Evidence of meeting #17 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was centres.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Andy Fillmore
I'm so sorry. Yes. Take it up with David.
A final question from Niki Ashton, please.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, MB
Thank you.
Obviously, as you well know, the point of this study is to come up with some pretty robust recommendations to prevent suicide among indigenous people in communities.
One issue I know from back home that often either gets talked about in other ways or gets overlooked in part because the immediate needs are so significant, the crisis response is so critical, is the need to tackle poverty.
I'm wondering if you could speak in a way that obviously we can pull from that a recommendation. How important is it to tackle poverty when we're talking about the end goal of ending suicide and putting an end to suicide epidemics? What could we be doing about that, perhaps, particularly in the context of urban centres and urban indigenous communities?
Vice-President, National Association of Friendship Centres
Poverty comes in so many different shapes and forms. Urban indigenous people and, say, homelessness, unless you are in a shelter, is almost an invisible problem, because they're probably on a friend's couch or somewhere else and they may not have sustainable housing.
There are so many facets to the poverty piece and suicide. It's really hard to tackle poverty when you talk to a person and tell them to get a job. Well, telling someone to look for a job is one thing, but how do you get a job when you have multiple barriers? You have a criminal record; you don't have a lot of training, and you may have other barriers. It comes down to why we do things the way we do them. Why do we offer transportation? Why do we have a homeless shelter? Why do we offer youth programming, day care, or whatever we need to offer? It's because it's so challenging for an indigenous person to get.... When an average Canadian walks into, say, an employment centre, they fill out their information and get some support, get some training. An aboriginal or indigenous person will not walk into an organization where they don't feel safe and start disclosing all these things, “I'm homeless. I don't have my children. My children were taken away. I have an addiction. I have a criminal record”. They're not going to tell just anyone that.
When we look at an individual, we say that suicide is an immediate risk, so it's an immediate thing you have to solve. But so are glasses, so is being able to see, so is not having your medication, and so is not having food to put on your table. There are all these things. We try to tackle them one at a time and meet the immediate risk there. Poverty is real.
Poverty for indigenous people in urban centres is a real thing. We see it every day. It's why friendship centres have food banks. It's why we have clothing that people can pick up. It's why we have homeless shelters. You see it, and it's real.
We talk about how hard it is to get housing. Well, add in everything else. Good luck getting a credit check for an apartment. Good luck passing some of those pieces. I've had people denied housing when they responded yes when asked if they are aboriginal. They were told, “Well, actually, the damage deposit is now twice that, and you have to provide this much more, because I'm not sure if I can rent to you.”
You have all these huge things that make up the poverty piece that is about how to offer as many things as you can. It's why friendship centres have become so innovative in offering day care, transportation, help to get a job, and whatever it takes. Sometimes you can't even refer an aboriginal person to another service provider, because they probably won't go. They might go if you go with them. It's no different from them walking into a hospital, because they're at immediate risk of dying by suicide, and being lucky if they aren't handed a piece of paper and told to call the numbers on it.
Poverty is more than not making enough money. It's the combination of all those things that we see every day.
It's really challenging to explain that to a lot of people, because people think of poverty as the person sitting on the street. Someone seems like they might have everything they need, but they don't. They're not able to provide for themselves or their family, and that's a reality.
Okay, it takes a healthy person, a job, resources, and somewhere to sleep. That's what I mean. When you're constantly dealing with somewhere to sleep, something to eat, being able to see.... You know, it's crazy to think that you have clients who can't even see because they can't get glasses. That is a real barrier. Suicide is an immediate risk factor. Housing is an immediate risk factor. There are all these things.
Infrastructure is a huge thing, but it's not just about saying, “Here's a house.” That's like saying, “Here's a job.” At friendship centres we can get you a job any day, and that's awesome. However, it's what happens from 5:00 in the evening until 9:00 the next morning, or with your family, or with other concerns. You need the ability to provide those supports. Do you have someone you can call 24 hours a day, because if you're not going to make it to work tomorrow, you'll lose your job, lose your housing, and it goes on, one after the next.
For us it's don't just provide the money. That's like saying, “Here's the money to buy a car without money to maintain it,” or, “Here's the money to open a youth centre without money to run it.” Poverty is like that.
Yes, it would be great to have the infrastructure money to do that, but you also need the money to provide the services that support people until they're able to do it themselves.
Director, Strategic Development, National Association of Friendship Centres
From a policy perspective, focusing on supporting labour market development for friendship centres not currently delivering outside of Ontario aboriginal labour market programming from the federal government.... Also, this affects a lot of charities' ability to have a for-profit enterprise. A lot of friendship centres are working on social enterprise, creating own-source revenue while creating jobs for multi-barriered clients. That's something at the national level, and with a lot of friendship centres we're trying through our indigenous innovation summit to build that field of indigenous social enterprise and social innovation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Andy Fillmore
We've come to the end.
Mr. Sheppard and Mr. Craig, thanks so much for travelling from near and far to be with us today and for sharing your experience and knowledge so compellingly. It will be very constructive for us as we move ahead with this very important study.
Thank you so much.
Vice-President, National Association of Friendship Centres
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Andy Fillmore
We will suspend for about two minutes and then come back in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
