Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on May 4th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Good afternoon everyone. Welcome to the 14th meeting of the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development.

Pursuant to the order of the day, we are studying the matter of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

This afternoon we welcome four witnesses, four organizations in fact, in our continuing study pertaining to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. I see that one of our witnesses is yet to arrive. That doesn't stop us from proceeding.

I'm sure some of you have done this before. If you haven't, essentially we'll allow ten minutes for each presentation, and as you'll see, questions from members are timed. After each of the four ten-minute presentations we will go to a round of questions from members of Parliament in a prescribed order. That is seven minutes for the questions and responses, and we'll give you more on that as we go through.

We'd like to welcome, from Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, the director, Elizabeth Ford. She is the director for the Department of Health and Environment. She's joined by Jim Cincotta. Jim is the senior policy adviser, Department of Health and the Environment.

Let's begin with your presentation, Ms. Ford, and then we'll proceed down the row.

[Elizabeth Ford, Director, Department of Health and Environment, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami]

Thank you.

Thank you for allowing me to come and speak to you today.

When the Aboriginal Healing Foundation began in 1998, its primary objectives were to break the cycle of physical and sexual abuse that was a consequence of the residential schools experience in Canada and--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Ms. Ford, particularly if you're reading from text, if you read a bit more slowly than normal then the simultaneous interpretation will be good for everyone.

[Elizabeth Ford]

Okay.

When the Aboriginal Healing Foundation began in 1998, its primary objectives were to break the cycle of physical and sexual abuse that was a consequence of the residential schools experience in Canada and to improve the well-being of Canada's aboriginal peoples. It is Inuit I will be talking about today.

Programs were designed to support a holistic and community-based healing process for survivors and their families and to address the specific needs of the Inuit. The work was community-driven. Projects funded by the foundation were designed in and by Inuit communities. Funding was based on community readiness, and because such readiness takes time, some programs were just getting started and getting off the ground on March 31 when the foundation's funding came to an end.

Across the four Inuit land claim regions, including the Inuvialuit settlement region of the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, the Nunavik region of northern Quebec, and the Nunatsiavut region of northern Labrador, the foundation funded almost three dozen community-based programs.

I would like to tell you about one such program called "healing together using our traditional values and ceremonies". This program provides resources to 14 Nunavut communities and was administered by the Nunavut Regional Board of Health and Social Services. The results of this program were enormous. As cited in the 2009 AHF evaluation report, the program helped parents and children understand one another better. Many survivors, the report said, were looking for answers and solutions to trauma, helplessness, and dysfunction. The workshops have provided them with the tools necessary to address these issues.

These workshops provided a safe place for youth and elders to connect and share experiences, often for the first time. Workshops drew in elders who had never before recounted their experiences to youth or anyone else. AHF-funded programs provided a safe environment, an opportunity to speak about their experiences and to heal.

Inuit who have attended such workshops say they are living healthier, happier lives, but many are concerned that the discontinuation of AHF funding will mean the potential for increased drug use and suicide rates. If you have travelled in the Arctic, then you know that there are really no alternative mental wellness resources. The 2010 federal budget allocated an estimated $199 million for residential school survivors, with a portion going to Health Canada to further support the Indian residential schools resolution health support program, RHSP for short.

RHSP provides emotional health and wellness support to residential school survivors and their families regardless of status or place of residence, but only if they're eligible for the common experience payment and are in the process of resolving a claim. Not all survivors are eligible for the common experience payment, notably Inuit living in Nunatsiavut. This means that Nunatsiavut will not have RHSP infrastructure in place to assist survivors working through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process.

The RHSP complements programs provided by the AHF and has provided services to many Inuit seeking support. However, the AHF was different in a few key ways. It was community-based, while RHSP service serves individuals. AHF funding helped to develop healing capacity within communities, while RHSP brings in counsellors from the south. When seeking RHSP services, Inuit must dial a 1-800 number answered only in French and English, significantly limiting access for survivors whose first language is the Inuit language.

As the executive director of Iqaluit's Tukisigiarvik points out, under the RHSP Inuits seeking services must call their regional coordinator, who for Nunavut is inconveniently located in Whitehorse, three time zones away. Comparing both models, AHF delivered an aboriginal program that complemented Health Canada's RHSP.

