House of Commons Hansard #20 of the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was colombia.
Aboriginal Healing FoundationEmergency Debate
The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer
Order, please. I anticipate that the parliamentary secretary is rising on a point of order that it is unparliamentary to make reference to a member's absence or presence. I will remind the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley again to refrain from doing that.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, it is important not to mention when members have been absent from a debate that they apparently care so much about that they could not bother to show up to. I will make sure I do not do that again. I suppose the understanding that we have--
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
This is a remarkable moment actually, Mr. Speaker, to hear the vitriolic words of my colleagues. I would ask my colleague to restrain himself--
Aboriginal Healing FoundationEmergency Debate
The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer
Order, please. I will allow the hon. member for Skeena--Bulkley Valley a few moments to respond. I will just point out that his reference to the absence or presence of a member and then the way in which he atoned for that mention certainly did cause a great deal of disorder. It is not helping him put his question to do things like that. I will allow him a few moments to finish his question.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
It is fascinating, Mr. Speaker, that the ire of the government has been raised by a parliamentary procedure and yet it is cancelling the funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation when, by its own assessment, it is doing vital work. This is baffling. In one breath the government says that this was one of our most successful programs, that it worked and that it was cost effective, and in the second breath said that it needed to cancel it and replace it with something else that will not work as well.
Before my colleague gets the speaking points from the centre here, did he manage to do any cost assessment of what cancelling this program means to the Government of Canada--
Aboriginal Healing FoundationEmergency Debate
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Mr. Speaker, I certainly am impressed with my colleague across the way with his ranting and raving and his declaration that Health Canada does not seem to be able to provide service to Canadians of all aspects.
I would also like to point out that this agreement was signed by first nations. It was a five year agreement so we are not actually cutting funds. We are actually adding additional funds in the 2010 budget and another $199 million to help this. Part of that money will go to Health Canada to help aboriginal peoples through this process, and I--
Aboriginal Healing FoundationEmergency Debate
The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer
Order, please. Resuming debate. The hon. member for Vancouver East.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I will be splitting my time with the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.
I am very glad to be rising in the House tonight, even at this late hour, to participate in this emergency debate. The first thing I would like to do is to thank the member for Churchill who applied for this emergency debate, which was granted by the Speaker, and to thank her for bringing this forward so that we could actually participate in this really critical discussion tonight about what is going to happen to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
When the member for Churchill led off the debate at the beginning of the evening, I remember her speaking about the fact that she was not in the House when the historic apology took place on June 11, 2008. I am sure she, like others across the country, was probably in her community with many people who were witnessing that historic occasion.
I remember being here in the House that day. It was a beautiful sunny day. People were gathered outside. I remember hearing the apology. I remember hearing the first nations representatives who came on the floor of the House and spoke. I remember phoning back to my riding of Vancouver East that night and talking to people in the downtown east side who had gathered at the Aboriginal Friendship Centre at Hastings and Commercial.
I remember feeling what they had gone through to some extent. I was not there. I was here. However in talking to people, I heard about the pain that people went through listening to that apology, and the grief, the sense of loss, anguish and trauma that it brought forward.
I also heard from people that they had a sense of hope about what that apology meant. By the fact that it was given by the Prime Minister, the Government of Canada and all parties, it carried this historic weight of something very important.
It is ironic that not quite two years later we are back in this House debating, in an emergency situation, whether or not the Aboriginal Healing Foundation will be able to continue. In fact, it will not be able to continue under the current state of affairs because of the loss of funding.
It is further ironic because the day its funding ends will also be the 50th anniversary of voting rights being extended to aboriginal people in this country.
What is going on here feels totally wrong. We have heard the arguments from the government that all these other programs are going to continue. I have listened to people in my community, people like Jerry Adams who is a very wonderful aboriginal leader in East Vancouver from the Circle of Eagles. He wants to know how anybody can open the doors of pain and not follow up with a healing plan to make it better for the families involved, and how the 400-plus page study that was given to the government about the importance of helping the residential school survivors can be of no importance now.
He went on to say other things as well, but it just struck me that he really has hit the chord there. When we look at the evaluation of community-based healing initiatives supported through the Aboriginal Healing Foundation that was done not very long ago, on December 7, 2009, we see it is a very strong and uplifting evaluation.
