rents or social housing or to owning your own home to focusing on shelters, whether it's initial or second-stage shelters. So I certainly have not seen an improvement in housing in the short term.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

For us who have to submit recommendations to the government, are there any enabling projects underway. I mean projects that would inspire ideas for the development of affordable housing or do we have to start from scratch? If so, where do we begin?

[Peter Dinsdale]

I think you have a very successful base to build upon out there. There are a lot of native housing providers that have existing stock that can be grown. As an administrator I've always been frustrated by the inability of these mortgagors who are stuck in 35-year CMHC mortgages to leverage their existing housing stock to build more houses, to stay within the CMHC housing stock. If you have all this capital and equity, I'm not sure why you can't draw down upon that to build more units.

Secondly, I think we also need to focus more intensely on aboriginal people owning their own homes, building their own equity and buying their own homes, and having programs in place, like loan forgiveness programs or the CMHC-backed loans or other measures, which are going to help people own their homes sooner.

I think we've had a lot of focus again on emergency sheltering and stage two sheltering kinds of focuses. I think we need to take a longer-term view on moving from social housing concepts to people owning their own homes. I think there's a definite role the federal government can play there.

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Why is it that some communities find themselves without any sanitation infrastructure not unlike the situation in 1990? Why is it that several Aboriginal communities, living for the most part in the wild, still have a major problem with water quality?

[Peter Dinsdale]

I think most of the housing issues that were referred to, of course, are around first nations, and I think it is an embarrassment that we have that kind of infrastructure. But those challenges exist in urban areas as well, and do you know what? It's a market-based approach to poverty. What happens is, if you simply cannot afford to live anywhere else, you go to where you can live. Your cousins come into town and they come in with you. It breaks down your infrastructure and your home. If you've had the opportunity to be in the Moccasin Flats in Regina, or of course the downtown east side, or parts of Winnipeg or even Saskatoon, it's incredible the decrepit conditions of the houses that exist.

I think slumlords have a role to play in the enforcement of existing housing standards. I think some of the landlord and tenant acts in this country are a disgrace. I think they protect the people who own the homes, as opposed to the people inside the homes who get evicted. I think there's a multitude of factors at play here. At the end of the day, I think the most--

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Be more specific. Is it a question of--

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Mr. Lessard, I'm sorry...

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Is it a matter of education or is it a question of resources?

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Mr. Lessard, I'm sorry, your time is up.

Before I go to Mr. Martin, I just want to remind all committee members that this is a really important study we're undertaking. Witnesses have come in, and they're here to answer our questions. I would ask that, on both sides, we all keep our talking and discussion down to a minimum, if we could, including with our staff. We'd all appreciate that.

We'll go to Mr. Martin.

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

Thank you very much.

I bring greetings, Peter, from Megan and Jean, who were happy to see you are coming before the committee today, because they, of course, have a great amount of respect for the work you do out there. Certainly, I do as well.

We have an Indian friendship centre in our own community, as you know, in Sault Ste. Marie, and it's doing a phenomenal job with very little, providing in so many ways and trying their best, from child care to health services to counselling for young people particularly struggling with addictions and that kind of thing, and certainly dealing with the poverty issues in Sault Ste. Marie: housing, income security, food security, and that kind of thing.

I heard you talk a lot about some of the challenges confronting urban aboriginal people. I guess you've heard we're trying to put together a report for the government that would indicate very clearly the role the federal government should play. This is your chance to share with us.

Are there one, two, or three specific things or priorities that you think the federal government should get at right away, to address and to relieve poverty in your community?

[Peter Dinsdale]

I think the single biggest barrier we've had to really effective and multi-faceted programs has been this jurisdictional conflict that exists in this federation between the roles of the provinces and of the federal government with respect to aboriginal peoples.

Section 91.24, as you know, has responsibility for Indians and land reserved for Indians, and the provincial division of powers is allowed in social programs that take place. As a result, when an aboriginal person moves to a city, the debate rages. Who's responsible for that intervention? Is it the federal government? The federal government, in fear of actually showing they have responsibility, tinkers on the edge of the program they should provide.

Our program is a notable exception. We've been around since 1972. There are others.

If half of all aboriginal people live in cities, and we're spending one-tenth of the total envelope for urban aboriginal issues, you know something is happening. They're not reaching people where they live.

The provinces aren't picking up that slack. The provinces remain wary of acknowledging jurisdictional responsibility for those populations. As a result, we continue to tinker on the margins of what needs to get done. We don't have a strong or effective strategy reaching people across the country.

I appreciate that this is a pretty big issue for this committee, talking about tackling poverty. If you think about the impacts on the ground of service providers trying to coordinate responses and to have access to resources, this always remains an issue. If you have a favourable government in Ontario, we'll have tons of programs in Ontario; if we have an unfavourable government in Saskatchewan this year, we'll have very little happening because of the lack of provincial engagement in Saskatchewan. Across the federation, it really becomes difficult to have real, systemic approaches to poverty reduction.