I believe there is a place for both service delivery models for Inuit. Research from AHF evaluations shows that the two programs together were getting excellent results.

In Nunavut, AHF funded programs in Pangnirtung, Clyde River, and Iqaluit. All three communities used AHF funding to strengthen and integrate healing programs within mental wellness centres. This interwoven system of healing brought Inuit together to address issues of addictions and trauma in an environment in which they could learn healthy coping skills.

Elders dropped in for coffee and would often chat with Inuit who were waiting for services. During these informal conversations, elders contributed greatly to the healing journey. These places, managed by Inuit, and where staff spoke the Inuit language, created a sense of ownership, pride, autonomy, and self-determination. They helped to develop trust between the AHF and the community groups running AHF programs.

The foundation was progressive, allowing Inuit to take control of the healing and their lives. Its funding was vital to Inuit health and well-being. But some programs that have only recently started have now closed their doors, and for many the healing journey that had only just begun has come to an abrupt end. This is truly a shame.

The message that I hope you will take with you today is that if we are to seriously address the mental wellness needs of Inuit, sustainable community wellness funding is absolutely essential.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Ford. We will come back to you for questions once we are finished the presentations.

Now we will go to Ms. Yvonne Rigsby-Jones, who joins us from the Tsow-Tun Le Lum Society. Yvonne is the executive director of that organization.

Go ahead, Ms. Rigsby-Jones, for ten minutes.

[Yvonne Rigsby-Jones, Executive Director, Tsow-Tun Le Lum Society]

Thank you.

Honourable members, I thank you, and I am privileged to present to you today in support of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

I acknowledge the Algonquin people of this land for having me here today to work.

As you heard, I am Yvonne Rigsby-Jones. In the Snuneymuxw First Nation my calling has been to assist the healing process of many of our people, with the guidance of elders and tradition balanced with western therapies.

I am the executive director of Tsow-Tun Le Lum treatment centre on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. We have led the way over the past twenty years in the area of assisting residential school survivors heal from their experiences.

However, today I speak not only as an administrator, but also as the wife of a survivor, the mother of children who have suffered the intergenerational impacts, and a grandmother. I am totally committed to creating a life free of abuse for our children, who so richly deserve that.

My husband John is a survivor of the Port Alberni Indian Residential School. In the early 1990s he was involved in one of the first court cases against a dormitory supervisor at Port Alberni.

Really, no one understands. The current government is meeting the obligations that were set out in the settlement agreement, and I acknowledge that, but I also know and understand the ongoing need for community-driven and culturally based programs. Many of our past and current residents are absolute miracles. They demonstrate resiliency and strength in order to get up and face each new day.

We know the positive impacts of having the Aboriginal Healing Foundation programs, as recorded in the recent evaluation by the Department of Indian Affairs. We know from past experience that not having the projects in place recycles the harm back to communities, creating a domino effect of harm statistics, and money spent on crisis intervention such as hospitalization and child welfare, and the likelihood of increased spousal assaults.

With the Truth and Reconciliation Commission work beginning, and the number of hearings that are still to be held, former student memory banks will be opened. They will be living flashbacks and having anxiety and, along with their families, will be experiencing many triggers.

Internationally known psychologist Bessel van der Kolk's research has found that flashbacks are not just bad dreams, but are a reliving of the whole traumatic experience and are felt again in the survivor's body. Physical and sexual abuse account for a large part of the legacy of the Indian residential school impact and were an integral part of the work that has been done by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

Since discussing the lack of funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is the purpose of my presence here today, I have gathered information from a few research projects to support the monetary value of continuing to fund community-based aboriginal projects. I would also like to note that for many survivors of the Indian residential schools, developing trust with non-aboriginal people is a barrier, given their many negative experiences, and it is something they have also passed on to their children. So the presence of community-based programs, the services offered by Health Canada, and therapists help build bridges for more successful relationships with non-aboriginal people.

There are Health Canada services available. They are fee-for-service and not always aboriginal-sensitive or easily accessible. Resolution health support workers can offer initial support and referral but are not intended to address long-term trauma counselling needs.

I was taught early in my training that recovery from childhood sexual abuse takes at least three years of committed therapy. That, along with residential school trauma and loss of identity, makes the issues that survivors and their families face extremely complex.