The evaluation found that the programs delivered through AHF are cost-effective, in demand, successful in contributing to the “increased self-esteem and pride”, to the achievement of higher education and employment and to prevention of suicide among survivors of residential schools, and more recently in the broader aboriginal community.
It seems really quite incredible that, with the apology that happened not quite two years ago and this kind of program evaluation, we are now in a place where this is all going to shut down.
How many times has this happened before? I was just looking back at my own files of letters we have written.
Whether it is about funding that is potentially being lost for the National Association of Friendship Centres and letters that were written to the ministers, whether it is the Lu'ma Native Housing Society and the fact that they were ready to close their doors and lay off staff because the government would not commit to renew their funding under the national homelessness initiative, whether it was letters we wrote in February of this year to Minister of State for the Status of Women about the fact that the Sisters in Spirit from the Native Women's Association of Canada were left in limbo over their funding, or whether it was that the more than 130 groups delivering these programs through the AHF had to find out through the tabling of the budget, on February 4, that their funding would not be renewed by the end of month, again we have to write another letter.
We keep coming back to this place. It challenges the credibility of that apology. This is why we are now facing such a serious situation in terms of what is happening to aboriginal people across the country and the fact that they are living in appalling conditions.
I find it difficult to talk in the community about this place, the House of Commons, the Canadian Parliament. We all talk about the commitment to what needs to be done. We raise it in question period and we hear about the commitments from the government. Yet we keep coming back to funding losses, cuts and programs that are going to be discontinued, even when they are shown to be successful.
It seriously undermines the belief of not only aboriginal people, but all Canadians in the credibility of their government standing for what it believes in, what it says it is willing to put forward. It stretches the credibility and undermines the legitimacy of the work we do when these promises get broken year after year.
I represent the community of Vancouver East, which includes Downtown Eastside. I have seen first-hand the impact of colonialism, the oppression of aboriginal people through the residential schools system. I have seen the devastation it has had on lives of people, successive generations and the community as a whole.
Each year I participate in the missing women's march on the Downtown Eastside. The 19th annual missing women's march was held on February 14. Many women have gone missing and are presumed murdered, many of them aboriginal.
The whole trauma and horror of what has taken place has manifested in this community. There is an impact on people's lives, whether it is through addiction, homelessness, deepening poverty that is made worse by serious cuts in programs, services and income support. Many people in my community live with that and try to survive day by day. I, as their representative, and other representatives try to deal with that.
Even with that kind of tragedy, I have also seen incredibly powerful initiatives come out of the community. For example, right now at the National Arts Centre is a very amazing play called Where the Blood Mixes, which speaks about the residential schools experience. We are seeing incredible creative expression as people try to engage in a healing process and speak to the broader Canadian society about what has taken place.
I have seen organizations, such as Vancouver Native Health Society, the Aboriginal Friendship Centre Society or the women's centre, that have taken this issue on and have provided support and services to people. People like Gladys Radek or Bernie Williams walked 4,000 kilometres across Canada in a Walk4Justice to raise awareness about the missing and murdered women.
Incredible expressions come out of the community of healing, of reconciliation and of people claiming their place and voice. The very least we can do is ensure the Aboriginal Healing Foundation can continue its mandate to provide the resources at the grassroots to the amazing projects that have taken place across the country.
We either get this or we do not. Either we follow through on these commitments or we have betrayed the aboriginal people of our country. That is a very serious question for the government to consider. I am glad we have had this debate tonight. We hope the government will reflect on this and restore the funding that is needed.
John Duncan ConservativeParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development
Mr. Speaker, after five and half hours of debate at the end of a lengthened day, we have been witness to some high level debate and some debate that was not so high level. However, I think we have served a public interest.
At this time, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the speakers, the questioners, the interested members and the people who have continued to watch all or part of this debate. They have seen a clear demarcation of positions but good will all around.
With that, I will say thanks to all and let the member for Vancouver East handle that in the way she is so good at.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, that was not really a question. It was a comment. I guess the question I have is this. What will come of it? That is what is going to be left hanging in this room tonight as we approach midnight.
