Status of Women Committee on June 11th, 2010

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

I'm sorry, but I have to return to Ottawa.

Ms. Demers, you're on.

[The Acting Chair, Bloc, Nicole Demers]

We are going to move right along.

[A voice]

Yes, yes.

[The Acting Chair, Bloc, Nicole Demers]

I will be replacing the Chair.

[A voice]

Drive carefully.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

Ms. Archambault, of the things you have mentioned, what do you see as the greatest priority if we could start tackling this issue tomorrow?

[Grand Chief Anne Archambault]

One of your comments irritated me. You talked about a lack of will, Mr. Pomerleau, but there is no lack of will along First Nations.

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

No, I was talking about the government.

[Grand Chief Anne Archambault]

Oh, I see.

The government's lack of will is easy enough to understand. We have an inherent right to self-government. I sincerely believe that the government does not want that right to find expression. But governments will have to consider the fact that the First Nations' population is expanding. At some point, budgets are established based on population.

We were talking about the $285 million a little earlier. But it's important to remember that this is over a two-year period and that this $285 million is to address five major issues, including diabetes and suicide prevention. There is a huge amount of work to be done in those areas. So, those are the things I see.

The First Nations are always being asked what they want. But we have basically been saying what we want for years. In fact, it is aptly summarized in the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. There you have the explanation. People are saying that they want to have their own means of making a living and developing, and that they want to be able to freely practice economic, traditional and other activities.

An example comes to mind—natural resources extracted from our land. I will use the example of my own nation, so as not to offend anyone. It has received nothing—absolutely nothing. How can I live on my inherit right to self-government if I am not entitled to enjoy the economic spinoffs of these resources? I am not talking only about forest resources; there are also mining and natural resources. These are some of the many resources I don't have access to.

We are put in the impossible situation of acting on our inherit right to self-government. That is like saying that First Nations should sit down with the multinationals that are cutting down trees on our land and tell them they have to give us a percentage of the economic spinoffs. That would be a way of becoming independent.

But right now, we have nothing. We have no resources. We are kept in a state of depression. And the reason we are depressed is that we wonder how we will ever manage to extricate ourselves from our current circumstances. That would be an intelligent way of achieving that.

We are governments: the provincial government, the federal government and the First Nations governments, but we don't have--

[Roger Pomerleau, Bloc, Drummond, QC]

You don't have the resources that go along with that status.

[Grand Chief Anne Archambault]

Exactly.

Thank you.

[The Acting Chair, Bloc, Nicole Demers]

Would anyone else like to answer Mr. Pomerleau's question?

[Guy Duchesneau]

I would like to make a comment.

As I said earlier, in the communities, we are often dependent on budgets allocated for the different programs. We have to accommodate that in trying to provide a range of services to our community.

In terms of economic development, a lot of people who live there have made promises to themselves, like a lot of others. However, as this lady was saying, band councils don't really have the means to invest in development which would allow us to access our own natural and financial resources, so that we could become socially and economically independent. That is the issue for the communities.

We have some autonomy and a certain amount of latitude in terms of the way we provide services and deal with our client groups. But how can we develop financial resources so that we are able to provide other services to the community? The fact is that we are limited by the budgets we receive. We are prisoners of the budget allocated to us. We do what we can with that piece of the pie.

[The Acting Chair, Bloc, Nicole Demers]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Brassard, please.

[Renée Brassard]

These are territorial prisons. We are about to start developing the North, according to the Charest government. But how will that development work? I think one of the priorities is the structural underdevelopment of the communities.

Will we once again find diamonds, treasures and oil? Will we move the Aboriginal people out without their having a chance to… There won't be any miracles. I think it would be intellectually dishonest to try and convince ourselves this morning that miracles are going to happen.

You know as well as I do that money is the sinews of war. The financial wherewithal that goes with taking your wallet and leaving home to work full-time and earn a living, build self-esteem and see yourself as independent, is absolutely critical in life. By taking that away from them--

For me, the priority is structural development in the communities. You and I will bear witness to what happens in the future, but I would be surprised if northern development considered the realities of the Aboriginal peoples. We will start scrapping rivers, distorting the natural environment and breaking up and cutting back their land so that we can become a wealthy and self-assured Quebec society. Because Quebec is also in the race for autonomy; that should never be forgotten.

[The Acting Chair, Bloc, Nicole Demers]

Ms. Brown, is it your turn?