Addressing the allocation of scarce resources and continuing to fund foster children, incarceration, and homeless initiatives are not the best outcomes for Canadians' tax dollars.

The Cedar Project in British Columbia has been doing research, they say, with purpose. They're published in the academic world and are recognized as credible researchers. One of their recent papers states that sexual trauma will continue to impact individuals, families, and communities until unresolved trauma is meaningfully addressed in client-driven, culturally safe programs.

Sexual abuse has been linked to many health issues, including mental, sexual, and drug-related vulnerabilities. I also worked with the Corrections Canada contract, which had many meetings based on that work.

The recent statistic for youth in juvenile detention is that over 50% in British Columbia today are aboriginal. There's a recent Correctional Services Canada evaluation, and that report documents the over-representation of aboriginal people in the federal institutions.

Quoting Dr. Stephen Duckett, CEO of Alberta's health services, in 2009:

The science of economics is cast in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it is portrayed as being about naive cost cutting, but that is not what I think people in this room would understand about economics. As you all know, economics is about how to allocate scarce resources...

Continuing to fund the Aboriginal Healing Foundation addresses many of the cost issues in the health care system in many other ways. There are many success stories of people, approximately 1,700 to date, who have completed treatment at our project. We are just one of many projects that have contributed to community healing funded by the foundation.

At Tsow-Tun Le Lum, we have done this work for enough years to have witnessed three generations of the same family attend healing programs. I have personally worked with incarcerated individuals. One of our former residents has never looked back. He is now grown up and works inside of a federal institution, after moving from the juvenile system to provincial system to the federal system; he's been out of incarceration since the early nineties. And he's just one of our stories.

As the schools ran for over 100 years, funding the healing process for such a short time seems desperately inadequate. Breaking the cycles of abuse is generational. I have a six-year-old granddaughter, and I'm her only grandparent who did not attend residential school. We have a 40-year-old staff member who attended residential school. These intergenerational effects are not history; they are still very present today.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation projects are not a one-size-fits-all design. They demonstrate clearly the empowerment of individual communities to stand together and work together to create change that increases overall well-being and peace. For many survivors and their family members the ability to stay clean and sober is challenged until the trauma recovery work is addressed.

For many of the people who are faced with allocating funds, statistics are numbers; for our community members they represent sisters, brothers, parents, or children.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation has a wealth of research documenting what works. To be able to continue healing our communities in a culturally safe environment is really important. If there are fewer children in care, fewer people incarcerated, fewer children growing up in family violence, that creates significant cost savings to the government in other areas.

In my preparation I lost a couple of paragraphs of statistics. They must be lost in cyberspace in my computer somewhere. But I know from our own project we did a...

Is it time to wind up?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

We have our translation switched over on a different channel. Please just stand by for a moment.

Good? Thank you very much.

Okay. Please go ahead and finish up, Ms. Rigsby-Jones.

[Yvonne Rigsby-Jones]

I reviewed the small research project we did at Tsow-Tun Le Lum a few years ago. We found people who had been through treatment over many years and were at all different levels of recovery. We found that with an increased level of post-secondary education completed, there was a significant drop in hospitalization. Incarceration dropped from 56% to 13% in the sample we studied. I believe you're all aware of what it costs to keep people incarcerated and in foster care. We also have stats on the number of people who now have their children back. All of those issues really support the need for this ongoing work in our communities.

Thank you very much for listening.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you very much, Ms. Rigsby-Jones.

We now welcome Nakuset, the executive director of the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal. She is joined by Carrie Martin, the evaluation coordinator. I see we are also welcoming a third representative of the organization here today. It's great to have your baby with us. We're delighted.

Please proceed, Nakuset. We are allowing ten minutes for your presentation. We'll have one more ten-minute presentation after that. Then we'll go to questions from members. We'll let you know when you get close to your ten minutes.

[Nakuset, Executive Director, Native Women's Shelter of Montreal]

I'd like to begin by thanking the standing committee for inviting the Native Women's Shelter here to the table. We are very happy to be here.

My name is Nakuset, and I'm the executive director of the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal. Our mission is to provide a safe and supportive environment that strengthens cultural identity, self-esteem, and independence for aboriginal women and their children.

