Good evening, everyone.
I'm a Mohawk from the community of Kanesatake, but I wasn't born and raised on the reserve. My parents left when they were young and raised us in the United States. I can say that half my life has been in the U.S. and half has been in Canada.
When I came to Canada, one of my first jobs was at the local commission office, which is one of the local offices at the grassroots of the ASETS. I worked there about 10 years and grew in that job. I left as program director. I saw the ASETS take individuals from their situations, whether they were high school dropouts or people returning to the labour market, and help them to find meaningful employment.
On reserve, whether it's remote or close to a big city like Kahnawake, the challenges are there. In Quebec, many have first nation languages, but have to adapt to the French and English languages. That's a real barrier in Quebec.
I left and moved to the regional level. Now I work for the AFNQL at the regional level. We're looking at helping first nation communities. Over the 10 years that have passed since I've been away from the community, the challenges have become greater as the population goes up, as more and more people start to recognize their need for these services. I now see, regionally, the struggles that I previously saw only in my community of origin. I see them compounded across the province of Quebec and across Canada, because I'm part of a national working group with the AFN.
The dollars that we get aren't enough. The challenges and barriers that exist are real. I've also had the pleasure of going to conferences that are trying to integrate post-secondary students into great jobs with banks, and things like that. I'm realizing, in my work experience and life experience, that we need to have the funds to support our clients at their particular level. We're trying to do that all at the same time. We need more dollars.
In this last changeover to ASETS from AHRDAs, we're just filling out reports and showing how many times you can add two plus two and still get two. It's taking us away, that bureaucratic accountability, from helping our front-line workers receive the training they need to help these clients and make sure they receive the required support.
I'm honoured to be here today. I hope that I can offer you some insight into the grassroots levels and the challenges that exist so that my peers and my communities can start to prosper. We want to supply the demand off reserve to the different industries, and also use our ASETS dollars to develop our communities. We have to do both. We won't do one and lose the other.
Thank you.