Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on June 19th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

We'll go to the government side now, please. Mr. Albrecht.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Mr. Chair, I would like to follow up.

I certainly concur with your initiative of trying to, wherever possible, keep children within their family home, safely at home with the support services that they need there.

If we were to somehow get this $109 million that you're referring to, could you give me a practical outline as to how that would be implemented at the level of each home?

[Cindy Blackstock]

What we've done with the Wen:de report is, given the great diversity of first nations communities, not only in terms of cultural diversity, but also, as the honourable member Crowder has already pointed out, some are in remote rural and urban areas, we have suggested that communities build on something that's already in the current funding formula, which is a needs assessment, which must be done before you develop an agency.

What is not done in the current formula is helping communities develop services on the basis of what those needs are. We have a number of examples already identified in the Wen:de report of where some communities have had access to prevention moneys, and what a difference that made. I'll just cite one very quickly: the West Region Child and Family Services. They had more flexibility through a pilot program from the Department of Indian Affairs to invest their dollars differently. As a result, they were able to develop community-based prevention programs that reflect the culture of their communities.

Over a period of ten years, they held the numbers of children in care constant, despite population growth, which really means the numbers went down. More than that, they feel that the economic savings to the Government of Canada was about $1.5 million a year, and of course the social savings, in terms of these children being much better off, were really uncountable.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Could you just give me an example of what kind of service these prevention services were?

[Cindy Blackstock]

In one program that they did, they actually combined early childhood, an employment program, substance misuse, and a parenting program all as one particular program. That makes all kinds of sense, right? It addresses all those types of issues. What they found—and these were all high-risk families that were placed in this situation—was there was a great deal of success, in that very few of these families, after completing this two-year program, came back to the attention of child welfare; many of the parents were now gainfully employed, had a lot of pride in their ability to care effectively for their children; and because of the early childhood development component the kids themselves had moved along in their developmental markers in a much more progressive way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Mr. Blaney.

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

Thank you.

I listened carefully to what you had to say. You recommend a number of measures that would allow children to remain in their community in order to attend school. Do you feel that pilot projects would be interesting option to pursue? If we were to start assessing the needs of all communities, some may be left to fend for themselves. Wouldn't it be better to target specific projects in each region and gradually take steps to implement them? That way, we could take pains to ensure that these projects were effective and properly administered.

[Cindy Blackstock]

You raise an important point. In fact, we built that into the design of the Wen:de recommendations. If you look closely on how we allocated the funding for least disruptive measures, it is actually lowest in year one and them ramps up for about seven years. The reason for that is in year one we would suggest to those agencies who may not be at a point where they have a ready “here we go” research design or program design for their community to do that consultation, to do the research, to set up and design the programs that have the most meaning for their community members; then in year two they would begin operating those particular programs and in years three, five, and six they'd evaluate them and expand those programs. So that type of learning process has already been embedded.

The other thing we've been doing as an organization, concurrently, is a whole celebration of best practices in first nations child welfare across the country. If you go onto our website, you'll see where some first nations programs, despite the limited restrictions on the funding level, are sharing with their colleagues some of their best practices. So that particular piece is already out there available for agencies to inform their progress going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Monsieur Lessard.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd also like to welcome you and thank you for joining us this morning.

I have a question for you of a general nature. However, I'll explain what I'm getting at later. Is the government really doing the right thing, in terms of our obligations toward aboriginal communities?

Let me explain what I mean. When I was young, I worked in close proximity to aboriginal communities, the Algonquin nations in particular, and other communities in Northern Quebec. I also worked side by side with aboriginal people in the hospital system. If I compare the situation today with conditions approximately 45 years ago, I'm left with the impression that the social inequities between aboriginals and non-aboriginals persist. I'm not saying that there hasn't been any progress in terms of their living conditions, but since living conditions of non-aboriginals have also evolved, the gap has remained the same as before. For example, the incidence of poverty today among aboriginals is higher than among non-aboriginals. Housing problems are also more marked among this group, as are alcohol and addiction problems.

