Indigenous and Northern Affairs Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2016

[Scott Clark]

Something that I want to be really clear about—and I haven't even begun to address this issue in the urban context—is that lot of the service agencies are muffled. They're not allowed to speak the truth of what's really going on, because if they spoke that, then they would lose their funding. This is why we don't take government funding.

When we had a suicide pact here of over 30 people, many service organizations tried to downplay it. This is why service agencies cannot be relied on, because they have a different agenda from the people. This is why I say we have to go for a strategic approach.

Many of the service agencies here in British Columbia are muffled by design, and you're not going to get the real information. That's where academia comes in. That's where the residents come in. You start developing a strategy. You have to change your whole lens. It's not a program. It's not a quick fix. Your whole lens has to change.

We're here to support our most vulnerable people, so let's deal with the facts and the best facts we can get. If you're getting misinformation from non-profit organizations who are covering their behinds because of their government funding, then we should be clear about that.

[Mavis Benson]

I believe on-reserve, or when I experienced suicide pacts with our youth—it's not only youths, it's young adults, too—it's a lot different than off-reserve because off-reserve has a lot of services. We don't have any services in our communities, none whatsoever.

When I was on band council, for example, I worked 24/7. If someone wanted to commit suicide, the cops would call me in the middle of the night, like 2 o'clock in the morning, because they can't get there fast enough. I'd go to the house. I'm not a counsellor. I was a political leader. I would go there and sit with the person until an ambulance attendant and the cops could come.

That's what the chief and council continue to do now. They're not psychologists, psychiatrists, or counsellors. They're political leaders, but they put their own time in to help. If they hear there is a suicide pact going on, then they go into the houses, regardless of whether the residents are drinking, or doing drugs, or whatever. We were all there at one time. We don't segregate them. We don't isolate them. We make them feel like they are part of the community and they're worth something, because we are all human beings. We're all Cheslatta people.

The thing is that we don't have services that can assist these people in our communities. We have lots of services here in the city. That's one reason why, as Scott was saying, a lot of first nations people are segregated on the east side.

I live in southwest Vancouver, and I did that on purpose. I wanted my children to have a chance to have a better education and a better outlook on life. They're doing amazingly, all three, well, two of them. One has to go to the east side to a day care, but it's an awesome day care. As I say, on-reserve we don't have the services. Even mental health workers don't necessarily live on the south side. There's no housing there, so they live in town. When something like that happens, the ferry is not going to start up just for them. They will start up for the ambulance or the police, and that's it.

I remember one time, there was an incident that happened, and they told my uncle, who was the chief at the time, “Go see if they're really dead.” when there was the murder of two people. The cops told him to do that. He came and got my mom and my sister to go there and check if the two individuals were murdered, and they were. Then he called them, and then they came.

[David Yurdiga, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Mike Bossio, you have five minutes.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Thank you.

I'd like to pass my time to Don.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Not to waste any time, I'm going to continue on with the sort of long-term solution.

I don't see indigenous people always being here. I've said this at this committee before. In 50 years, I don't want another member of Parliament asking these same questions about suicide. I've said this also. Suicide is only a symptom. I think this study needs to go broader and look at all the problems that are leading to this ultimately horrible conclusion for a lot of indigenous youth and indigenous people.

In terms of first nations communities, on the positive side, a lot of communities in a certain area of my riding are doing well financially, and that's through partnerships with resource companies, with municipalities, business ventures that community members have done themselves. They're healthier communities. You see virtually no suicides. You see kids going to school, going on to post-secondary education, getting involved in the trades.

We had the B.C. Treaty Commission meet with us in Ottawa—I think it was last week—and they outlined a number of agreements that they've helped shepherd along over the last many years. Have your communities been involved in any processes, or economic activity, or governance building that gets them out from under the Indian Act?

[Mavis Benson]

My community, Cheslatta, is actually doing quite well, doing joint ventures with different businesses and organizations, and not necessarily depending on INAC funding. We do have resources, through forestry contracts, with economic development through different organizations like mining companies. Our community puts that back into the community.

During the summer, we have a camp-out that's one week long, and it's all culturally oriented. That's another way to find out whether there is a suicide pact going on, or there is an individual, a youth, wanting to attempt suicide.

I'm on Facebook. I'm here, but I always read the Facebook messages. If I see that someone has said they want to die or whatever, I call my chief and council. Of course, it's all confidential. I will say, “This person is saying this. I just want you to know.” They are not on Facebook, so that's how I intervene, or else if I know them really well, I intervene. I will call them myself.