According to Shingwauk's Vision, the Jesuit experiment in boarding school education got under way after 1636. The Native Women's Shelter created the “Moving Towards the Seventh Generation” project and was granted funding by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation in October 1999. As the shelter was aware of the horrendous abuses that took place in the residential schools, our project was designed to offer healing to those impacted by the crippling effects of the intergenerational trauma from these schools.

Some of the abuses suffered included sexual abuse, spiritual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and psychological abuse. The impacts of these abuses are far-reaching and include, but are not limited to, broken family systems, loss of culture, loss of language, loss of traditions and ceremonies, internalized shame, anger, chronic addiction, dependency thinking, spiritual and cultural shame, mistrust of leadership and authority, and physical abuse of children and other vulnerable people.

The knowledge of this dark piece of history that continues to plague our people to this day led us to develop a comprehensive healing program that addresses the majority of issues I just mentioned.

Our programs were strongly grounded in the teachings of--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Nakuset, please don't take any offence by this, but you can keep a bit of distance from the microphone. It's pretty sensitive and picks it up. We're doing simultaneous translation, so going at a normal speed is quite fine. We will get through the ten minutes and you'll be fine.

[Nakuset]

Okay.

Our programs were strongly grounded in the teachings of the medicine wheel, which focused on the physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional healing. The “Moving Towards the Seventh Generation” program included positions that were created with the needs of survivors in mind, to counter the effects of residential schools and the severing of ties to culture, teachings, and healing.

Survivors of residential schools were not taught interpersonal and familial skills, and in the absence of emotional support and nurturing that had a devastating effect on their own parenting. To quote J.R. Miller, “The lack of parenting skills has frequently been cited as a major problem affecting Native families and communities down to the present day. The breakdown of families that resulted in spousal and child abuse, desertion, alcoholism, and substance abuse has been a plague in Native communities.”

Therefore, at the shelter we had many different positions. One of our positions was the family care worker. Her primary mandate was to work with mothers in all aspects of parenting, including hygiene, nutrition, child supervision, healthy supervision, bonding, and so on, and this was accomplished through weekly workshops, individual and family therapy support, and referrals. She also did such things as planning children's activities and family activities, providing counselling and educational workshops, organizing outings, and planning meals.

What were the impacts of the program? It taught the clients basic parenting skills that were lost as a result of the residential school system. It strengthened the family. It empowered the mothers to be independent. It allowed for informed decisions on nutrition and hygiene and a sense of identity and belonging within a family.

We also had a program coordinator who planned monthly calendars of events, distributed, collected, and analyzed evaluation forms for all these events, planned wellness activities, organized ceremonies, organized sweat lodge retreats, arranged for traditional healing and therapy, organized talking circles and healing circles, and arranged for traditional teaching workshops, arts and crafts workshops, pow wow dancing, instructional workshops, traditional feasts, and drumming. She also had a newsletter that went out monthly, and she had bimonthly resident meetings. In that way, she got feedback from the clients to make sure they were happy with the programming.

The impacts were that clients could use traditional healing methods to cope with the effects of residential schools and to reconnect to culture and tradition. They were introduced to cultural teachings about rites of passage and traditional roles for men and women, and could work on issues of chronic addiction, healing from shame, and dysfunction.

We also had a healing lodge coordinator. She worked only in the summer, and she planned retreats, away from the shelter, up in Saint-Adolphe-d'Howard. She planned sweat lodge retreats. Those included ceremonies, traditional arts and crafts workshops, self-defence training, hiking, and special activities for children and families. The impacts were reconnection with nature, social supports, spiritual connection, internal balance, and harmony.

We also had a sexual assault counsellor. The activities she took on included crisis counselling, supportive listening, referrals, information and educational workshops. Clients could heal from the effects of intergenerational sexual abuse, work on breaking the cycle of sexual abuse, advocate for justice and healing, and heal from shame and dysfunction.

We had a clinical supervisor. She ran workshops for all the staff at the shelter, supervised the client cases, and gave guidance to all the counsellors. The impact was a holistic healing model implemented for the healing plans of all clients.

We also had a conference coordinator. The activities included organizing an annual conference addressing all aspects of healing from the effects of residential schools, and reporting back to the urban aboriginal community on the shelter's activities in reference to healing. The impact was raised awareness of residential school issues, which assisted the community to be better equipped to help survivors, and heal from shame and dysfunction.