We have had some fine talk. The member said that some of it was high and low. Whatever it was, we had this debate. What will the consequence of that be? What are our party and other members have said tonight is the government has to rethink its position. It has to see the support for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. It has to recognize the evaluation that was done has real meaning and real weight.
It is never too late to say that a second opinion is okay, or that a different decision is okay. Maybe a good decision to continue the work of the foundation will come out of this debate. I think all members of the House would applaud that.
Larry Bagnell Liberal Yukon, YT
Mr. Speaker, every member in the House spoke in favour of this tonight. All the Conservative members have spoken about how good and successful the Aboriginal Healing Foundation has been. I hope they are able to change the government's mind and reverse the decision as the member suggested.
However, if they are not, this will continue. I put forward and had passed a motion in the aboriginal affairs committee that we would study this indepth. If they have not believed the letters we have read tonight, they will see these witnesses and hear their heartfelt testimony of the devastation that this will cause.
Has the member been as frustrated as I have been tonight in the debate, not with the members opposite, but with the propositions that have been put forward? I think the parliamentary secretary put it best when he said that they do not understand. As the minister said, there are pieces of a puzzle and each piece is some healing. There is Health Canada. There are the suicide programs. All of these programs are continuing. They made that point. They are continuing on in their role, which is wonderful.
The speeches written by the departments described all these pieces of the puzzle that will still be there because they will not cancelled. Unfortunately, the big chunk out of the middle, a unique healing program with thousands of clients, is being cancelled and there has been no description of what is going to happen to them. That is what has been sad and frustrating about the debate.
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Mr. Speaker, I want to know whether Healing Our Spirit BC Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Society in east Vancouver, will be able to continue its work. That is as real as it is. It is doing incredible work. It is working with people. It has the expertise, the programs and the support in the community. However, as of tomorrow, it will be unable to do that work.
I know this issue is not going to go away. I know the member knows that and we will continue to raise it. However, there is an opportunity here for the government to rethink its position, do the right thing and ensure that the mandate, funding and work of this foundation continues.
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Speaker, I would like to say that it is a pleasure to engage in the debate but unfortunately the circumstances are not ideal because we are talking about something going away that I think there is general agreement worked and was effective, and that was the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
I found myself caught up in the passions of this conversation and frankly the anger I feel about this because I am thinking about the human impact about what we are here talking about tonight.
We are meant to speak to these things in civil tones with one another, understand each other's points of reasons and debate the rhetoric and yet the human side of this conversation cannot be ignored. What will happen to people starting tomorrow when they no longer can find the services that for some folks were what were keeping them alive, that were so vital and able to continue a healing process, of something that we as a country have officially admitted was a devastating impact on an entire culture, an entire people?
In the northwest of British Columbia where I come from there are six service centres operating over a range of 300,000 square kilometres. It was not like we were tripping over them while walking around the northwest of B.C. They were servicing huge areas, some of them as big as a country, and these centres will be closed. The folks who were going to these centres trying to get their lives in order and trying to work through things will not be able to do that anymore.
We have heard from government members that there is some program out there that they cannot produce or show us. It says that it exists but no one believes it because it is a simple trust exercise.
One can forgive the first nations people of Canada for lacking a little bit of trust in the government and, frankly, any government. The simple “trust us” will not cut it.
I really hope the parliamentary secretary takes this back to the Minister of Health who engages with the first nations communities and actually presents them with a plan, shows them where the centres will be and where the resources will be for people. Otherwise we will drop them and, if we drop them, that is worse than anything else.
I hear members saying that it is all there. Where is it ? We are looking for the plan, the dates, the spending and the services that will be there so I can tell my constituents, the people who have been going to these service centres, where they go next when those doors are locked tomorrow morning. Where is the service? If it is not there, then the government should be ashamed.
The government should only hope and pray that it has evaluations on its programs, like the evaluation it received on the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, an evaluation that came back and said, “Great work, effective, taking on a difficult problem, a challenging problem of how to heal a people, not just at the individual level”, which the government says is the only cure, “but at the family and community level”, which first nations have said time and again that this is the path forward and have asked that we listen to them. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation was a program that did this.