We have a cultural camp that's culturally oriented, and that really helps people. We also have fishing season all of August, and everyone gets involved when we get salmon. Everyone has learned how to cut and dry salmon, and they package them up and hand them out to people. Our community is well off in the sense that we can get extra programs. We can send people to different things, choices, and other things, but we also assist other communities.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Is the community looking at getting out from under the Indian Act?

[Mavis Benson]

Yes, our community is eventually hoping to get out from under the Indian Act. We finally got our lands back at Cheslatta. Of course, you had seen on the news where Christy Clark signed the land back over to Cheslatta members a few weeks ago. That was a big event.

[Don Rusnak, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Basically, some communities do better than others under the Indian Act. There are various reasons for that.

However, being in the Indian Act and continuing in the Indian Act as a community is unhealthy, and we know that. I like to hear that communities are working to get out from under the Indian Act, whatever those ideas are. It's the choice of the community, and not necessarily the choice of the Indian Act band chief and council.

That's why, when I go to communities, I like to talk to the grassroots people from first nations communities. Once these communities come out from the Indian Act, they start getting involved in cultural things, and other things that are healthy in building a community. When we have healthy communities, we don't have people going to urban areas. It's not bad that people go to urban areas, but we don't cycle into this problem again. We end it at the source, so to speak.

[Mavis Benson]

Education is the key right from the grassroots level.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thanks. We're out of time.

The final questioner is Cathy McLeod, please.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you.

I will pick up where Don left off. You talked about your community having some good partnerships and, it sounds like, some good oil source revenues. Is that also creating employment opportunities for youth or is it just the revenue stream? That would be part one of the question. Part two is, as you sort of created these partnerships and the opportunities, are you seeing things improve in the community in terms of general mental health and wellness?

[Mavis Benson]

On the first question, yes, there are a lot of partnerships that the community has gone into with different organizations. For example, I know they have a partnership with forestry companies. They have a partnership with mining and all these different organizations. They do employ a majority of our people, but they also train them. A lot of the training is for community members on-reserve, which is something I am really hoping changes because I live off-reserve. They have training, for example, for truck driving. They have upgrading courses where they'll actually pay for day care whereas before they never did. Under the Indian Act, you can't pay a student to take upgrading courses, but in our band, they did give them a stipend to go and take upgrading courses as an incentive to go. There is training and there is education through the different revenues that are generated from these companies.

What was your second question again?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Earlier, you talked about some of the aspirations of youth to be on welfare or a band office employee, but with those new partnerships, is that building the aspirations of the youth in the community and then, as part of that, is there a noticeable change in terms of mental health and wellness?

[Mavis Benson]

Yes, what the community is working towards is creating a.... We don't like to call it a treatment centre, but way out at the west end of Cheslatta Lake we have a big cabin that houses probably about 10 people. We're hoping to create a wellness centre that deals with post-traumatic stress disorder and all of the issues that came with colonization.

I suffer from PTSD, and a lot of community members do, and this centre that we are striving to open is going to deal with trauma, sexual abuse, and all the core issues that make us drink, that make us do drugs, and that make us want to commit suicide. I think they're going to take individuals and families, not necessarily only people who want to commit suicide, but everyone, including families who deal with alcohol and drugs, or individuals and youths who are addicted. It's like a comprehensive view of how we holistically deal with this person and these family members as a whole. That's the kind of treatment centre or healing centre, I guess they would call it, that Cheslatta is now working on, and they have been working on it for a while. They are going to be hiring psychologists and certified trauma counsellors rather than just generic counsellors. This is something that they are working on diligently, and I really commend them on that.

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Mr. Clark, you talked about the organizations that deliver services wanting to downplay the issue around the pact. I guess there's the other sort of thinking sometimes around suicide that, the more it's in the news, the more you create—and it's been shown, of course, from the research—this sort of snowball effect.

My question is, was it really a downplay of the critical issue or was it possibly a strategy to help save youth by giving it that sort of profile?

