Evidence of meeting #55 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 know.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
It's exciting because it's coming forward. The 41 tables would compromise about 250 Indian Act bands, so 41 tables are now thinking of themselves as a collective that would like to draw down jurisdiction as a nation.
This is the exciting work that's going on. Whether they want to draw down jurisdiction on a fishery or on an education system, these are the completely flexible and innovative approaches to nationhood that are ongoing.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Out of the six hundred and some first nations we've talked about here a lot, how many of them have you met with? Would you say they constitute nations, or have you met with the individual tables?
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Both. Often we go to an Indian Act band or a first nation, but these 41 tables that have ongoing discussions about nationhood, about jurisdiction, are important. Obviously, in Yukon we have a number of self-governing first nations, and we meet with them annually in a summit with the Government of Yukon. That is a very exciting table where the new fiscal relationship is being sorted out with those self-governing first nations.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
The question I put on the Order Paper asked how many nation-to-nation meetings the government has had.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
There are many nation-to-nation...whether it's the bilateral meetings with the Prime Minister—
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Because that's the promise that you made in the—
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
—with the Métis Nation of Canada, the bilateral meeting or the summit, the Prime Minister was there. At the ITK meeting, the Prime Minister, with the regions of the ITK, was there. When the Yukon...we were there.
But the 41 tables is where the exciting movement is taking place, where we will start to see those aggregated groups based on language. RCAP said that there were probably 60 nations in Canada, about 60 language-based aggregations.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
Have you met with each of those 60 groups then?
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
It's up to them to come together and invite us, and we go wherever we're asked.
Conservative
Arnold Viersen Conservative Peace River—Westlock, AB
All right. I have about half a minute left.
I have three friendship centres in my riding, one in Slave Lake, one in High Prairie, and one in Peace River. I've met with all of them. Each one of them says that they struggle for funding because they're not part of a particular first nation. They're just an organization in the town, essentially. I think Peace River said they have 7,800 visits in a year. They're dealing with a lot of case files. They have 30 active case files every month.
What are you doing to help the friendship centres? When I was in Quebec, I met with the entire organization of friendship centres in Quebec. They were asking for $6 million. Have they received that $6 million?
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
As I said in response to a question from Mr. Saganash, the work of the friendship centres is essential—it's imperative. I know you're not from Prince George, but I remember just being amazed at the work that happens in some of these friendship centres on employment, training, housing, and early childhood education.
There was a funding arrangement before it went through the national organization—
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
We are now looking at the way that we can ensure that the friendship centres know they're going to get the money they need.
Liberal
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair and Madam Minister.
Indigenous languages are quite critical to the long-term sustainability of communities. I know we've invested another $89 million over the next three years into indigenous languages. Can you maybe give us a sense as to what kinds of results we can expect and what kind of framework we're trying to put together in terms of the sustainability of the languages?
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
It's a great question. I think it begins with the Prime Minister's commitment to codify, for there to be a law to protect, revitalize, and promote indigenous languages coast to coast to coast. It means that the money there continues the kind of program funding that has been there for those really important initiatives.
Minister Joly and I, and a number of...are working to figure out what this would eventually look like, and whether we should be building up institutions instead of just program funding. It means as we come to consult on a law, would there be an indigenous-led institution that determined how much money they need? What would those dollars look like, from the very academic approaches to certain languages and possible extension, to the kinds of emerging canoe trips that Christi Belcourt and others are doing, to the kind of amazing program around a glossary we saw in Haida Gwaii, to the work that my department is doing all the time on language and culture in early childhood development and K to 12?
It is an approach where eventually, I think, it will be indigenous-led institutions that will make those determinations of the efficacy and value of the money we will dedicate to do this really important task.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
I know you and I were at the University of Toronto student-led gathering a couple of months ago. I do wonder what kind of role our institutions have, especially universities, in preserving languages. I know that U of T, for example, has an array of language courses and research, things like Arabic studies, and so on. What kind of support can institutions expect and how do you expect institutions to play an important part in this?
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal Toronto—St. Paul's, ON
Again, this will be a whole-of-government approach. Obviously SSHRC and a lot of the granting agencies are there helping academics with their research, but we need a coherent approach. One of my former patients is the U of T expert on the Athabascan languages, so there are these pockets of great stuff happening coast to coast to coast. As we become more intentional and coherent about this, we need to know what's happening in all these institutions and be able to support them in a whole-of-government way, obviously working with provinces and territories and Universities Canada and the polytechnics to find out what works and to put the money on the things that really work.
Liberal
Gary Anandasangaree Liberal Scarborough—Rouge Park, ON
With respect to offenders, I know the prison numbers are quite staggering and I think last year we surpassed the 25% mark. I know we're investing an additional $65 million over five years in services. What can we do in terms of proactively making sure that the justice system doesn't commit the same mistakes that it's made in the past?
Liberal
