Status of Women Committee on Dec. 14th, 2010

[Aideen Nabigon]

Absolutely.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Ms. Langlois, as everyone knows, people need access to healthy food in order to be healthy. We also know that Canada Post had cancelled its food mail program for remote areas.

Has Health Canada intervened to pressure Canada Post to continue the program? Or has Indian and Northern Affairs intervened? I think that was a very important program.

[Kathy Langlois]

Of course. Health Canada is very involved in the changes to the Food Mail program and since Canada Post is no longer doing the deliveries, our role is to provide support for this program through nutrition advice. We will also launch education initiatives on nutrition in communities that will be served by the new program, Nutrition North Canada.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Are you aware that there is very little hope for that program?

[Kathy Langlois]

We know that the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development has reviewed the program, and we have been authorized to go ahead with this program.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Ms. Nabigon, I would like to know if you work in partnership with the provinces. At present, new programs exist in the provinces in connection with legislation concerning children. With this legislation, there is a serious risk that in 20 year's time, we will find ourselves facing the same problem that we had to face regarding residential schools. Children from aboriginal communities are currently being relocated to areas outside of their communities when their mothers cannot take care of them.

They are moved outside of their communities rather than being cared for by other relatives, such as aunts, uncles or grandmothers. They are moved outside of their communities and if their mothers cannot go and visit them once a month or every two or three months, it is believed that they do not want to take care of their children, so these children are placed in foster care, and then adopted if the mothers do not see their children within a year.

I am telling you that there are serious concerns about this turning into the same kind of problem as the problems that resulted from residential schools. Many people in aboriginal communities are quite frightened about this. Have you been in touch with the provinces to ensure that this problem does not repeat itself?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Madam Demers was so generous to me, I'll give 20 seconds for her response.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

I'm sorry, Madam Chair.

[Aideen Nabigon]

I want to clarify that my role is with regard to implementation of the Indian residential schools settlement agreement. I understand there are other issues. There are other issues with regard to other schools and concerning children that we're not dealing with, though others are. I understand the concern, but that's not what we're doing here with the settlement agreement.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

We're on to Ms. Mathyssen.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I'd like to pursue Ms. Simson's questions. When we heard that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was closing down and the responsibility was being shifted to Health Canada, there was profound concern. Here was something in place that the community felt positively about, and it was being delivered over to Health Canada, which may or may not have the expertise.

I want to understand. Once AHF was deemed to be closing down or changing, all the project managers were contacted and informed that the services would now be offered by the resolution health support program. You say in the brief that 421,000 brochures were delivered, and I'm wondering how effective that was in communicating with people. I deliver brochures all the time and I'm not sure they have a real impact.

The second thing that was said was that in some cases they'd been able to work with organizations that delivered former AHF projects in order to build upon the expertise in the community. That “some” raises a question. Are there gaps? Did things fall through the cracks there?

Finally, we heard that 55 contribution agreements with local aboriginal organizations were ensured through resolution health support. Does this represent less than was previously available through AHF? I'm trying to determine if the resolution health support program met the same standards as AHF.

[Kathy Langlois]

Thanks for the question.

First of all, the resolution health support program does not have the mandate to replace the Aboriginal Healing Foundation projects. That's clear. However, we have a mandate to serve former students and their family members as they are going through the settlement agreement processes and provide mental health and emotional support services. If you look at some of the AHF projects, you'll see they're providing things that are outside the boundary of our program--for example, on the land kinds of programming, community-wide programming. Our programming is for former students and their family members. I think that answers the difference between the two programs.

In terms of our outreach, our regional director sent letters to every one of the former AHF projects, and we did an analysis that said 300 former students are in that AHF project catchment area; those are numbers we're able to get from INAC. We're saying that's a catchment area where we should be providing services. And if we weren't—and we would know where our people are coming from—then we would do more intense activity to find out, and contact the foundation projects to tell them about the services we have to offer to make sure there's no interruption in the types of mental health counselling people are receiving, and that people should be referred to our program.

In some cases, as I mentioned in my remarks, we met with some of the Healing Foundation project contribution agreement holders and then entered into our own contribution agreements with them. In 55 cases we either entered into new agreements or amended existing agreements upwards to serve those Healing Foundation clients who were previously served by Healing Foundation projects. That's all outside of whether we did brochures or not.

We had a fairly robust process to ensure that people were aware of our program. In cases where significant numbers of former students were being served by an AHF project, we took action to enter into contribution agreements.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Fifteen seconds.

[Irene Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Do INAC and Health Canada perform gender-based analysis on the policies and programs, and could you provide a tangible example within 15 seconds?

[Kathy Langlois]

As we do Treasury Board submissions and other policy development work, we are required to do gender-based analysis.

[Aideen Nabigon]

It's the same with INAC.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Thank you to the witnesses. We appreciate your coming.

We have a motion we're going to deal with as a committee, and then we have to go in camera for some brief committee business.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

We have a notice of motion from Madam Neville, Thursday, December 9, 2010, and this is:

That the Committee recommend that the government ensure that the benchmarks currently being developed for any future training mission in Afghanistan are compliant with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security; and

That this motion be reported to the House.

Go ahead, Ms. Neville.

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I hope the committee will pass this resolution unanimously. It calls on the government, in its negotiations on benchmarks that are being developed for any future activity in Afghanistan, particularly as they relate to the training mission, that they be compliant with UN Security Resolution 1325. I think most members here will know that the UN Security Council Resolution on Women, Peace and Security is an important landmark resolution at the UN. Several subsequent resolutions at the UN have refined and given direction to its activity, and it's very much incorporated into this government's action plan on implementation of resolutions on women, peace, and security.

I don't know whether members of the committee want me to go through what 1325 says, but I think it's important that we pass this motion. If it passes, I'd like to see it reported to the House as soon as possible because these negotiations are currently under way.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

Are there any speakers to the motion? Seeing no speakers to the motion, I will call the question.

(Motion agreed to)

[Anita Neville, Liberal, Winnipeg South Centre, MB]

That was the easiest thing we've ever done.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Cathy McLeod]

That is to be reported to the House.

[Proceedings continue in camera]