[Scott Clark]

Its a very good question. Having lived and breathed in this community with this issue I recognize that point, but the changes are difficult. It's extremely difficult to get different organizations and government bureaucrats to change how they are held accountable. We have had the whole gauntlet. Some are in complete denial, and some very high-profile people—there are big battles around this stuff—are just saying, “You know what, we did a great job. It's not our fault,” and pointing the finger, trying to deflect blame from themselves. But ultimately, it takes a village to raise a child, and we all need to be held accountable to those young people and their families. That culture is missing. We need to decolonize services from all levels of government and to work with community from the ground up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

Thank you very much for your thoughtful and well-considered testimony. Your depth of experience and passion are evident in what you've told us today. It's going to be of tremendous help to the study. On behalf of the committee, I offer sincere thanks for that.

We will suspend for about 10 minutes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Andy Fillmore]

We'll come back to order.

Welcome to this public hearing of the indigenous and northern affairs committee of Parliament. As you know, we are continuing our study on indigenous suicide.

Thank you very much to both of you for joining us this morning: Gabriella Emery, project manager for indigenous health at the Provincial Health Services Authority, and Cassandra Blanchard, program assistant for indigenous health at the Provincial Health Services Authority.

I'm very happy to offer you the floor for 10 minutes to share between you. As I understand it, Gabriella, you are going to begin. Go ahead, please.

[Gabriella Emery, Project Manager, Indigenous Health, Provincial Health Services Authority]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee, for this opportunity to present to you today.

I'd like to start by acknowledging that we are on unceded traditional ancestral territory of the Squamish, Musqueam, and Tsleil-Waututh first nations. My name is Gabriella Emery. I am from the 'Namgis First Nation. I am the project manager at the Provincial Health Services Authority indigenous health program.

[Cassandra Blanchard, Program Assistant, Indigenous Health, Provincial Health Services Authority]

I'm Cassandra Blanchard. I am a program assistant with PHSA for aboriginal health, and I'm Northern Tutchone.

[Gabriella Emery]

To get started today, we're going to be talking to you about our upstream suicide prevention program called Cuystwi. As we know, indigenous suicide isn't a new issue in Canada. It was established as a priority action area in the “Transformative Change Accord: First Nations Health Plan” back in 2005. To ground the rest of our talk, I want to give some background on the values and the philosophy that we use in our programming.

One of the main points is that colonization and racism are determinants of health for indigenous people. I think that's something that really needs to be kept at the forefront when we're looking at prevention efforts. Secondly, we use evidence from the literature that states that identity, culture, and connections to land are really important when we're talking about indigenous youth suicide prevention.

That brings us to Cuystwi and how we got started with our program. We were doing some work with first nations communities in northern B.C., and they had expressed desire for an upstream suicide prevention programming for their youth. They really wanted a program that would teach youth our history from the indigenous perspective. They requested that it should be culturally relevant and would promote wellness, and that it would be culturally safe and decolonizing in nature.

With that feedback, we hosted four World Café-style focus groups in the north where we brought youth together to flesh out what that meant to them and what they wanted to see. When we got some positive feedback from those youth, we moved on to a think tank in Vancouver in 2012, where we brought youth and youth workers from 20 different nations together to really flesh out what that would look like to them. On the slides, you can see one of the drawings representing what the youth wanted to see.

With that positive feedback and the direction from the youth, we embarked on the creation of an online quest called Cuystwi. It's meant for youth aged 10 to 12 and it's designed so they go through a journey with many different activities, videos, and audio. That was one of the things that they expressed; they wanted it to be interactive and they wanted to use media tools. The online quest can be explored either as an individual or as a group. It's meant to be facilitated in community, by community members, and to complement other existing youth programs.

The quests were really meant to be a conversation starter and not meant to be the be-all and end-all of information. We really wanted to provide a platform that communities could use to make it their own; to have their own teachings and their own values that they could bring to the table.

That being said, the five main themes that the quest goes through are strengthening identity, understanding the importance of culture and wellness, understanding colonization and how it affects us, our families, and our communities. It gives them some tools to deal with racism and it ends with an invitation to become a young warrior.

From there, we moved on to the development of phase 2 Cuystwi. There was a desire expressed that we wanted to address some of the older age groups, so this one was for 13- to 15-year olds. It has a very similar style with an online quest that youth can go through again, either by themselves or in a group. We built on the five main themes from phase 1, but we also added on topics like healthy relationships, and that can be with the land, our friends, our families, and significant others. We talk about sexuality, self-regulation and emotions, and we really go into more depth around the Indian Act and residential schools, again, teaching our history from our perspective. Both programs are free to use. You send us an email and we'll send you a link.