The inequities remain. Some appear to have adopted a fatalistic approach. They have resigned themselves with working with the status quo and continue to take sensible action when it comes to government bureaucracy and programs. What position do you currently occupy? You seem to take a more global view of things. Am I right?

In conclusion, I've always found that aboriginal and non-aboriginal parents are not that different. They want what is best for their children. I have eight or nine aboriginal godchildren. In years past, aboriginal parents tried to designate non-aboriginals to act as godparents because if ever they were unable to care for their children, a non-aboriginal would assume responsibility for them. I think that we often tend to harbour some prejudices, particularly when we claim that aboriginals cannot successfully organize their own affairs. We fail to take into account their living conditions and the fact that they are different from those of non-aboriginals. Would you care to share your views on this subject with me?

[Cindy Blackstock]

My experience is really informed by my own lived experience and the great honour that I have working with first nations children and families and the communities that serve them.

If I can humbly suggest, Canada funds some programs that it rolls out nationally, but the one thing it does not fund is perhaps the thing it needs to do the most, and that is to fund first nations and aboriginal communities to dream.

In my work I've done some analysis of this question of what's available on reserve and off reserve. The voluntary sector accounts for $115 billion in social supports to Canadians. In a research report we did in 2003, we could only find six individual instances in which a child on reserve had received any services.

As we have already seen, aboriginal children on reserve are less likely to receive any provincial services, they are underfunded by the federal government in child welfare by $109 million, and there are very few municipal equivalents.

Many of you who have been on reserves will find few examples of a library being open--other than one that is attached to the school--or of facilities where children with disabilities and their families have access to everything. From a family income point of view, Campaign 2000 said the family income for a person off reserve is about $37,000, compared to about $9,000 for a person on reserve.

I say that if we applied the same conditions to every other Canadian that we do to status Indian children, we would have many thousands of children in child welfare care.

What we need to do is fund first nations to do what CIDA already does internationally--develop sustainable community development plans that put children and young people at the centre, and then fund those services to make those dreams happen adequately. That is my view about what needs to happen.

Government does not need to find the solutions; they need to recognize that many of the communities already have their solutions. They just need to get behind them and celebrate them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you.

Mr. Blaney.

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

I think you raise a point that goes far beyond just the rights of children. I think you show a nice vision of community development.

You talked about sustainable community development. I think we have the same challenge, because all communities are asked to implement, at this time, those types of plans, and it might be a mistake, because they are not given the tools. They have not necessarily been prepared. So it turns more into a bureaucratic exercise than a real exercise that reaches the people and takes their future in hand.

You've mentioned that first nations have to dream, and you talk about building capacity and enabling people to believe in their own power to change their future.

Concerning that, my question would be quite simple. You've talked of the need for additional funding to improve child welfare, but is money the only issue? If not, what else could be done as a legislator, as a government, as an agency, or as a department, to improve that?

[Cindy Blackstock]

We've actually included a number of broad, sweeping recommendations, along with the increments in funding. One is to try to modify spending authority so that there can be cross-ministerial collaboration and cross-disciplinary collaboration. Instead of having money coming into first nations in silos, allow for a substance misuse worker to be on a child protection team. Allow for there to be the pooling of money between programs so it can optimally benefit communities.

The other piece we're looking at is how to support the voluntary sector. Much of that $115 billion in annual funding that goes to the voluntary sector is funded by governments. I'll just give you an example.

In the province of British Columbia in 2001, the entire budget for children with disabilities and child welfare was $1.5 billion; and $1.1 billion of that was going to the non-profit sector to implement those services. We're suggesting, why not amend some of those funds to target specifically that it be used by aboriginal communities for the benefit of their children, so that we ensure that those dollars are going to those who most need it?

Those are some of the recommendations that go beyond child welfare that would make a big difference.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Are there any further questions?

Madam Crowder, please.

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

I have a couple of brief questions.

