Mr. Speaker, I am still learning.
For over 10 years the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has provided support to the survivors and the families of survivors of the residential school system. This good work will come to an end while the need it was intended to address continues.
We are well aware that the government made a formal apology to the victims of the residential school system, an apology for the treatment of young aboriginals who were subjected to unspeakable acts of physical, sexual, mental and cultural abuse in that system.
It was an important and vital step in the restitution of first nations people, as the government finally admitted that what had occurred in the school system was a horrible scar on this nation's history, in particular on first nations history.
However, it is not enough to simply make apologies for the residential school system. We need programs in place to help those who have been touched by these wrongdoings to allow their voices to be heard. We need programs in place to help those who are still suffering from the torment of abuse to be able to allow their emotional scars to heal. We need programs like the Aboriginal Healing Foundation to ensure that the apology the government has made to the aboriginal people of Canada adds up to more than just flowery language.
The apology was a first step in providing restitution to the legacy of abuse that the residential school system had cost first nations in this country, but first steps amount to little unless they are followed by a march in the right direction.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is of vital importance to the reconciliation of first nations people in Canada. The foundation provides services and community-based aboriginal healing initiatives from a community perspective.
Instead of being a top down government run organization, the AHF works in collaboration with communities to provide grants that allow for healing initiatives that operate at the local level.
As we all know, no two communities operate the same and this can be said about aboriginal communities as well. The AHF funds 134 independently run programs. Many of these are unique to the circumstances of the victims they are serving.
It is this type of approach to reconciliation and healing that top down government run programming would not be able to provide for these communities.
The riding of Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing has a large aboriginal population. The first nations represent 14% of the riding's population. If the government does not restore funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, there will be serious repercussions for this population.
Let me give some examples of programs that go to help support the aboriginal people within my community. The AHF provides funding for the community healing strategy of the Shingwauk Education Trust
The community healing strategy is continuously being developed through survivor and community input, and provides individual support programs, a staff wellness program, a traditional healing process for damaged spirits, and a community evaluation matrix for residential school survivors.
The Enaahtig Healing Lodge & Learning Centre has developed a trauma recovery and residential program. The mission statement of the trauma recovery and residential program states:
The project encompasses an intensive two week trauma recovery residential program and allows us to develop components to the already existing four week residential programs being offered at Enaahtig. The ongoing four week programs would serve as an aftercare program to the intensive two week trauma recovery as well as address the needs of those individuals who not necessarily in active trauma.
These are just two examples of programs that help the Ojibwa-Anishinabek people in my riding, through grant funding provided by the AHF.
Grand Council Chief Patrick Madahbee of the Union of Ontario Indians is disappointed and extremely concerned about the loss of funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. The Union of Ontario Indians indicates that failure to continue with this program, which has seen great successes in assisting their people, would be a shame and would prove to be a huge mistake.
The union points out that other government services would then face the increased load of dealing with the social, physical and mental health issues that residential school survivors and their families are facing, not really knowing what these first nations communities actually went through.
The damage that the residential school system has caused our first nations people is incredibly far-reaching. Take, for example, the James Bay area. Last year, there were 13 youth suicides among the aboriginal people in that community. Of those 13, 11 have family members whose roots can be traced back to one particular residential school.
Aboriginal suicide rates are five to seven times higher than other ethnic groups in Canada. If we can take any steps in helping to reduce those numbers, it is the government's duty to do so.
My colleague, the member for Timmins—James Bay has made comments on the need for the aboriginal healing program. He was quoted as saying, “It's disheartening to see that the government shows so much disinterest in helping these communities. Over and over again we hear of the horror stories and now we see a government that is intent on ending funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, a foundation that has proven to be effective in helping in the healing process”.
I also have a colleague from the Northwest Territories who said, “In the past 10 years, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has had a tremendous impact on aboriginal people with trauma from the residential school program which has such a dominant reality for aboriginal children in northern Canada”.
These are disconcerting words from my colleagues who have seen, first-hand, the damage that the residential school system has caused for people in their first nations communities.
A member of the National Residential School Survivors' Society has provided me with his take on why the AHF is important. He tells me that the services being delivered by the AHF are community-based by people on the ground working with people from those communities. It is local and not out of INAC in Ottawa.
He believes that the government is ignoring the long-term impacts of the residential school system, specifically the damage that is being caused to the children and grandchildren of residential school survivors.
If members take nothing else away from this, just know that the people working for the National Residential School Survivors' Society wholeheartedly support the work of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and have seen first-hand the positive results this is making in their communities.
In the years since the AHF has been in operation, it has provided healing and support services to countless aboriginal people across this country, but it is certainly not enough time to repair all of the damage the residential school system has caused. The National Residential School Survivors' Society states that one cannot take 150 years of abuse and expect to have it dealt with within 12 years.
I want to add a few more comments from this society. It said, “Government believes the Commons Experience Payment should suffice and are ignoring the long term impacts...What is now occurring is that the perpetrator, that being the government, is choosing an avenue of being micromanager and adding more bureaucratic red tape; therefore are continuing to abuse the survivors”. It went on to say, “Courts found the government liable, because the government apologized does not mean that the healing has ended; this is a long term process”.
If the government is serious about providing reconciliation for first nations people, then we cannot in good conscience let the AHF slip away.
I would like to quote some information that was provided to the hon. Prime Minister by Jack Layton. He said:
For many people living in rural and remote areas, the programs that the Aboriginal Healing Fund (AHF) helped create were their only window into mental health programming, counselling and therapy. There simply are no other resources available. When the Aboriginal Healing Fund programs ends, nothing will replace them. That is particularly true in Nunavut and the other Inuit settlement areas where Aboriginal Healing Fund programs are the only ones currently operating that deal specifically with residential school trauma.
Mr. Speaker, I just realized I made a mistake a few minutes ago and I mentioned my leader's name. I apologize.
I would once again like to thank my colleague from Churchill for bringing this issue to the forefront.