I think one of the weaknesses in things like the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is that it has a time limit; it has an expiry date. What we need in the communities and for the urban aboriginal people are programs that are recurring.
We also need to get the provinces and territories involved, because they don't contribute anything at all. If we use a clinic, the federal government is the one that pays, and yet the provinces use our territories and resources as well. So we need to get all the crown actors involved to help us create these programs that will be perpetuated, that don't have an expiry date. The inconsistency in creating pilot projects has created more damage than anything, because you get people who are on the road to healing and then we have to say, “I'm sorry, there's no more funding for you.” So they either quit the road to healing or they try to find other ways to deal with it.
One of the things that I think is also problematic is that as long as you have assimilation policies that do not recognize the importance and the preciousness of our languages, we are going to lose traditional knowledge, which is the basis for our health and well-being. We are going to continue to lose people.
I've spoken with a front-line worker who works in the James Bay area, and she said she was experiencing a lot of suicides in their community. She said all of them were related to the residential school system. It has not helped. You can give money to people and say, “I'm sorry this happened to you”, but unless they are actually supported--and in our community, not just in urban areas--we are burning out our social workers, because there's not enough of them. They go to the grocery store and someone comes up to them and says, “By the way, could you help me with this?” We don't have enough human resources, trained people, in our communities.
We have these projects that give certificates and don't provide enough opportunities for people to have.... It doesn't validate it. It just kind of says, “Okay, we'll give you a bit of knowledge to become social workers or police officers, but you're really not equivalent. You can't work anywhere except on the reserve.” Our people are everywhere, and we should be able to have access to those programs.
I can't emphasize enough that the government and all the crown actors have to become involved in the decolonization process. They have to start listening to our needs. They can't just throw a bit of money here and there and say, look at the wonderful things we've done for aboriginal people. The Department of Indian Affairs sucks about 64% to 67% of the money that's allocated for aboriginal people and we're left with crumbs. We have been in the process of trying to get out of the colonization, but we cannot do it if every time there are criteria and policies that restrict our ability and freedom to be able to help our people adequately.