My colleague across the way referred to pilot projects. I always get a little bit nervous when I hear “pilot projects”, simply because what we have often seen in the past is that somebody runs a pilot project and then determines that this is the way that something is going to be implemented from coast to coast to coast, and it doesn't recognize the diversity or the differences in communities.

I know you talked about best practices. It seems to me that there's already a substantial amount of information out there around best practices. Could you talk about why we wouldn't look at those best practices and make funding available for people in various communities to choose what they would like to implement?

[Cindy Blackstock]

The issue with pilot projects is that it can work if you've already dealt with the equity question, but it shouldn't be the choice that we are going to have pilot projects instead of providing equitable child welfare funding.

One of the things we were very clear about when we designed the Wen:de solution was that it should not be implemented piecemeal, because we felt that it would not be effective in that way.

One of the things I should bring to your attention is that the Department of Indian Affairs has announced publicly in its budget--that was under the Liberal government--a $125 million investment, $25 million each year for five years in additional first nations child welfare funding. That was in 2005.

For many of us in first nations child welfare, that provided some level of assurance, but since then the Honourable Jim Prentice has just confirmed in a letter that $14.7 million of that is going to go back into the department to relieve their costs of additional children coming into child welfare care and to hire staff. They provided some more money for evaluation, but that's not one of the priorities for agencies. They want to see the money go to kids first, and then evaluation maybe down the line.

Of that amount, $8.6 million will go to inflation adjustments, but we recommended a minimum of $21.1 million just to catch up for all that has been lost.

So doing things in steps really doesn't work, because what we need here is a large change. We want to see an amount of first nations children in care that is proportional to non-aboriginal kids. We don't need just a little change; we need a big change. What we're asking for is the same level of resources that other Canadian children get, in order to do that. So it's really critical.

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

Do you have a breakdown on the amount of federal money that actually ends up in direct delivery of service?

[Cindy Blackstock]

I can probably get that to you. The 22% less from 2000 was per-child expenditure. The author of that report, from Blue Quills Consulting, was very clear that it was on a per-child basis that it was less.

When we look at that $109 million and talk about the $62 million, for example, for least disruptive measures, those would be direct child benefits that currently are not being provided.

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

Right now, though, is it your feeling that this consulting group would be able to tell us exactly how much ends up in direct delivery of service out of whatever money the federal government does provide? I ask because I think a lot of times money ends up being spent supporting bureaucratic processes; that may be valuable, but it's not direct delivery of services to children and families.

[Cindy Blackstock]

Right.

What we're able to do already is to say that these services are currently being delivered under the formula--for example, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs provides a lot of money to remove kids from their homes--so it's not only a question of how much is going in dollars, but where it is going. If we invested this money differently, could these children be at home more safely? That's the solution we're outlining in Wen:de: The Journey Continues.

We're not finding, by the way, any over.... When we analyze first nations agency costs in terms of their running agencies, they're far below what a province would have. Just to give you an example, provinces have huge policy infrastructures. In the province of British Columbia, the province itself has an aboriginal policy infrastructure that costs about $33 million to operate per annum. That is probably just over the whole budget for all services for on-reserve children in that province from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

Thank you very much.

I'm going to close this off.

I first met Cindy Blackstock on a flight from Toronto to Ottawa. It was my second flight to Ottawa. I never thought I would ever be chair of this committee and have the opportunity to influence her.

She let me know on the flight about some of these issues, and I thought it was very important for this committee to hear. I'm very glad that I have had the opportunity to influence by having Cindy here. As you can tell, she is very knowledgeable.

I also feel that this issue needs urgent measures and needs to be forwarded by this committee, so I would be looking forward to some sort of a motion from this committee as soon as possible. I know we need a 48-hour opportunity to submit it, but I would ask that the committee consider that option.

Thank you very much, Madam Blackstock, for the information you've given this committee. Hopefully we can resolve some of these issues and bring at least equality in child care to first nations on reserves.

Thank you.

[Cindy Blackstock]

Thank you very much, honourable chair and honourable members.

[The Chair, Conservative, Colin Mayes]

I'll suspend for five minutes, please.

[Proceedings continue in camera]