These are usually three-day workshops. They're very well attended. We had elders from all over.

The last position is the evaluation coordinator, which is the position that Ms. Carrie Martin now holds. She's been asked to evaluate the “Moving towards the Seventh Generation” project and the closure of all reports and files.

The impact is a deeper understanding of the long-term need for traditional healing and techniques. In the absence of these crucial programs, clients no longer have access to traditional and cultural healing. The impact of this loss has been felt throughout the province of Quebec. Remote communities used to refer clients to our services. We can no longer offer our healing programs to them.

Residential schools were introduced close to 350 years ago. We strongly believe that ten years of healing do not even begin to address the myriad issues stemming from the residential schools. We therefore appeal to you to reinstate the funding of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

In the spirit of healing, we thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Nakuset.

I would also note the attentiveness of our young witness here today. It's a good model for all members of Parliament to follow.

We'll now proceed to Madam Madeleine Dion Stout. Madeleine is a board member for la Commission de la santé mentale du Canada.

Ms. Dion Stout, you have 10 minutes for your presentation.

[Madeleine Dion Stout, Board Member, Mental Health Commission of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon to everyone.

especially to the esteemed leaders of the standing committee and to my co-presenters.

I'm very pleased to be here today to tell you a little bit about the work the Mental Health Commission of Canada is carrying out and how aboriginal organizations, including the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, are contributing to the commission's efforts.

First, a little background. The Mental Health Commission of Canada is a fairly new player on the national scene. It was created in 2007 by the federal government, following the largest study ever conducted in this country into the status of mental health, mental illness, and addiction in Canada.

The commission's mandate is to focus national attention on mental health issues and to work to improve the health and social outcomes of people living with mental problems and mental illness. Of note, the Mental Health Commission of Canada does not deliver services and programs like the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has done, but rather acts as a catalyst for change.

One of the Mental Health Commission's mandates is to develop a mental health strategy for Canada. You might ask why we even need one. The answer is that although thousands of people are working to make a difference in the area of mental health care in Canada, the harsh reality is that many of the pressing needs of those living with mental health problems are not being adequately addressed.

Another reality that affects the development of a mental health strategy for Canada is the fact that we are a very diverse country. It's important that this work doesn't just result in a pretty document that sits on a shelf. It has to be something real, which means it also has to work for Canadians from every stage and every walk of life, from coast to coast to coast, for children and youth, for seniors, for English-speaking Canadians, for francophones, for immigrants, and of course for Canada's first nations, Inuit, and Métis. A one-sized strategy would not make sense, as I'm sure you would all agree.

In 2009, after extensive public consultation, we released a document, “Toward Recovery and Well-Being”. This document creates the framework for what will become Canada's first-ever mental health strategy.

It should be noted that the document was created with input from the Mental Health Commission and the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Advisory Committee, one of the aid advisory committees working to direct the efforts of the commission. Input also came from other national aboriginal organizations and from consultations held across the country, including in the north, where individual and aboriginal stakeholders provided direction through online consultation processes. It wasn't just people from the north who did that, obviously; it was everybody else to whom the process was open. It was to all Canadians. Knowledge shared by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and their various stakeholders contributed.

As a result of all our consultation work, the framework sets out a vision for recovery and well-being for all people in Canada that is holistic, has a focus on environment, self-determination, cultural safety, healing, hope, well-being, and community development, and that places a value on traditional and customary knowledge. What I like to say on the Mental Health Commission is that tradition is more modern than modern is today, and it has to be that way in our recessionary economies.

By telling you about all of this, I'm hoping to convey just how important input from Canada's first nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples has been to the efforts of the Mental Health Commission.

I have already mentioned the work of the First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Advisory Committee. This committee is working to ensure cultural safety becomes an important part of mental health care in Canada. They are also working to create ethical guidelines to address how front-line health care services are delivered, especially in mental health and addictions, where some of the most vulnerable indigenous people seek support.

In addition, the Mental Health Commission of Canada is working on a homelessness research project in five cities across Canada: Moncton, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver. It is estimated there are between 150,000 and 300,000 homeless Canadians and about half also have a mental illness.