We also provide facilitator manuals, so that communities have a resource, in addition to accessibility to needed support. Again, we really want to emphasize that it's something that communities can take and use in the way they see fit. They don't need to use it exactly the way the quest is laid out. It's meant so the youth can take what they want to learn and supplement it into their other programming.

As best practice, we really believe in having youth-driven programming, with the understanding that youth know what they need. Many health promotion programs have been implemented without an indigenous world view or real and meaningful engagement or collaboration with the people who actually would be using the services they're developing. We believe that youth need to be recognized as experts in determining what they need to stay well and we really need to fully support and engage youth, so they are part of the development from the very beginning when we're moving forward with programming. This really helps to ensure that there are high rates of participation, that people feel like they have a sense of ownership over the content, and take pride in their communities.

With that being said, we also want to recognize that indigenous youth aren't one specific group. When we're talking about programming, we really need to be understanding that there's youth on-reserve, in foster care, and in urban settings, so we really need to address all of those.

One of the ways that we've been ensuring that we have youth involvement in our development of our programming is that we had 12 pilot communities from around B.C. We asked those communities to send us youth representatives who were interested in sitting on an advisory panel. It was an advisory panel where they could provide direct feedback and help develop content with us, but it was also an opportunity for youth to get some training. We used telehealth equipment, so that we could bring in people to provide training around research, facilitation, skills, and leadership, etc., so that they could go back into their communities to solicit more feedback from youth in their communities, and it had a ripple effect outwards.

We always make sure we pay our youth to give us their time, and we honour them for their contributions. I think that's really important.

We have facilitator gatherings so that community members can send representatives and young people down to learn about how they can use Cuystwi in their communities, as well as gain skills around facilitation.

We have a youthful team. We try to keep our team with youth under 25, which I think is really important, so that youth are at the table not only when we're in the workplace, but also when we're in a community.

One of the main ways right now that we ensure that we have youth involvement is to do a lot of video workshops around the province. It's not only a way to help youth gain skills to tell their stories through media, but it's a way that we can work with them to create content that's relevant and meaningful to them.

One of the benefits that we've seen from doing our work this way is that it's decolonizing in nature. It gives us an opportunity again to learn our history from our perspectives. We have youth at the table developing the content and making sure it's relevant, and they're going to be interested in what you're creating.

It's skills building, and it's not only for our staff. We believe in mentoring, so we do hire young people and help them figure out what their passion is, but also with the communities we work with, their youth are gaining skills as well. It's a lot of fun being able to work with youth, and most importantly, we believe that it's important that youth are able to see themselves in the content and that it's not just a resource. They can connect with it.

Now I'm going to turn it over to Cassandra, who is going to share a bit of her story.

[Cassandra Blanchard]

I'll talk about my story and how Cuystwi could have helped. I'll try to keep it short.

Throughout years of addiction filled with loneliness and unhappiness, I learned that the health care system is ill-equipped in dealing with mental illness. Despite numerous suicide attempts, I did not receive a full and proper psychiatric assessment, even when it was court ordered. I was turned away from a clinic because I had to be 30 days clean. If I hadn't been turned away, perhaps I could have bypassed trauma after trauma, which included falling into the sex trade and ending up in the Downtown Eastside.

My mental health went on a downward spiral, and I was experiencing psychosis for long periods of time. It came to the point where my parents told my sister to brace herself for my death. After my stepfather raised a stink, I was finally seen by a psychiatrist who, in two days, diagnosed me with severe type 1 bipolar disorder, and a case that was the worst he had seen in three years. With therapy and medication, I became stable enough to graduate from UBC and find work with the indigenous youth wellness project. This project made me think that if I had Cuystwi years ago, maybe I could have used it as a support while waiting for a psychiatric assessment. Cuystwi has content that addresses mental health through care action plans, and it has videos of cultural teachings that, for an indigenous person, fill a need for cultural awareness. Knowing about culture helps to form a personal identity in the face of emptiness and struggle. What is important is that youth can do Cuystwi at their own pace whenever they have access to a computer either at home, school, or youth centres. Cuystwi can act as a buffer as youth navigate the system to address their mental health concerns. It is my hope that Cuystwi gains more support from a wider audience, because no youth should be left behind or turned away.

[Gabriella Emery]

With that, I'd just like to say we couldn't do without our partners. We have many, including the Cowichan Tribes, Daylu Dena Council, Nisga’a, and may more.

Thank you.