Special Committee on Indigenous Women Committee on May 2nd, 2013

[Sheilagh Murphy]

That's $205 million over those years, the amount we spent cumulatively. Through our budget, which is about $30 million a year, we spend about $18 million, a little more on the 41 shelters and their operations. We fund the national aboriginal circle that supports that group of 41 shelters. We also provide about $7 million in prevention programming. That goes across the country at the community level and is designed by communities or groups of communities. The final amount is for reimbursing provincial bills in Alberta and Yukon for services they provide for women who seek emergency shelters off reserve.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

You mentioned the 41 shelters. How many first nations communities does that serve?

[Sheilagh Murphy]

The 41 shelters are available to all first nations communities, but because of their locations, they can't serve them all, so communities that aren't close to those shelters will access provincial services or provincial shelters instead. There are about 3,000...I don't have the figures in front of me, but about 2,300 women and about 2,500 children benefit from the services of those 41 shelters every year.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

What action has Aboriginal Affairs taken to address the increasing numbers of first nations children in care?

[Sheilagh Murphy]

We've worked with jurisdictions as they've moved their approaches to more prevention, early intervention programming. We've made those changes as well. Since 2007 we've rolled out that enhanced prevention-focused approach to six jurisdictions, and we're working with the remaining jurisdictions to help transition them as they make more investments and design their programs to be more prevention focused.

In all jurisdictions, children and their families receive prevention and protection services that are comparable to that provided by the provinces for the population off reserve in similar circumstances. The difference in the enhanced prevention approach is that more emphasis is placed on family supports and keeping children integrated with their families as much as possible, or providing services so that children aren't taken into care.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

Thank you.

You also mentioned in your brief that Aboriginal Affairs has dramatically increased funding for first nations child and family services over the past 16 years, from $193 million in 1996-97 to approximately over $600 million for 2012-13. That was a substantial increase. I'm wondering what that is used for.

[Sheilagh Murphy]

Those funds go to cover the cost of the 105 agencies we now have—there's been a growth in the number of first nations child and family service agencies across the country—as well as to reimburse provinces for their services. Certainly when we started a long time ago, we probably weren't providing sufficient funding to cover the needs in communities. As we built capacity in communities within those agencies and we worked with provinces on a partnered approach, we gradually increased the investments so we could provide the appropriate protection and prevention services to all children on reserve.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

You have 10 seconds.

[Susan Truppe, Conservative, London North Centre, ON]

I'll forgo my 10 seconds.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you.

We've got through one round and it's 7:35. We'll start again with you, Ms. Davies, for seven minutes.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

I would like to follow up on a few questions.

We heard a little about the community capacity, and you spoke about how communities have to be ready and have to want to take on particular projects, whether it's a safety plan.... I don't know if you were speaking more about on reserve, but I want to get an idea of the capacity on the government side as well.

I know, for example, in the community that I represent, Vancouver East, which includes the downtown eastside, many organizations spend a huge amount of time chasing down various programs to try to get any money to do anything at the community level. I wonder if both Public Safety and Aboriginal Affairs can tell us, or if you have information, about the level of application and how you are able to meet that demand, particularly off reserve, because I think we have huge problems in the urban environment.

There are organizations that have the capacity. They know what needs to be done, but the sense I have is that they can't get the resources to do it. It's a different picture from what we hear about, that maybe the capacity isn't there. Maybe the capacity isn't there more on this side to meet the demand. I wonder if you have that information, and if you do, can you share it with us, in terms of the number of applications you might get for any of the programs you run and what percentage of those get funding?

[Shawn Tupper]

Certainly within the context of crime prevention, we can provide the committee with data on the distribution of our resources that would apply to aboriginal people, both on reserve and off reserve. Part of the challenge there, of course, is that when they move into communities, we oftentimes lose that order of magnitude in being able to sufficiently fund projects that capture enough people to make that investment a worthwhile one, so aboriginal people oftentimes join other kinds of programs.

That said, we certainly have good partnerships with the friendship centres—

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

I don't understand your point there, because the organizations I'm talking about are aboriginal organizations in the urban environment. They're not spread out in any other area. These are organizations that are very focused on aboriginal communities in the urban environment.

[Françoise Ducros]

Just on the programmatic side, on all of the programs that we've talked about, they are generally, as a matter of policy, to provide the programming on reserve that isn't provided on reserve by the provinces in their general program delivery.

On the urban aboriginal issue, which of course is growing and is significant off reserve, we do have the urban aboriginal strategy, which is designed to work with aboriginal leaders off reserve in the urban centres. I actually can provide you with what we're doing to that effect, the way in which it's approached, the projects and the numbers of projects that are funded, and how they are funded—

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Not just the number funded, but—

[Françoise Ducros]

Yes, the numbers that apply—

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

That's right. I think it would help us to see what the disconnect is there in terms of the demand that's out there.

[Françoise Ducros]

I think what I can do, certainly, is provide you with the urban aboriginal strategy approach and where we've done it. The program services that are delivered as a matter of policy on reserve in the areas that we've talked about do fall under provincial jurisdiction off reserve, but clearly the problem and the issues are growing, and there is a lot of transition on and off reserve. There is that whole urban aboriginal strategy, which we can provide you with, both on the application process and the way in which it's designed and on the approach.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

In terms of interdepartmental work, one of you spoke about the PHAC leading a committee you have. I think we'd be interested to hear more about that, what that work is, and how many departments are involved in it, but, as I understand it, at the political level there's no committee that oversees this work. It's basically at an officials level. I just wonder, how senior is that work? Is it line managers? Is it directors? At what level is this collaboration taking place?

[Sheilagh Murphy]

The family violence initiative committee is usually at the director general or assistant deputy minister level, and that group is supported by a working group, which is much more a line managers group. That's the construct that's been operating for that initiative.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay. You're able to provide us with more information on that?

[Sheilagh Murphy]

We can get Public Health to provide some documentation, because they collect it on behalf of all the departments. We can let them know that some follow-up is required with this committee on the information around that initiative.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Okay.

I have just one last question to the two departments that are here. What gaps do you see? You've just said that you see the urban situation as something that is growing in severity, and that is I think now reaching crisis proportions as well, as it is on reserve. I think it would be very helpful for us if you could identify for us what you see as the gaps that this committee needs to address in terms of either program delivery or the way that programs are being designed.

We're trying to get at what's wrong with the picture. We can hear about what you think is working well, but unless we know what isn't being done.... Obviously, we'll have other witnesses who will help us grapple with that, but I think from your perspective as well, these must be things you also assess in terms of what you're not doing and what should be done.

[Françoise Ducros]

We try to do that on a daily and weekly basis, as to what the gaps are, and we do have some strong views on that. I think the best way to approach it is for us to proactively get you not only the evaluations that were done, but the management action plans and some of the strategies that we're taking in all of these areas.

I can say from our perspective—and I wasn't trying to avoid it earlier—that we are seeing the interconnectedness of things such as education and lack of work, all of these multi-pronged issues, feeding into much of this, so when we say that we're taking a holistic approach, it really is to get to some of these other issues.

I think what I'd like to undertake to do is to give you the evaluations on a whole range of our projects, or direct you to them, and provide you with the action plans and how we're trying to address them. If we can provide further gap analysis, I'll go back and look at providing what we have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Stella Ambler]

Thank you very much.

Back to you, Mr. Rickford, for seven.