I think that would be the biggest thing. If I had a wish list and if I was in your moccasins, that would be an incredible contribution that could be made. More practically, and on the ground, I think you need to make sure the existing programs are reaching people where they live. The aboriginal human resource development strategy, now called ASEP, is not going to reach the majority of people living in urban areas, because you continue to flow the funds through a first nation and Métis settlement model solely. I'm not saying it's not appropriate to partner with them. Absolutely, it is, but you need to make sure interventions are reaching people where they live in the cities and towns across this country.

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

Are there any obvious success stories out there that you could point us to?

[Peter Dinsdale]

I think there are more frustrations than obvious success stories. I don't want to be a doom and gloom witness, but from our experience, we've had to really patch programs together as best we can because of the lack of coordination that exists. Where there are urban aboriginal employment training programs through AHRDA, they have been very successful, but there are far too few.

We need more aboriginal post-secondary graduates. We have a number of innovative alternative school programs to help people who have dropped out of the public education system get back in and finish. They are a tremendous success. If there's one investment we can make across the country that's going to make an impact, it's that one.

The challenge is the level of provincial concern about becoming engaged and leading as best they can. We think the federal government should lead in this regard to help people finish high school. That is probably the one most successful intervention this committee can recommend to address poverty, not just this year but for a generation.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Komarnicki.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

I'd like to take up that point. I have seven first nations in my constituency. In fairness to the communities, they have relatively good schools, and they start out relatively good as far as the numbers of students. But when you get to graduation night, there are quite a few less who make it that far. Notwithstanding that, it's good that you've gone that far.

I generally find that a greater proportion of females than males get to that place, which seems to tell me that there are some issues that need to be addressed. I realize some of that may be a generational thing and it may take time to address. I know Conrad alluded to that somewhat and didn't quite finish.

You were talking about some of the things you see that could be beneficial to changing that around--the programs you might suggest, and the timeframe within which you see that evolving or happening. Can you elaborate on that?

[Peter Dinsdale]

It's interesting that sometimes we get asked how long it will take to turn some of these things around. I think there are a couple of perspectives.

First, a number of status Indians have finished high school and have been accepted at universities, but they can't go because of the cap on post-secondary funding. One of the things you can do very quickly to increase the number of first nations status Indians graduating high school is to fund those who are ready to go. They're there, and there are artificial caps. As you know, there's a 2% cap on growth, and there are more students ready to go than money.

In addition, if you're going to focus on one group within the aboriginal community it would be single aboriginal women, because you're going to help their children and entire families move forward. But aboriginal men have the lowest graduating rates in urban areas. Statistics show they have the most to gain from graduating. If they graduate, their jump in income is much more than for aboriginal women who do the exact same thing. So I think there is some disparity in the data.

It's going to take at least five years. If someone is coming into grade 9 right now and you want them to finish high school, you need the supports in place now to help them through. When they struggle through grade 10, at a lot of first nations schools, depending on the proximity to urban areas, the children have to move. I know in Ontario a lot of the kids from the north move to North Bay and are put in foster home-like situations. They go to school and end up dropping out of grade 10 because of the integration and all the challenges in leaving the reserve to come to the city--all those kinds of issues.

You want to put programs in place now to help those children finish school, get their high school diplomas, and move on. So the time scale at a minimum is five years. You'll need to have some turnaround time to get those programs up and evaluate and strengthen them across the country. So you're looking at a five- to ten-year window to seriously address the kind of education gap that exists today.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

What do you suggest could be done differently from how it's being done now on that specific issue?

[Peter Dinsdale]

There are two things. First you need to fund alternative education models to get kids back in after they have dropped out. Education is a lifelong process, so that's one of the things we need to examine.

Second, I think there's a disincentive for a lot of public school systems to graduate aboriginal kids. They get their tuition I believe in October, after the kid gets there at the start of September. If the kid drops out in November, the school keeps the tuition.

We think there should be an incentive to graduate children once they come into those schools and in public school systems across the country. I appreciate this happens differently across the country. But there are far too many schools where it's a disincentive to keep crowded classrooms by having aboriginal students in there. Once you have the tuition for the year, there's no incentive to graduate them.

I'd prefer to support those post-secondary institutions that are graduating our kids. It's far better to have them graduate from a public education system than come through our friendship centre alternative school or another program, for any number of reasons. Those are two specific interventions that could have an impact.

[The Chair, Conservative, Candice Bergen]

You have 30 seconds.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Go ahead. You had a comment to make.

[Conrad Saulis]

The one thing I want to add to what Peter was saying is that when we go to school as first nations students, we learn very little about ourselves. Curriculums contain very little about first nations, Métis, or Inuit. Curriculums need to change; they need to be more inclusive. A lot of students just can't relate to a lot of things they learn. What is in there is generally negative and doesn't reinforce students to want to stay in the school system. So curriculums do need to change throughout the country and be more cross-cultural.