Evidence of meeting #32 for Status of Women in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was aboriginal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
I like the mentorship programs as well. I think they do a lot for young girls to see that there are other opportunities out there.
Claudette, can you provide any insight into what unique challenges aboriginal girls are likely to face in respect to economic participation, prosperity, and leadership? It's a two-part question. Also, how are these challenges different for aboriginal girls living in urban versus rural areas?
Executive Director, Native Women's Association of Canada
I think the ones in the rural areas lacked information, because the information sources are very limited, especially in more remote communities. If you speak to someone in or living close to an urban area, you will find that their knowledge of what's out there will be much greater than a person living in a northern area. As well, I think there are less economic opportunities in the remote communities than in the more southern areas near urban communities. They are at a disadvantage.
We found in our research with Sisters in Spirit that what has happened is that a lot of young women left their communities to go to urban centres. A lot of them ended up.... Well, there's the Highway of Tears, for example. A lot of them were leaving their communities to go into large urban areas and never got there; they were murdered along the way. A lot of them end up going to larger cities, and they fall between the cracks. They don't know where to go.
There are a lot of situations where we could focus, especially on young women. We can work with the friendship centres, for example, and with native women's organizations in cities and in larger centres, to help them navigate the systems. NWAC does have, through the labour market development initiative, a small program to help young women enter the labour force, but it's very small and much more is needed. We should target the younger women as well. What we're focusing on at NWAC now is the young women, but the older young women. Here I think we should focus more on the younger teenage population.
Conservative
Conservative
Susan Truppe Conservative London North Centre, ON
That's okay, then. You wouldn't have time to answer that.
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
Okay. Thank you.
Now we move to a member from the official opposition. Ms. Ashton, you have seven minutes.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
I'd like to thank Ms. Dumont-Smith and Ms. Blackstock for their presentations today. I certainly think I can speak on behalf of my colleagues in saying that it takes a lot of courage to say what you have brought forward today. It takes courage to do the work that you do. You are standing up and pointing to the gaps within the federal government and at the way the federal government has ignored the voices of first nations in so many cases. I certainly know it from having the honour of representing the first nations in northern Manitoba.
Ms. Blackstock, you referred to there being thousands of Shannen Koostachins in Canada. While I am honoured to think that I represent some of these dynamic young women in my part of the country, where I come from, you are absolutely right in saying that we must act now to prevent the kind of future that, in many cases, their mothers and grandmothers have faced. I thank you for the presentation you made and the sentiments you expressed.
Ms. Dumont-Smith, I want to hear from you with respect to today's study. In recent weeks, we found out about the cuts to the Native Women's Association of Canada. Could you explain to us what programs will be cut and what kind of impact this will have on the well-being of aboriginal girls?
Executive Director, Native Women's Association of Canada
On April 13, we got word from Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch that our health funding would be cut by 100%. One that particularly touches on the topic of today is that we had an aboriginal health initiative program, where we introduced the different health careers to young aboriginal girls. We did it in various ways. We had a huge conference where we had doctors and high-level health people come and speak to them as role models. We developed booklets about different health careers to get them interested so that they would pursue these careers and make a better life for themselves. We worked on that—the AHHRI it was called—for about four or five years. We did good work. We were proud of that work. It has been cut. Consequently, we will not be able to do any more work in that area. That's a great gap. The young girls we were trying to reach and the girls in the future that we would have reached through such a program will be at a loss.
Executive Director, Native Women's Association of Canada
For just that program or the whole cut?
Executive Director, Native Women's Association of Canada
About one-fifth of our funding was cut, which would be between $700,000 and $800,000. It fluctuated from year to year. The most we received from the First Nations and Inuit Health Branch was about $1 million, and then it would fluctuate depending upon what our projects were.
NDP
Executive Director, Native Women's Association of Canada
Definitely.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Thank you very much.
I'd like to move on to Ms. Blackstock.
Given the extent of the work that you've done, Ms. Blackstock, I just have a general question. We hear a lot—certainly from the current government—about financial management with respect to first nations. But I was wondering if you could explain to us how aboriginal children are actually less dependent on the public purse than non-aboriginal children, and how public funding in general exists with respect to aboriginal young people.
Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada
Well, less dependency comes from less provision from the government in the first place. So that's where those inequalities end up, because governments provide less to first nations children on reserve because they're first nations children on reserve.
My plea to all of you is that this needs to stop, regardless of political party. Equality doesn't have a party. But it needs to stop now, because children only have one childhood.
This idea about fiscal mismanagement I think is really a red herring. None of us around this table would view in any favourable terms the mismanagement of dollars intended to go to children. But as I sometimes say to Canadians—and please excuse me for this—if financial mismanagement were a racial characteristic, no Caucasian man in his 40s and 50s should ever again, after 2008, touch a Fortune 500 company.
That is not to say that when this happens people shouldn't be held to account, but it should be no reason to deny children basic access to services. Where there are allegations of mismanagement of funding, there are provisions within the agreements to stop that and address it—and of course, there are the criminal courts, and they should be used to the fullest extent. But we should not say that this issue, which the Auditor General has already said is really a red herring, should bar us from doing the right thing for kids today.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
Given your work on child welfare, I'm wondering if you see a connection between the proportion of aboriginal children in the child welfare system and the poverty of their mothers. Are they connected?
Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada
Absolutely. We know that from reputable studies not only in Canada but from around the world.
Specific to first nations children, there is a study called the “Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect”. Over three successive cycles of that study, with an error rate of less than .001—which is less than 1% and really the lowest possible rate of error you can get in a study—it says that the three factors driving the overrepresentation are poverty, poor housing, and substance misuse, all factors that we can do something about, thankfully, with culturally based and targeted interventions.
Unfortunately, that's significantly hampered by the inequalities in child welfare funding.
NDP
Niki Ashton NDP Churchill, MB
In terms of the timing of the court case, I would just ask where we are at, and could you let us know a bit about your work?
Executive Director, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada
Sure. The Federal Court ruled on April 18 that the hearing is supposed to proceed at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. We are working on that at the moment. We want to see that hearing going on as soon as possible, where all parties put their cards face up on the table and that we come out, hopefully, with a ruling for the benefit of first nations children.
Our anticipated timeline is that the hearing should happen in the fall. The only blockade to it is that Canada may appeal and that may delay the hearing.
NDP
The Chair NDP Marie-Claude Morin
Thank you, Ms. Blackstock.
I now give the floor to a member from the government party.
Ms. Young, you have seven minutes.
Conservative
Wai Young Conservative Vancouver South, BC
Thanks so much to the two of you for coming here today. Your testimony is certainly very compelling.
I used to be a native youth worker in the downtown eastside of Vancouver, so I understand well some of the massive issues, the complexities, and the sensitivities in addressing this very complex issue and problem.
Can I just pull you back...? Although we heard a lot from you, because you were both presenting a lot, for some of us who don't have the experience of the rural situation—and certainly I don't—can you tell us a little bit about the practicalities of what is happening right now? How many children needing schooling are there in a place like Attawapiskat? How many teachers are there?
Give us some basics that we can sort of wrap our heads around, if you can. I'll leave that open to either of you.