Evidence of meeting #32 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 community.
Conservative
David Yurdiga Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
I have one more question. We hear so much about elders being involved in some way. There's a lot of respect for the elders. Are elders involved at all in developing programs and implementing programs, and can you give me an example of that?
Director, Mental Wellness, First Nations Health Authority
Yes, in a number of ways, with the elders advisory committee and when we have any events happening. There was the missing and murdered indigenous women event that happened here, and there were elders available all day long. Often, because they hold the language, that aspect is really critical for us, especially in mental wellness.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Andy Fillmore
Thank you both very much for that. The time always goes so quickly. Your testimony is extremely valuable to us, and on behalf of the committee, we're very grateful that you've been able to spend the time with us today.
If there is more you would like to share, there is a website that Grant can connect you with.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer, First Nations Health Authority
No problem, we'll get you the information.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Andy Fillmore
Wonderful.
There's also more of a check-box survey that we're trying to push out as broadly as we can to health care providers. Grant will also connect you with that, and we'd be very grateful if you would take some time to complete it and share it in your health network, as broadly as you could as well. The more people who fill it out, the better the data is, obviously.
Thank you so much.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer, First Nations Health Authority
Will do. Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Andy Fillmore
We'll come back to order here. Welcome back.
Thank you very much for joining us, Chief Joachim Bonnetrouge, from the Deh Gah Got'ie First Nations. We're very happy to have you here. We're with you for the next hour. I'm sure we'll find lots to talk about.
As I said earlier, all the microphones and everything look intimidating, but we're all just ordinary people here and looking forward to having a nice conversation with you, so thanks for being with us. I'm happy to offer you the microphone for about 10 minutes, after which we'll ask you some questions.
With that, Chief, we'd be pleased if you'd share your thoughts with us for the next 10 minutes.
Chief Joachim Bonnetrouge Chief, Deh Gah Got'ie First Nations
Mahsi. Good day. I bring greetings from the Deh Gah Got'ie First Nation. We are part of the Dehcho First Nations in the Northwest Territories. I am honoured to be in this part of the country to honour also the Coast Salish territory as we are here today.
Respectfully, I offered tobacco to the grandmothers and grandfathers of this land outside of this hotel this morning for guidance for this committee in working on the youth and suicide issue.
I've been working for my community and people since I was 23 years of age. I attended 13 years of residential school in the Northwest Territories. Youth and suicide in our native community is a very serious issue. Knock on wood, we've had little pockets of suicide occasionally happening in our northern region thus far. I am quite aware of what has been happening in Lac la Ronge recently.
I want to focus my presentation to you today on the legacy and impact of residential schools on my community and the Dehcho region.
The Roman Catholic mission was first established in my community in the 1860s by the Grey Nuns, first as an orphanage, and then as Sacred Heart Mission school built in 1930. I attended there beginning when I was six years old, for about seven years; then I went on to Grollier Hall in Inuvik, Lapointe Hall in Fort Simpson, and Grandin College in Fort Smith. All that time we were taught the golden rules of “don't talk, don't trust, don't feel” in all the schools that I attended.
When brought to the mission school, you were basically abandoned by your parents and community, hoping that, in the name of God, you would be cared for. One of the biggest impacts and results of the residential school is that many of us did not have a clue about proper parenting. Hugs, kisses, and nurturing were foreign to us. In our community today you can barely see evidence of this nurturing that I want to speak to today.
Personally, I have suffered at least two, or maybe three, bouts of depression, which eventually will lead to suicidal thoughts and suicide. I've learned that “depression” is defined as anger turned inwards. Suicide is the result of spiritual wounding. In the residential school, you completely abandoned what you were just beginning to believe in. Then we were indoctrinated in Roman Catholic practices and doctrine.
It has been about 30 years now, and I and others have sobered up and have begun our journey of recovery and healing.
I am fortunate to have relearned my Dene language, and to have had an accelerated learning of Dene culture and beliefs over the past 20 years. I am very grateful to elders and my community for this.
Elders advise us that all of the solutions we're seeking are embodied in Mother Nature and on the land. On-the-land education is key for us and for our communities that are seeking recovery.
It is also critical that we have parenting workshops and training for young parents. What a child learns and experiences from zero to six years old is paramount.
The sense of belonging has to be restored in our community. Renewing Dene culture through workshops is so critical. It's a requirement.
We need to complete the residential school work that was started 16 years ago in our community. Some of my people who I work with have a question: are we prepared to deal with youth suicide in our community? Right now, the answer would be no. Do we have the resources and plan in our community? The answer is probably still no, but we're working like the dickens to get there.
Cross-cultural training for front-line workers, social workers, and mental health workers has to be mandatory, especially if they come to our community. This has to be implemented as soon as possible by all governments concerned.
We always believe that Dene culture, beliefs, and values are based on relationships. These have to be restored if we're going to get some kind of a foothold on how to address and begin searching for the solution that all of us in Canada are seeking.
Sometimes I share with some people the fact that over a year ago, on October 19, I voted for the first time in a long time in the federal election. That morning, before I went to the polling station, I told my wife that I would vote that day for healing to begin for all native communities and also for the rest of Canada. I wanted to share that with you as part of my presentation.
I also included in my document a brief history of my community, and also a second page outlining the typical characteristics of a residential school survivor.
