Thank you, Madam Chair and committee. I apologize to the others here for crashing their presentation, but I thank you for the opportunity first of all.
I will try to be as brief as I can. Some of my opening comments I sent to you a few weeks ago. I didn't realize it was the same committee that I would be speaking to on different matters.
As the chair has noted, my name is Duane Smith. My English name anyway is Duane Smith. I am the chair and CEO of Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, which represents the very far northwest of Canada bordering Alaska. The area I represent is just under one million square kilometres, two-thirds of that being a water body.
I will cut to the chase on some matters so I can spend some time on some points. As you're aware already, we signed an agreement—when I say we, I mean Canada and us—for us to implement the arrangements we had under the agreement together, which is called the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, back in 1984. It's the second-oldest modern-day treaty we have within Canada.
As I've said and I will reiterate again, the IFA belongs not only to the Inuvialuit but to Canada as well. That's partly why I'm pleased to be sitting before you today, because we have to work together with Canada on issues such as the one I'm here to talk about, on how we can improve and implement our obligations under that treaty.
The ISR itself has six communities. I will skip over parts of it. I do apologize to the interpreters since I'm cutting and pasting because I have been injected into this section here. We do have roughly 6,300 or 6,400 Inuvialuit scattered across the country, mostly within our region.
Before I get into the part about supporting Inuvialuit children, I will mention that I was sitting in the back listening to the Mi'kmaw presentation. I can't state enough my support for the comments and the recommendations they have made to date, because I've heard similar recommendations from other parties including other Inuit organizations.
I would like to turn to some of the things we have been doing to try to support our children, youth and families in the ISR, as it's referred to, or the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. One of the three principal objectives of the IFA is to preserve Inuvialuit cultural identity and values within a changing northern society. Healthy families and communities in which children and youth feel included and supported are essential to the preservation of cultural identity and values.
As most of you may know, since 2014 the Auditor General of Canada has identified serious deficiencies in the delivery of child and family services in the Northwest Territories and in the structures intended to support this delivery. These findings disproportionately impact indigenous children in the territory as over 90% of the children in care are indigenous. At that time, the Auditor General also said that this government could not even identify where some of these children were located.
Then last year, in 2018, the Auditor General did another report. The basic findings were that it was actually getting worse. I don't know how it could possibly get too much worse than having the government not even able to identify where some of these kids were being kept in custody, but now it's getting worse.
IRC has been doing what we can to manage these deficiencies so that our kids do not fall through the cracks.
One example of that is that we provide what we call student and family support workers. The SFSWs were identified as a need in order for schools to connect with families and communities, and I made it a priority when I was first elected in 2016. We use the funds we receive to maintain one staff person for each community. These individuals work out of the schools and provide assistance to students and families of students to ensure that Inuvialuit kids are getting to school and are supported through their school years.
In another example, since I became chair, we have been trying to work with territorial and provincial governments to ensure that children who become government wards or who are adopted into non-Inuvialuit families get a chance to register and ultimately enrol with us. In some cases, Inuvialuit children are removed from their families and sent to places from where it is very difficult and expensive to return to the ISR.
Once we find the child in the system, we try to reach out and provide materials about our three Inuvialuktun dialects, the history of the region and traditional activities. When our records show that a child is about to turn 18, we ensure they have the forms they need to apply to the Inuvialuit Trust. Our staff remains on hand to offer any guardian who wants to know more about the IRC, the ISR and our Inuvialuit communities.
I'll digress again for a moment here just so you understand the government system where a child who turns 18 is put into a hotel for a period of time and then left on their own after that to look after themselves without being given the basic skills to do so. We do have a problem here.
Before Minister Philpott's emergency meeting and the attention that the development of Bill C-92 brought to the issues facing indigenous children, youth and families, it was very difficult to get traction with some provincial and territorial governments. While individual staff members were well meaning, the framework for involving Inuvialuit organizations and sharing information was weak.
Bill C-92 is not perfect, but it is an important step. In our case, we hope that it will provide guidance to the Government of the Northwest Territories as it sorts through the many increasing deficiencies that the Auditor General has identified.
In terms of comments on the bill, I'll turn now to a couple of key elements.
As noted earlier, the transmission of our culture and language, as well as knowledge of and appreciation for our region, are key to preserving Inuvialuit cultural identity and values within a changing northern society. The principles under clause 9 of the bill give appropriate weight to these things. In particular, we see paragraph 9(3)(d), which acknowledges a role for indigenous organizations, as essential.
Clause 12 of the bill, which requires the service provider to provide notice of a measure to the child's parent and the care provider, as well as to the indigenous governing body that acts on behalf of the indigenous group, will greatly benefit the work that we are trying to do on behalf of Inuvialuit children wherever they are.
With this clause, I would note that the implementing regulations are going to be important. My staff tells me that an obstacle in getting information to indigenous organizations is the intake procedures of the responsible jurisdiction. In some provinces, Inuit did not even have a check box that the social worker could mark. All kids are simply “first nation”, so we have a branding problem here. The categorization of indigenous children within the various databases will have to be done on a more granular basis. This is the only way that social workers will be able to connect the child with the relevant indigenous organization so that notice can be provided.
Clause 16 of the bill addresses the priorities considered in the placement of children. Because of our remote location within Canada and the difficulty children have in visiting their home community once removed, Inuvialuit would like to see some priority placed on geographic proximity of the placements. If this is not possible, we would like to see some provision for maintaining the connection between the child and the home community or region.
As a final comment, as we are working through some challenges in our self-government negotiations, we note the importance of the coordination agreement provisions under clause 20 of the bill. These provisions would allow the IRC to request a coordination agreement with government in relation to the exercise of the legislative authority on, first, the provision of emergency services to ensure the safety, security and well-being of indigenous children; second, support measures to enable indigenous children to exercise their rights effectively; third, fiscal arrangements related to the effective exercise of the legislative authority; and, last, any other coordination measure related to the effective exercise of the legislative authority.
The ability to exercise our traditional governance over child and family services, as it is called in this modern age, is key to ensuring our children have a sense of identity and belonging.
In conclusion, we look forward to working with the federal government on the development of the regulations that will help implement this act when it comes into force.
Thanks for your attention and interest. I am happy to take questions.
Nakurmiik.