Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 14th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

I'm going to ask the question this time, if the committee doesn't mind.

I want to get to moving forward rather than looking back. We've done a lot of that in the discussion, looking back at other arrangements. On page 20 you talk about recognizing “urban needs”. Have you identified those needs, and have you fixed a cost to addressing those needs?

[Peter Dinsdale]

With respect to an urban aboriginal education plan, we've been focused on making sure our programs are able to keep their doors open, quite frankly, sir. We had this invite yesterday at around noon, so we've had a brief amount of time to pull together what we're doing on education.

Across the country, we're starting to cost out the expansion of the alternative school programs to areas where they're needed. We've seen some incredibly successful programs, in Ontario and elsewhere, that we could model and expand. Wouldn't it be a great vision to have a feeder system of kids who are dropping out of school? Half of them are dropping out right now. Where are they going? Let's bring them into friendship centres, where there are well-functioning alternative schools with a network of services and supports.

Quite frankly, we could also be a delivery partner in terms of post-secondary education, accessing students in urban areas where you might not have access now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Mr. Bruinooge.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

Thank you very much for your presentation so far. I had the opportunity to meet with you earlier and I appreciate that as well.

In terms of the lack of focus on the urban aboriginal population that you mentioned, I think this is something the new government is definitely interested in moving forward with. I'm glad to see that there are people like you who are advocating for those issues.

I want to bring it back to my home city--a city that I share with my honourable colleague, Ms. Neville--where I think we must likely have the largest friendship centre in Canada, just in the sheer size of the building. I'm sure you've been there before. It's a grand building, which originally was a CN building from the 1920s. It's very historic and quite nice. Thankfully, the organization there has been able to restore it somewhat.

Perhaps you could walk me through, using this example, how these organizations tend to take on a lot of satellite organizations, build them into the overall framework of services, and by doing that, they are able to leverage other government programs.

I'm not sure if you can speak to this example, but if you can, go for it.

[Peter Dinsdale]

I can't speak to that example, because unfortunately, that's not our friendship centre. That's the main service delivery centre of the Aboriginal Council of Winnipeg.

We have a friendship centre, the Indian and Métis Friendship Centre of Winnipeg, but it's not at the site you're talking about. It's an example, though, of how friendship centres are community developers. A lot of programs, such as housing programs, start in friendship centres. They grow, they become too big, and they become their own organization.

In the larger communities in this country, the Winnipegs, Torontos, Vancouvers, the friendship centres started a lot of the other aboriginal service providers in those communities. So they become one of many. In medium-sized communities, they are one of a few that usually help others start up. In the smaller communities, they're the only game in town. Those are the three types of friendship centres that we have.

But you're absolutely right: that's the role that friendship centres play. By paying for the executive director, the receptionist, the bookkeeper, and the building, we can go to another government department. They might only have a $100,000 program--that's a one-time program--so depending on the department, we get 10% to 15% for administration; we get $10,000 to $15,000 to run the program. Clearly, this is not enough to open a building or to hire an executive director or the bookkeeper, but it's enough to run the program and to support the other costs associated with it.

That's what we mean when we say that the friendship centre program is an enabler. Because the core is there, we can do other programs as a result.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

Which departments, in particular, do you see the most additional funding from?

[Peter Dinsdale]

At the national level, we see Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. At the local level, a lot of it is Health Canada that is providing head start programs, aboriginal health programs, and diabetes programs. They are very much on-the-ground, focused kinds of initiatives. We also do employment and training programs, housing and homelessness programs, and we partner with the Department of Indian Affairs on some of their programs. Again, we certainly do all kinds of provincial and municipal...the complexities of which are obviously too much for this discussion.

[Rod Bruinooge, Conservative, Winnipeg South, MB]

Do you have a percentage, as in relation to--

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Bruinooge, we're out of time.

Mr. Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Mr. Dinsdale, one out of the three buildings that house a friendship Center in my riding was built in Val-d'Or specifically to cater to people from James Bay and Nunavik who are now established in the Val-d'Or area. In Senneterre and Chibougamau, they are small rented premises. Do you have any intention of buying them?

Are the programs delivered by the provinces, cities or other organizations ongoing, or is there uncertainty as to whether they will be renewed?

[Peter Dinsdale]

It varies. There are a number of one-off programs and they're as stable as any federal government program. Every five years we have another review to determine the cost-effectiveness and where it needs to be delivered.

I think that's the nature of service delivery work, but aboriginal service delivery work is more complex. As the attention waxes and wanes on aboriginal issues, so will the access to programs, particularly in an urban area.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Monsieur Lemay.

[Marc Lemay, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you. I will share the rest of my time with Mr. Blaney.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Blaney.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

You said that an agreement was reached before Christmas, but you felt it didn't go far enough.

What are you hoping to get from the government in order to better fulfill your mission? Are you looking for more friendship centres? Are you looking to expand the services you already offer? What are you looking for? If the Indian affairs and Northern development minister gave you the opportunity to make such a request, what would it look like?

[Peter Dinsdale]

We told everyone $20 million a year more.

