Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today to speak to the issue of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, a very fundamental issue. I will be sharing my time with my hon. colleague, the member for Vancouver Centre. I also want to thank the Speaker for allowing this important emergency debate to take place.
As the Liberal critic for aboriginal affairs, I have been hearing from many of the impacted individuals, groups and organizations concerning the end of funding for the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. In fact, despite being excluded thus far from the formal Indian residential school settlement, several organizations in my riding have obtained Aboriginal Healing Foundation funding for work with former students in Labrador. That is the beauty of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
In Labrador and throughout the country, 134 projects funded by the AHF have worked with residential school survivors in aboriginal communities to move beyond the residential school legacy. They are now on the chopping block.
The Nunatsiavut government represents the self-governing Inuit of Labrador. Labrador Aboriginal Legal Services works with members of all three aboriginal cultures in Labrador, the Innu, Métis and Inuit. Both organizations have operated important healing programs with this funding. They say that the trust and momentum is only now starting and only now building and they will need to lay off people. The capacity they have built will need to be downsized.
These organizations, along with others across Canada, have been very vocal in expressing their utter shock that the recent federal budget did not provide for a continuation. I share their disappointment, especially given that all Canadians and the aboriginal people who have been served through the foundation have received exemplary service.
The minister's own report from December 2009 finds that:
...AHF healing programs at the community level are effective in facilitating healing at the individual level, and are beginning to show healing at the family and community level;
Impacts of the programs are reported as positive by the vast majority of respondents....
The report goes on to state:
...that one of the most profound impacts of the healing programs (and the Apology) is that the “silence” and shame surrounding IRS abuses are being broken....
It is undeniable that Aboriginal Healing Foundation funded programs and services have been successful throughout Canada, from coast to coast to coast. They have been accountable, transparent and are delivering results. Enrolment and the demand is up by 40% among survivors and their families. More young people than ever are involved in the cases. Alcohol abuse and suicides are down. These are tangible results and real results.
I emphasize that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation also responds to all three aboriginal peoples of Canada, including the Métis and Inuit, who share in this history, who shared in the apology and who are sharing the healing journey together.
Just today, along with other members of this House, I received a very powerful and emotional open letter, jointly authored by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc. and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association, describing the impact of the Healing Foundation and of the impending loss of funding on the Inuit in the Arctic. It states:
As the term of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation is coming to an end our people are anxious and fearful of the tremendous loss this means to them. ...The AHF is ours, and our people trust it and take pride in it.
The many aboriginal peoples of Canada are culturally and regionally diverse and often have differing interests or views but on this matter there is solidarity. The voices in support of the foundation have come from right across the country. We have heard voices from Nunavut where the Legislative Assembly passed a unanimous motion calling on the federal government to reinstate funding for the foundation. There were many passionate speeches in support of that resolution.
I want to briefly quote the words of the hon. Hunter Tootoo who said:
This is a long journey. The way I look at it, the two-year funding commitment from the federal government to help individuals along this road and then they paved the road, the road only goes for two kilometres, a kilometre per year of funding, for example, and then it runs into a cliff and then everyone’s standing there, they have been abandoned.
We have heard voices from Nunavik, Arctic Quebec, such as Annie Popert of Kuujuaq. These are her words in the Nunatsiaq News:
...it seems to me that any time we make some head-way, the governments cut us off. This includes the non-renewal of funds to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation by the federal government.
We have heard National Chief Shawn Atleo, representing the Assembly of First Nations, say:
We cannot heal one hundred years of abuses in twelve years. Ending projects supported by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation now will create a gap in support at a time when it's needed the most.
Those are powerful statements.
When we appreciate the history and legacy of residential schools and the efforts that aboriginal peoples and communities have made to overcome that legacy, we get a sense of where these leaders and individuals are coming from. They speak from the heart. Many others speak from the heart, like in the minister's own report when they used the words to describe the loss of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation as disastrous, a betrayal of trust, a removal of hope.
Aboriginal leaders spoke from the heart on the floor of the chamber almost two years ago, on June 11, 2008, just as the Prime Minister and all of the party leaders on behalf of all Canadians spoke from the heart on that historic day, the day of the residential schools apology. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is intimately tied to the apology. It is part of the reconciliation and healing process and helps turn the words of the apology into action.
I turn back to the letter from Nunavut Tunngavik and the Qikiqtani Inuit Association. President Kaludjak and President Eegeesiak end with this plea:
Please join us and help to ensure that the words in the apology on June 11, 2008, are more than just words.
Those who lived the residential schools experience and those who experience the intergenerational impacts need more than words. They need a hand up, they need healing and they need support. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation provided it.
I urge the government to reconsider, to think about the words of the residential schools apology and to turn toward continued support, to put those words into action.
For many the healing has just begun. I say to the government that it is a time of opportunity, a time of healing and a time to raise individuals up, families up and communities up. This is an opportunity for Canada to grow as a country. I urge the minister to restore the funding to the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.