Each city is targeting a specific group in order to understand how best to help those who are homeless who also have mental illness and mental health problems. The Winnipeg project is taking a holistic approach to addressing homelessness and mental health issues in urban aboriginal people. This made-in-Winnipeg model includes services based on traditional aboriginal teachings.

At this point I would like to add a few comments specifically about the work of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation based on personal experience and knowledge. In many respects I am the human face and voice from the margins that the Mental Health Commission is working valiantly to place at the centre of its work, for I too have ridden waves of vulnerability as a survivor of a residential school.

When our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, made his historical apology about the wrongs that were committed against first nations, Inuit, and Métis individuals, families, and communities because of residential schools, Canada as we knew it stood still in tribute while we first nations, Inuit, and Métis stood tall, affirmed, and forward-looking in the very places and spaces we play in, work in, and pray in right across the country.

The old ones tell us to utter into the universe only those things we want to be beholden to and only those that will take hold. The Prime Minister's apology was one of those finer moments in Canadian history. But his holy--if I can use that word--words and actions may not have fallen on such fertile ground had the Aboriginal Healing Foundation not encouraged, cultivated, and disciplined consciousness-raising about the legacy and spillover effects of the residential schools beforehand through its research and funding efforts.

The high level of engagement of first nations, Inuit, and Métis people in Aboriginal Healing Foundation projects has also shown just how committed aboriginal people have been in creating change in order to build a stronger sense of self, family, country, and nation.

Sustaining this momentum for change will happen if funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is renewed.

First, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation needs to be given an opportunity to examine and develop healing indicators such as the rates of physical and sexual abuse, children in care, incarceration, and suicide. It has not been able to track these because it had to operate in such a short funding period.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Mental Health Commission can work together on engendering new conversations on mental health and well-being because we share sentiments like “We are healed because we have known hope and recovery, belonging, usefulness, and trust.”

Secondly, we experience heartbeats, reminding us that we are all related. We are one self as other.

Third, we both show splashes of colour because we believe life is worth living and that life is worth contributing to, and that we all have the potential to do this.

Fourth, we seize the moment. We are aware that as moments die, our future is still ahead of us. It is not behind us.

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation has done the work the Mental Health Commission will be building on, that is, securing our cultural ethnic identities, building social cohesion, not just among ourselves, meaning first nations, Inuit, and Métis, but I think we've gone some distance in forging better relationships with other Canadians and promoting mental health and preventing mental illness among first nations, Inuit, and Métis.

As the Aboriginal Healing Foundation gave voice to survivors like me, valorized our optimism, pragmatism, human agency, and resilience, it went a long way in encouraging us to be forward-looking and to be part of go-forward strategies, not the least of which are the ones the Mental Health Commission is carrying out right now.

Because the Aboriginal Health Foundation has been there, we're not such strangers on our land. We're reclaiming lost childhoods and confronting our mental health problems. We're looking at our world through aboriginal lenses, partly because the Aboriginal Healing Foundation facilitated this.

Thank you very much.

I'll stop there. It was just going to be general comments after this.

Thank you all very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Dion Stout.

We will now proceed with members' questions.

Mr. Russell, you have seven minutes.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, and thank you.

A couple of my colleagues are commenting that if I get into my really rapid pace you'll probably want to find another channel on the translation dial in order to really get an understanding of what I'm saying.

I just want to welcome each of you and thank you for your words and your powerful case in defence of the work of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the testimony you gave that underscores how fundamental it is to many of our people in our communities, and certainly to the communities themselves.

I certainly want to welcome that young witness, who--it sounds like to me, anyway--is certainly objecting to the Conservative government's decision to cut the Aboriginal Healing Foundation as well. At least that's my translation.

I want to ask a couple of questions and I want to focus on the Inuit, in particular.

There are a lot of these are isolated communities. Of course, I'm from Labrador. We have Nunatsiavut, which means “our beautiful land”. The interesting comment you made is that for the last couple of years we had an Aboriginal Healing Foundation program in Nunatsiavut, but there have been no common experience payments because there's still ongoing litigation, there are ongoing negotiations and talks about whether they will actually be brought under the Indian residential schools settlement agreement. So we will have some healing that has taken place because the communities have been ready and picked up that part, their responsibility. And now you're saying if we do away with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and even if we move to the residential health support program, they won't be able to get it at all, so there will be an absolute gap there, because it's only applicable to those who will have common experience payments or who fall under the Indian residential schools settlement agreement. So that's one impact.