Mahsi.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Andy Fillmore
Thank you very much for that, Chief. It's much appreciated, and we're very grateful.
Before we get into the questions, I also wanted to thank you for your offering of tobacco earlier. We're very grateful for that, as well.
Also, for Ray and Gertie, if you are going to speak with us afterward, one of my colleagues, Roxanne, who is outside the door, wants to keep a list of who's going to speak. If you have a moment to leave your full name with her, that would be very much appreciated, if you're comfortable doing so. Thank you for that.
We'll move into a series of questions from the committee members. Each one is about seven minutes.
The first question is from Mike Bossio, please.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you so much, Chief, for being here.
I had an opportunity to meet Steven Nitah. He came to speak at our environment committee about the Thaidene Nene protected lands that were happening in the Dene territory. He gave us a very good view of the importance of the land and the rangers, formed to help protect the land and monitor the land, very similar to what the watchmen have done with the Haida people and now the guardians are hoping to do in northern Quebec and in Ontario.
You focused a lot on the cultural heritage, on your closeness to the land, on your souls being attached to the land, and I guess the big question is how we go about embedding, in a formalized process, this connection of your souls to the land.
The last speakers who were here talked about this full circle, about the wraparound process of trying to move the cultural heritage, starting at a very young age, into the education of our youth. In that heritage you're giving them that hope and that pride where, if they do reach a crisis situation around suicide, you're helping them get through that depression or the difficulties they're experiencing from whatever direction they might be coming. Then, coming through the other side, you're reintroducing them to their cultural heritage.
How do you see that happening on the ground at the local level?
Chief, Deh Gah Got'ie First Nations
In my community, anyway, the majority are still first nation. The school about 10 or 15 years ago really started on-the-land teaching in their classes. I guess that's part of their curriculum. Those things have started, and they're beginning to make a real big difference now. Before, for the longest time, to be native or Dene in our neck of the woods was not a very good thing.
I originally sobered up 30 years ago. Twenty years ago I really wanted to do something after 10 years of sobriety. The elders simply told me, “Joachim, go out on the land. Go with one of your uncles. Go with one of your friends.” It was what I had always wished I could do.
Once you're out there—I've learned this especially from a lot of colleagues and friends I've worked with over the years—just by general osmosis, or whatever you want to call it, Mother Nature takes over. That is where you begin to discover and feel what we are striving for all the time, that peace and serenity. I really did experience that. Holy man, that's a lot of nurturing for anybody. I really admire people who can go out in the mountains, go hiking, go skiing. I see them on the news and when I travel to different places. They're out there, and that's the way to be.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
As you said, there are some areas where there's suicide, but for the most part your community has come through this time in a good way compared with what many indigenous communities are going through. Do you kind of attribute that to the school? Are you getting more and more of your youth engaged in this school that has this connection to the land?
Chief, Deh Gah Got'ie First Nations
I really believe that's what the school has been doing. A lot of our teenagers did experience a few days, maybe a few weeks, out on the land. Still, when you come back to your community, I guess that community living is an environment that is still so very powerful because you have the bar, all the things that go on in the community. We fought for the longest time to have a treatment program or a centre out on the land, but governments had difficulty with it. It's very costly.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
At what age are you taking them out on the land? At what age do you initiate them onto the land?
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Good. So at that age, or do you feel even younger, it really starts right at the very beginning of their lives, that consciousness?
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
Thank you very much, Chief, for coming today.
Could you tell me a little bit more about your community, how many people, do you have your own school, your own health centre? I haven't had the honour of going to your community, so I'm just trying to picture it.
Chief, Deh Gah Got'ie First Nations
We're primarily a first nations community. We're about three hours south of Yellowknife, where the Mackenzie River begins. We're about 900 people. We're about 800 Dene, and we have about 100 Métis, and the rest are teachers, nurses. Yes, we do have our own health centre and we have a kindergarten to grade 12 school. Sometimes we have a difficult time graduating students. We lose them when they're 15 or 16 years old.
We still consider ourselves fortunate. A lot of our people are still practising the traditional economies: hunting, fishing, and trapping. At the same time, I'm starting to say to people that no matter what they're going to go into, education is key. The elders are telling us the land and the culture will always be there, so I'm telling young people, “Get your grade 12. Go out to college, university, and then come back, because we'll always be here.”
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
When they come back to your community, are there good jobs available for your young people?
Chief, Deh Gah Got'ie First Nations
That's a real challenge. We are one of the communities that are still negotiating a claim. We're still in a claims process. If we wanted more jobs, we would have to open up some of our land. Some of you may understand what I'm saying. Governments are saying we need land to be opened up for taxes, and that would bring in revenue, employment.
A lot of our young people would go to Yellowknife, work for government, or they would go to the diamond mines. They'd probably join...at home, working on highway maintenance, but I keep telling young people, “Keep going to school. One day, if we ever get a claim within the next year or so, we're going to need a lot of managers.”
Conservative
Cathy McLeod Conservative Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC
For your health centre, when your care providers came, you said that cross-training should be mandatory. How would you envision that? Would it be the community, because of course every community is so different? How would you see that the cross-training should be done in order to really help people both to come to your community....? Does the community have a role in terms of that training of caregivers?