Status of Women Committee on Jan. 13th, 2011

[Chief Betsy Kennedy]

I just want to add to what Chief Meeches said.

Right now we have so much development going on in the north. I encourage the women in our community--I encourage anybody I speak to on the street, whomever--that they can become a truck driver. They can become an operator. They don't have to do just the regular women's jobs. They can become doctors and lawyers.

We always struggle to.... We always want to inform the children of that in our communities. As chiefs, that's what we do. Yes, as women chiefs, we are expected to do a lot more than what our regular role is, and we are happy to do that. As a matter of fact, when I'm home I do as much as I can. This shows the women that you can do things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you, Chief Kennedy.

Ms. Mathyssen for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I haven't had a chance to ask Chief Meeches and Chief Kennedy any questions, so I'm going to focus some of this questioning their way.

You talked about the Sisters in Spirit campaign. We know that $10 million was allotted to address the reports that were provided by the Native Women's Association. How would you like to see that money spent, or how would you have liked to see that money spent? We know that $4 million of it actually went to creating a database, so that's 40% of the money that's not available.

Have you given it any thought? Where should it have gone?

[Chief Francine Meeches]

I've never really given it any thought, but the thing that really disturbs me at times is that it's okay to announce millions of dollars going to organizations or first nations people, but what happens is that by the time it gets to where it's supposed to go, half of that money is already spent. Those are the things that really have to be looked at.

Who are the in-between people who get the funding? Who benefits from this? By the time it gets to those community members in our community, we don't have a whole lot. The $12,000 that we get for family violence is not a lot of money. It's $1,000 a month. What can you do with $1,000 for your membership when you have 720 people in your community? What can you actually do with that?

Those are the things that really have to be looked at. To me, that's important.

[Chief Betsy Kennedy]

The program was a certain help, I guess, in providing a lot more than what were doing or what we were receiving. It's been a struggle in our communities to try to do something.

The families that we have, they don't come out and say things. They will do anything they can to keep the family together. That's very sad. Even the children, they have the same thing. They will not say anything. They will not say anything against their parents. But I would like to see the children and their families become a unit where they can have love and have trust again instead of hiding their feelings all the time.

Somebody mentioned child and family services. The children will not say anything because they do not want to enter the child and family services programs. Also, for the women, it's hard for them to go into a program where there's nothing there for them. After they leave, they have to go back home: home to what?

Thanks.

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

Thank you.

You're touching on something that I wanted to ask about too. There's been a great deal of discussion here and we haven't heard a great deal about health and mental health. It seems to me that mental health is a centrepiece of this. I'm wondering about services in regard to issues of mental health.

I'm also wondering about the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, which is winding down. The funding has ended. I'm wondering what impact that has on communities and on the work that you do.

Certainly anyone who can answer, or is willing to answer, would help.

[Chief Betsy Kennedy]

I know there are a lot of programs out there for off-reserve organizations, but in our first nations communities, we don't get that much. We're always having to go to many of our funders to try to get something and we have to do a lot of reports on everything.

Many of those things have to do with mental health, the women, and the children. But when we bring this out, they have restrictions that they have to follow and they have to inform the RCMP. That hinders their things, so they're really stuck.

It's very hard trying to get somebody out there to listen to you. As the chief of my first nation, I will say that we have a lot of that. We try to do anything we can to protect women. We do other things, things other than just having to do some of these programs, but we don't tell anybody about it. The person out there is out there trusting you not to say anything. It's a lot of hard work for us also.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

I think that brings to an end this particular session.

I just want to introduce one of our Liberal members of the committee, Michelle Simson, who is going to be going on to Sioux Lookout and Thunder Bay tomorrow.

Welcome, Michelle.

Thank you very much for coming. Those were very interesting and very different presentations. There are a lot of statistics we would like to get and also all the best practices that we would really like this committee to have a look at.

It's very interesting, Ms. Denby, to find out that you have this unique program. I think it's worth our being able to see how the program is set up and maybe to see some of your outcomes.

Thank you for taking your time to be here. We learned a great deal from you, as always. Thank you very much.

Would someone move that this meeting be adjourned?

[An hon. member]

So moved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

The meeting is adjourned.