The other impact I hear you saying is that there are very few resources, if any, outside of what has been developed over the last number of years, in a lot of Inuit hamlets and communities in Nunavut, and the Nunavut legislature unanimously passed a resolution saying we should keep the Aboriginal Health Foundation.

So I just want you to give us some concrete examples of what happens in some of these Inuit communities. And what will happen if it's not there? Will a person just have to pick up a phone and call a 1-800 number, be redirected to somebody, in some other part of Canada who can't speak their language, doesn't know who they are? Then someone on the other line says “Go and see a counsellor”. If you're in Gjoa Haven or if you're Pangnirtung, that might be hard to come by.

So just give us a concrete example of what the differences might be with the Aboriginal Healing Foundation programs, and then if they're not there.

[Elizabeth Ford]

First of all, generally there are not a lot of services in communities. What the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has provided, as other people have said, are services to Inuit in their own language, by their own people. There are programs that are developed for the communities based on the needs of those communities. Those communities were, and are, at different stages. They provide what's necessary for the community.

Without those services people would have to travel. In terms of the RHSP program, that's what you do. You call a 1-800 number. Coming from a small community and trying to access a service--I would have never even called a 1-800 number, I don't think, never mind that I could speak the English language--they don't have access to culturally relevant counsellors who understand the issues and the environment they live in.

If they go south, they have to leave their community and their family and their support to see counsellors. They may not speak the language. They would have to leave and go to cities, which is not an easy task; there is discomfort in having to do that.

Do you want to talk about the specific....

[Jim Cincotta, Senior Policy Advisor, Department of Health and Environment, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami]

It also retraumatizes. With residential schools people were taken from their communities and placed in other locations. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation offered healing in their community. With the Health Canada programs, if you have to leave it reinforces that you're being taken out of your community again. It's not contributing to your health; it could possibly retraumatize, and that's what we are trying to avoid.

In Nunavut, at least in the Baffin Island region, the money from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was used very wisely at some smaller healing centres to build a one-stop shop where community members can come in. For example, in Iqaluit they have over 4,000 people dropping in. That's a lot of people for Iqaluit. They would provide counselling to around 500 individuals in an Inuit language, by a traditional elder, or in a traditional way that was very familiar and healing.

It built a centre where community can come together. That's how they used the money very wisely.

But if you look at the Health Canada program, which was complementing these types of services, it's more of a southern-based program that is one-size-fits-all. It's rigid and it's based outside of the community. If you have to call a 1-800 number, a lot of people won't do that. Your phone lines may not be working. There are a lot of technical limitations in a rural, remote, isolated Arctic community. Then if you have to bring people up north to do counselling, flying into communities delays the healing when healing is better served in the community.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Thank you, Ms. Ford and Mr. Cincotta and Mr. Russell.

Mr. Lemay, the floor is now yours.

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

The Aboriginal Healing Foundation program cost a total of $350 million over a period of 11 years. It was launched in 1998. So everyone should have known that it would come to an end in 2009.

Has either one of your organizations been notified that the funding will no longer be available as of 2010?

[Elizabeth Ford]

People knew that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was for a set time, but there isn't other funding that can address that for regions. For example, in the centre that Jim talked about, they were looking for other funding, but the funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was multi-year. Coming from a small community and trying to spend your time looking for funding, when you have to look for applications, write proposals, and then do the work, takes away from trying to help people heal. It's not that easy to find alternative funding.

I think the centre in Iqaluit lost 80% of their regular funding. They have been trying to keep it going and they are looking for other dollars. They think they can probably operate until October this year. They will try to find funding for next year, but they don't think they have a chance of surviving because it's not that easy to find those funds.

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

Okay.

What about the others?

[Yvonne Rigsby-Jones]

I work at a project that's funded until 2012. We've known all along that this was intended to be a sunsetted program; however, with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission issues coming up, the impacts of the common experience, and the settlement agreements in the communities, it's becoming even more apparent how much work we still have to do.

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

There is much work still to be done.

How many people come to the Native Women's Shelter of Montreal every year?

[Nakuset]

We have up to 200 women who come through our shelter. We also have our outreach program with maybe another 60 to 100 women, and 60 children.