I am not sure if there are many hon. members here tonight or have been engaged in this debate who have actually attended an Aboriginal Healing Foundation forum. This is a powerful, moving and humbling thing to go through when one stands side by side with somebody who day in and day out listens to difficult, tragic, impossible stories and yet goes to work the next day to help folks out.
In the strangest of ironies, the day the Prime Minister stood in his place here, that in my riding, in my region it was the Aboriginal Healing Foundation that hosted forums for first nations people, feasts and discussions to talk about the apology, to discuss it and in fact to celebrate it, despite all the years of evidence showing that the Government of Canada may not be trustworthy.
We all remember that when the Prime Minister stood up, a circle was made here with the leaders of the first nations, Inuit and Métis communities of Canada. The Prime Minister sat with them in the circle along with the Leader of the Opposition and said, in words that felt sincere, that we apologize and that we are sorry. When the apology came forward it was an honest and normal expectation for people to have who were affected by this that there would be action to follow.
My friend from Vancouver East read out the many accolades for this program, The government spent money on this program and it did an assessment of the program. The assessment came back showing that the program was cost effective and was helping to reduce the amount of suicides in a community. The natural inclination for any government, right wing or left wing, it should not matter, should be to say that a cost effective program that is keeping people from killing themselves should be supported and continued, regardless of what was said in 2005.
It is working, and tomorrow it stops working.
I am thinking of the people who go to those programs, the people who attend those sessions. They do not have anything else. That is the point.
Members of Parliament can talk all they want about protocol and discussion and civility, but they should go out into the communities and sit in the villages. I represent communities with 85% and 90% unemployment. It is devastating. My colleague from Vancouver Island faces similar circumstances. If the city of Ottawa were in a similar circumstance, I would give it three months before there was chaos, before there was a tragedy. Can we imagine Ottawa, Vancouver, Toronto or Montreal having 80% unemployment? Yet the communities are somehow managing to survive, despite extremely difficult financial circumstances and social circumstances, some of which was put upon them, such as the residential schools. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is meant to be a mark of that.
This Truth and Reconciliation Commission is going across the country, including to some of the communities in my riding. The idea is that is going to open things up. Part of the idea was to support the healing that was going to be required once these truth and reconciliation meetings happened. The community-based, family-based counselling is simply not going to be there.
I think we can stand together on certain things. Oftentimes in this place people look to right and left, but oftentimes there is right and wrong. Tonight we are faced with a question of right and wrong.
We have a program which, by the government's own admission, works. It is effective. For the life of me, I will not be able to explain to the constituents I represent, the people who are attending those programs, who are getting the help that they need, that their government has a plan in place but it just does not seem to have it ready. How will I explain to them that the counsellor they have been working with for years and with whom they have developed trust, support and safety is just not going to be there? The government said that yes, the program worked and yes, it was effective, but it did not want to release the report until the day after it cut its funding.
I am sorry, but it is difficult to tell Canadians that this is some sort of circumstance of timing and a date on the calendar, that we held this report for so many months, this report that said this was effective, but we had to wait until we had the budget and cut the funding to that program in order to tell people about it. Come on. We can do better than that.
At the end of the day, the dignity that first nations people present themselves with, the struggles they are going through on a community-by-community basis, on a family-by-family basis, they need support. They are willing to work with us. They are willing to trust again and again and again, but it is difficult when a government comes forward with a program that works, by every admission, a program that is effective and then turns to the aboriginal people and says, ”Trust us again. We cut this out from under you. We are going to replace it with a 1-800 line and some program that we haven't articulated, but you have got to trust us. We will be there for you”.
It is a bit difficult and it is a bitter pill to swallow for first nations people from coast to coast to coast.
The government must reconsider this position. It must reconsider what it has done. It can afford this. We can do this. We can continue this program and effectively service aboriginal people who are dealing with the most trying circumstances. I implore the government to see reason.
Aboriginal Healing FoundationEmergency Debate
The Deputy Speaker Andrew Scheer
It being midnight, I declare the motion carried.
Accordingly, this House stands adjourned until later this day, Wednesday, at 2 p.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24.
(The House adjourned at 12:00 a.m.)
