Evidence of meeting #5 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was centres.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
I would echo once again what Ms. Camille said, which is that there is a limitless need. We could do the math and give you a number that, you know, there are 10,000 indigenous people in deep core-housing need in Ontario. We could do the math and figure out what it costs to build a house for each one of them.
The reality of it is that housing is a piece of it and then there's all the stuff that goes around it. It is a large number and I would not be willing to say what the limit is at this point.
Bloc
Louise Chabot Bloc Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
Thank you.
If I have any time left, I'd like to ask a question about communication with the departments.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Excuse me, Ms. Chabot, but your time is up.
Actually, I was about to give the floor to Ms. Gazan, but my microphone was off. Clearly, you aren't the only one having technical difficulties.
Ms. Gazan, you have two-and-a-half minutes.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I've heard a lot during the pandemic about not leaving anybody behind, but we know that indigenous peoples in this country, as a result of wilful human rights violations, were left behind before the pandemic. It's now being exacerbated by the pandemic, particularly in the area around housing.
Madame Camille, you spoke about how people often have to leave their communities because of a lack of housing to go into urban centres in the search for a home as something that occurs frequently in the area you serve.
What kind of impact does that have on mental health? How does not affording this basic human right of housing impact the health of indigenous people living both on reserve and off reserve?
Executive Director, Lillooet Friendship Centre Society
It has a huge impact. It has an impact on the family left behind within the community and on the family having to move to a new centre. They are dislocated. They have to reconnect with other services, make new communities and make new family there. It has a huge impact. Sometimes it even has an impact similar to that of being taken and moved to residential school.
They are being taken from their community by their own choice of having to have a roof over their family's heads and moving to a strange place and dealing with that. We also see that when they get into the larger communities, they're starting to get involved in less social and cultural stuff. They start to hit the street life. We're seeing an increase in drug and alcohol use from those who have to go away and be disconnected from their culture and their homes. There definitely is a huge impact around the families who have to go away.
NDP
Leah Gazan NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
Do you think one of the first courses of action governments can take, if they're really concerned about the mental health of indigenous people in real action terms, is to ensure that all persons, including indigenous persons, residing on Turtle Island are afforded the basic human right to a home?
Executive Director, Lillooet Friendship Centre Society
Most definitely that is what is required to give all of us as indigenous people a basic lifestyle.
Conservative
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you, witnesses, for all your amazing testimony and the work you're doing in these communities.
In my previous role as shadow minister for indigenous-crown relations, I met with a large number of community leaders and financial stakeholders with respect to housing. The advice provided was often the same, and I think you both mentioned it in your testimony today: that indigenous communities want the tools to make their own decisions, including housing decisions, and they also need the financial ability to do so.
What it seemed to lead to is, as you mentioned, that it's not just housing, but water treatment, social programming, education, and.... The list goes on.
In respect to housing, I'd like to get your opinion on some of these themes. They're pretty big topics, and I only have five minutes, so let's talk about indigenous infrastructure programs, because part one of what you mentioned was in regard to funding.
Would a partnership with indigenous communities through infrastructure capitalization agreements such as Alberta's billion-dollar indigenous opportunities fund be a potential answer to housing, and specifically to create new revenue streams for communities to leverage capital towards further economic self-determination?
I will go into the next part after you answer. Thank you.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
With respect to funding, what is required is the means to be self-determining. I want to be clear: the thing that is required is the means to be self-determining and to be able to undertake culture-based approaches that are not necessarily tied to the market.
Take the case, for instance, of the Ontario Aboriginal Housing Services Corporation. A range of options is provided by that corporation: rent geared to income, subsidies, and also programs that allow people to purchase their own houses. There is a specific program that allows women fleeing violence to purchase the housing they're living in. There's housing built specifically for that purpose for people to get into the housing market.
Market-driven approaches, however, are not necessarily going to be the ones that allow us the greatest flexibility to meet the needs of the community, because the need is so great.
Ontario housing markets are like those in B.C.: they're bonkers. It is thus more important for us to engage in approaches that emphasize affordability as well as flexibility and self-determination. That would be my answer.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Okay. On the topic of self-determination, do you see the Indian Act as a hindrance to indigenous communities' being able to provide housing specifically—or it could be infrastructure or water, that kind of thing?
Also, would abolition of the Indian Act be worth a conversation, especially in this day and age, when you tie it to the funding component as well, in allowing groups—those who are prepared for self-governance, for sure—to make their own decisions in a wide variety of situations? Providing almost “off ramps” to the Indian Act is what I'm asking about.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Friendship centres do not fall under the Indian Act.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
I know that; I'm just asking in general. I'm sorry; continue.
November 19th, 2020 / 4:30 p.m.
Policy Director, Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
I do not have an opinion on that. I don't know whether Ms. Camille has.
Executive Director, Lillooet Friendship Centre Society
My opinion is, of course, of a personal nature.
I think that if we're going to abolish the Indian Act, we need to look at an even playing field for indigenous people at the governmental level, so that indigenous people have a platform of equal governance straight across the board, whether it be at a municipal, provincial or federal level. That, I think, is key to that piece of it.
I'm sorry; that's a personal view.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
That's okay; that's what I wanted. I wanted to hear your thinking on a very sensitive topic. I think it's important, in this day and age, that we have that.
To build on what you're saying....
Chair, how much time do I have? I know you signalled the one-minute spot.
Liberal
Conservative
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Schmale.
Finally we are going to Mr. Vaughan, for five minutes, please.
Liberal
Adam Vaughan Liberal Spadina—Fort York, ON
I have a couple of things.
Canada's national housing strategy addresses this issue through chapter 7, “Nothing About Us Without Us”, which refers to the absolute need to add a new chapter to the housing strategy to specifically address off-reserve housing. I hope you see this committee work and the mandate letters as part of the work we're doing to realize that commitment, which is critically missing from the national housing strategy.
To that end, Juliette Nicolet, you don't check status cards at friendship centres; you serve people both inside and outside the Indian Act, is that not true?