In all honesty, we want people in urban communities to have access to cost-effective and efficient programs. We think friendship centres are that model. There is a need for more friendship centres across the country. There is a need for increased ability for the operational centres. That includes wages for local executive directors, a capital renewal portion to reinvest in deteriorating buildings, and training dollars, so that government taxpayer money is well spent. We have the best-trained boards we can have across the country, and we can increase strengthening of those things with more supports for the centres at a variety of levels.

Maybe it's because I'm young and foolish, but we're cautiously optimistic that this process with the minister is going to bear some fruit. She seems open to hearing what the challenges are. She seems open to working with departmental officials on addressing it.

Whether or not I believe The Globe and Mail that there is going to be a fall budget—or if it's a February budget—I hope we're standing in the gallery, cheering the announcement of increased funding for friendship centres. It's going to mean that your jobs will be easier, because people in communities are going to have better access to programs and services.

[Steven Blaney, Conservative, Lévis—Bellechasse, QC]

Thank you.

I did not expect my question to be so costly. Thank you, Mr. Dinsdale.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

I have a question.

We're talking about expanding your services. Do you see that eventually we'll get to the root of some of those problems and see a sunset to what you're doing, so that it's not needed any more? Is that airy-fairy, or is that something you feel is a target you could see sometime, not in the near future but at a distant future?

[Peter Dinsdale]

Let me put it into the context of my family and background. I am the first person from my family to graduate high school. It wasn't seen as a success that I was going away to university. Leaving my community and my family to go away and do studies was a horrific event—and to what end? What did that mean? Were we rejecting our community? What were we doing? Did we feel we were too good?

I assure you that my child will go to some kind of post-secondary education. There will be a cultural achievement in my household. I think the answer to your question is that the best we can do is create a cultural achievement in every aboriginal household across this country. Graduate that single aboriginal woman in downtown Winnipeg, so that she has the expectation for her child. It's no longer okay to have multi-generational high school dropouts. The expectation is that we finish school. The expectation is that we succeed in one area or another. I believe in all honesty that is how we are going to get to the source of the problems.

Your work is tremendously important. To be honest, I think jumping to post-secondary education is like trying to win the 100 metres in the Olympics before you win a high school track meet. I think you need to address the dropout issue in the community, and make sure there's reintegration and that healthy programs are available. The goal should absolutely be post-secondary education, but make sure that stable base exists.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

To clarify, I might say the reason we're not addressing this first is because the department is already looking at it, so we decided to look at post-secondary education.

We're going to finish off with Madam Crowder, please.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I'll be brief. I want to make a quick comment.

Somebody mentioned about whether the head start program had been studied. I'm not aware of studies in Canada, but I know that Hawaii, which is a model for the head start program, did studies that demonstrated significant impact on children once they got into the school system.

The other comment is that there is a fellow by the name of Clyde Hertzman, from the University of British Columbia, who has done a lot of work on social mapping. He's an expert in early learning and childhood development. His work has demonstrated that for every dollar we spend on children under the age of six, we save seven dollars in the long run on justice, education, health, and social services. So there is a significant amount of work out there that would support the good work you do, particularly with young moms and families.

The question I have for you is a bit jurisdictional. I know you're not a constitutional expert, but I wonder if you might suggest ways we might look at this differently. What we have is a situation in which the federal government says that by and large it does not have responsibility for people who live off reserve, that it's a provincial responsibility, and therefore they wash their hands of it, even though they do put some money into friendship centres and off-reserve housing. Do you have any suggestions on how we might tackle this jurisdictional issue?

[Peter Dinsdale]

I would only point you to recent history in terms of this country. In the 1960s you had the same jurisdictional issues over status Indians living off reserve having access to health care programs. Somehow you've solved that issue by ensuring that off-reserve aboriginal people should have access to some program. I'm not sure if it was a recognition of a treaty responsibility or more responsibility, but you managed to overcome those issues.

With respect to municipal education, when I was approached by the Toronto District School Board to develop the program we ended up having--and it's quite successful--they weren't interested in any political conversation, any rights-based conversations. The only interest was because of 35 kids in a classroom ready to be taught--all due to my drop-in, thank you very much--and they had a responsibility under the Education Act to provide them with an education. That was the only thing that was persuasive. It wasn't a jurisdictional battle; it was very much using their own numbers against them, quite frankly. I'm not sure how you go about it from your perspective, but maybe the health care debates of the sixties will help verify that for you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you very much.

That was a great presentation, and you had good answers to the questions. I really do appreciate that. I really think you're the type of person that is where the rubber meets the road, who is getting things done and meeting those needs. We do appreciate it, and I hope we'll see some more funding to assist you in what you're doing. Thank you.

I'm just going to suspend for five minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Members, a number of weeks ago Madam Neville put forward a notice of motion with regard to Walking Arm-in-Arm to Resolve the Issue of On-Reserve Matrimonial Real Property. We didn't deal with it as a committee, as other issues came up. Madam Neville would like to have this dealt with now.

The question I have for the committee, and it is at the pleasure of the committee, is do you want to deal with this in the open committee meeting or in camera? I've checked with the clerk, and it doesn't make any difference where we deal with it, as it would still have the same relevance.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

I would like to do it in public, only because it's then on the record.