Evidence of meeting #8 for Justice and Human Rights in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aboriginal.
Liberal
Alexandra Mendes Liberal Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Would you agree that parental competency would be the first step?
Director of Programs, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
Community-based agencies have relationships with families in the communities. It's all about the community development approach of building from the inside out. That extends to families and to looking at their gifts and their strengths, within what they are able to.... You honour and recognize those and create opportunities.
People do change. People want to be involved in their communities, if given the opportunity. But if you have a sense of not being able to be involved, it's difficult. Again it's “one person at a time”, essentially, when working in communities. A number of community-based agencies operate from that approach of building from the inside out, and that is with each person within our communities.
But if these outside forces continue to worsen and to put stress on families, we just can't keep up to the level of poverty that our families experience, the systemic....
Most families are involved in various systems. They have a welfare worker, a justice worker, and the list goes on. We need to be able to stop and take a look at everything and put everything on the table. There need to be more opportunities to do that. Community-based agencies do this well, together and collectively. We have a common voice, most of the time. It's a two-way street; we need partners who can support us and give us the resources to have a tool belt of things we can do.
Men are very much a part of our community. We don't do things in isolation from them. We have a long way to go in terms of their reclaiming their roles as well, but there's a lot of work being done in that area.
Conservative
Brent Rathgeber Conservative Edmonton—St. Albert, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to each of you for your excellent presentations.
I listened intently and like all the members was interested, if not somewhat shocked, at the extent of the problem with respect to children who are drawn into exploitive lifestyles. It's not unique to this city, but perhaps it's aggravated here for a number of reasons.
One of your local members of Parliament, Mrs. Joy Smith, has a private member's bill that would deal in part with this problem. It's dealing with human trafficking, I guess to some extent borrowing on the Swedish model, for which a number of you have advocated. It punishes the trafficker rather than those who are exploited by being trafficked.
I know that Mrs. Smith consulted widely with her community before she drafted this bill. I'd like to hear from each of you briefly, if I could, whether your organizations were consulted in the drafting of Mrs. Smith's bill and whether you or your organizations support it.
Ms. Spillett.
Executive Director, Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.
We were very much supportive of Ms. Smith's efforts to pursue this legislative agenda within the House of Commons.
With respect to consultation, we were involved last fall in a conference that was put together by the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and the member of Parliament, Joy Smith. I think that was a part of the engagement. If that was a consultation, then we were consulted.
Gang Prevention and Intervention Program, Ndinawemaaganag Endaawaad (Ndinawe)
I'm not 100% aware whether we were consulted or not; I would have to refer to my executive director. But our standpoint is very supportive of that legislation.
Member, Grandmothers Council, Grandmothers Protecting our Children
I'm sure the grandmothers would all be in favour of this bill. We weren't consulted on it, but we often work with different aboriginal organizations within the province.
Conservative
Director of Programs, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
Yes, the Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre was involved early on in the initial process with Joy Smith, and we are very supportive. When some research done by Benjamin Perrin—I'm sure anybody who knows the issue knows that he's around—shows that a perpetrator in one year makes $280,000 from the exploitation of one child, it puts some context to the enormity and the profit-making of that particular issue and emphasizes that we just can't ignore it.
Conservative
Director, Pas Family Resource Centre
No, and I wasn't actually even aware of it. Being in The Pas, north from here, we're quite isolated from a lot of what happens in Winnipeg. We're quite grateful for any opportunity we get to hear about it, so thank you.
Conservative
Conservative
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ladies, a number of you have mentioned the residential school issue and how it still affects and haunts the community. Could you tell me—and perhaps I can start with Ms. Kastrukoff, because I know you mentioned this specifically—how important the aboriginal school apology was to the families affected by this history, what it meant to you? Has it helped to start the healing?
Director, Pas Family Resource Centre
It would be really difficult to speak on behalf of many others, but from feedback I get, many were grateful for it, and to many it meant a lot. To many it really meant nothing, in that it doesn't take away the pain or the cyclic effects it has caused. But at the end of the day, what was important about it was just the acknowledgement that this did go on, that this did occur, that these are the results of it, and that at some point in time the government will be taking some strong responsibility toward some healing for those who have been affected.
I think that was what we got from it.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
I have to say that I didn't understand why it took so long, personally. There is a woman in my riding in Mississauga, which is a very urban area, who is a professor of aboriginal studies. She told me that her mother was in a residential school and was quite significantly and negatively affected by that experience. Her whole family was. She said that the apology really did help start the healing process; that there's a long way to go, but that she was glad it had happened.
Director, Pas Family Resource Centre
I'm really glad to hear that. In my own case, my mother went to residential school; her mother went to residential school. I fully understand. My personal take is that I'm really glad that acknowledgement has been made and that awareness has been shown, because I think it is the first step towards healing.
Conservative
Director of Programs, Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Centre Inc.
I would like to echo that. It was very important. Certainly in Winnipeg, the aboriginal capital of Canada, it allowed us as a community to sort through what it means and created a unique opportunity for us to really come together and rally around defining what it means. It took a while, but it was really meaningful for many of our families. Having the next step, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and being a part of that process too is really going to make the difference in the lives of many families, even just considering the inter-generational impacts, which are sometimes not recognized. This gives us an opportunity to come together as a community to define what that looks like. It is very positive.
Executive Director, Ka Ni Kanichihk Inc.
I'd like to comment that symbolically it may have.... Obviously people had different responses to it. I think it can only be made meaningful with real social change, with a real, significant difference in Canada's policy with regard to indigenous peoples.
Again a symbolic gesture is to finally accept through the House of Commons the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It has to be concrete for this to be fulfilled. An apology.... So much is continuing into the present. It's not something that happened, end of story, get on with it. It's so integrated in every present system that we're still repeating those sorts of situations whereby a group of people feel culturally superior and act in that way and a group of people feel culturally inferior and act in that way. It continues.
I like to say that theory without action is nowhere. Well, this apology without action is not going to change my tune there.
Conservative
Bob Dechert Conservative Mississauga—Erindale, ON
So it's a start, but it's not sufficient.
Thank you. I appreciate this.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ed Fast
We'll hear one more from the government side.
Oh, I'm sorry. Ms. Orvis.
Member, Grandmothers Council, Grandmothers Protecting our Children
I think the apology was very important. I work with residential school survivors on a daily basis and inter-generationally also. The effects residential school had on our people were horrendous. It's going to take a long time for that healing on both sides.
The apology was made, and I think that if there's any meat in it, then we should have our Aboriginal Healing Foundation back, because we really need it for healing.
Thank you.