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Thank you, Madame Demers.

I wonder if we can explore something that we talked about a little earlier, but first of all, I just need to make sure the record is clear: it was a former administration that put the money in place for the friendship centres. There was always a sunset clause on that. It was our government that extended this year over year.

That money has now been rolled into Health Canada. I know we need to get this budget passed in order for any moneys to flow through there. It's still a work in process, but that money is flowing into Health Canada, and the sunset clause that was always in place was put in place when the legislation was created. I think we need to keep that in mind.

I want to explore an issue that came up when we were talking earlier about skills, and I think, Madame Desnoyers, you said that aboriginal men in prison are not receiving...correct me if I didn't get the vernacular. What they're receiving is not culturally sensitive, so it's useless. I think that was the word you used.

First of all, is there agreement that aboriginal men want to provide for their families? Is that a fair statement?

Anyone can answer that.

[Renée Brassard]

I will take the first question, which dealt with the Aboriginal Cultural Awareness Program provided through the correctional system.

The reality in Canada is this. Provincial prisons do not have adequate budgets. They receive less money than facilities operated by the Correctional Service of Canada. As a result, the culture awareness programs for Aboriginals are only offered in federal penitentiaries in Canada, in the five administrative regions.

But again, as I was saying earlier, inmates need to be classified based on their needs, and not on their risk level. That is the change we have noticed since 1996. Previously, they were looking at their needs, but now they are assessing the risk level. When you start thinking about that, the question that comes to mind is: what risks do Aboriginal offenders pose to others? Not much. They are more of a danger to themselves than they are to others.

Your second question dealt with what men want. I would like to come back to something I consider to be very important, and that is the compartmentalization of responses with respect to violence against Aboriginal women. I should really be talking about Aboriginal violence. Our system is built around interventions aimed at women. When a violent incident occurs, police officers arrive on the scene, handcuff the man and give the woman a business card telling her where to get services for victims. People are boxed into the status they have been assigned. The man is necessarily the aggressor and the woman is necessarily the victim.

For 10 years now, I have been hearing Aboriginal women say that they want to work with their men. The traditional feminist approaches don't jibe with what Aboriginal women are asking for. They don't necessarily want to leave their family and their husband. They want to work through the problem of violence with them, in healing circles, because the violence affects the entire family. You don't solve the problem by taking the woman away from her family and sending her out of the community to live in a safe house, whether it is culturally sensitive or not. Whether or not the safe house or the prison has dream catchers, as opposed to bars on the windows, the fact remains that it is a prison that restricts human freedom.

That is something that has to be considered. We have to stop putting people in nice neat boxes, as Anne so eloquently explained. It is critical that Aboriginal men be able to start a dialogue with Aboriginal women so that they can understand each other better. And I am about to submit an application for funding to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. I want to explore the experience and the way that Aboriginal men build the violence they're involved in.

I want to give these men a voice, and get their perspective.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

If I could just interrupt there, though, what are the skills that are being given to aboriginal men when they are incarcerated? I guess that's my question. What skills are they being provided at that point that Ms. Desnoyers considers useless? I think that's the question I would like to have addressed here.

Madame Desnoyers, can you tell us what you think are the useless skills?

[Ann Desnoyers]

I think it's less about tools and more about needs. The men all have different needs. What do these men who are locked up need? That is the question we should be asking.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

But what are the skills they're being provided now that you do not think are beneficial to them when they are released? You specifically used the term “they are useless”, so the skills they're getting are useless....

[Ann Desnoyers]

Culturally, they are not appropriate. That's what I said earlier.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

What skills would be beneficial to them, then, so that when they are released they will have the tools they need to go back into society? What are the skills they need to develop?

[Ann Desnoyers]

Too often, I think we release these men without providing any follow-up. It's important that they be followed up inside the community and that the communities have workers who are trained to help these men. That could be seen as a specific need in the Aboriginal communities.

[Lois Brown, Conservative, Newmarket—Aurora, ON]

Okay. I'm not really sure we're getting to the heart of what I'm trying to get to.

Madame Archambault, you spoke about this as well. You talked about gratifying work. What does gratifying work look like within the aboriginal community and within the aboriginal context as far as the skills they need are concerned?

What skills do they need in order to have that gratifying work? You talked about being integrated into society.

Madame Brassard, you spoke about being integrated into society. What does that look like within the aboriginal context?