Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. I think a lot of Canadians don't understand that there are multiplier effects from these inequalities that come from government services and the lack of voluntary sector services. The children served by the underfunded child welfare system are the same children caught up in Jordan's principle and the same children trying to go to school and learn.

Status of Women committee  It's under way, and once it's available, we will post it on our website, as we do with all our documents. We want to be entirely publicly accountable to all Canadians.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for those two very important questions. As you know, Jordan's principle applies to all government services. The Prime Minister or the government and all of parliamentarians today could say that we re-embrace the original intent of Jordan's principle that we voted for in the House of Commons; that we as a federal government will take leadership and insist that it be fully implemented; that we will pick up the tab on services, whether we think they're the provinces' or not, and we're going to keep records, because we want to be accountable to taxpayers; but that those conversations are going to be secondary to the concerns of children.

Status of Women committee  Well, it's interesting. You can do two things as a government. One is that you can decide that you have all the solutions and only fund people according to a fixed amount. That has not served children very well in a diverse context across the country. The other is that you can do something different--that is, you can look at the particular needs of the children within the context of their family to find out what their concept of a healthy child is and then determine how you achieve that within the context of that community and that culture.

Status of Women committee  Absolutely. We're having an independent evaluation done of this Touchstones of Hope project. I and many of my colleagues believe that being first nations is not enough. We have a fundamental responsibility to get it right and do it really well for our kids, even to a higher standard than non-indigenous communities.

Status of Women committee  The Canadian Council on Social Development did a study. What they found is that about $115 billion in funds are deployed by the federal, provincial, and territorial governments each year in voluntary sector services for Canadians; if you divide that by population, you get roughly that figure of $2,400.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. There are two areas of inequality that aboriginal women experiencing domestic violence experience. One area is the shortfall in actual, direct government spending for services that we just talked about, as in the case of child welfare. The other big gap is in federally funded voluntary sector services, those volunteer services that federal government dollars go to for delivery of services.

Status of Women committee  Thank you.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, honourable members. I'm so glad that the issue of children has joined the issue of women and motherhood. It is fundamental that children be seen within the context of their families, within the context of what it is to be a woman, and within the context of the perpetuity of a society.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  To try to just put it very clearly, there are two streams of funding, principally, under the directive. One is maintenance. That is when a child is brought into care, there are reimbursements for the costs of those children. The second is operations. That is done not on the needs of the children and their families, it's driven strictly by population count.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. I think it's really important to understand that almost nothing was done after those reports. There was a lot of goodwill and expertise and good debate in 2000, and there were 17 recommendations. The department would argue that some of them were partially implemented, including the funding of my organization, which is a national organization, but as we stand here today we don't receive a dime from the federal government.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for your comments. Going back to the member's notation, I note that neither in Alberta nor in Manitoba has there ever been a statement by either of the first nations in that community that we've achieved culturally based equity with the enhanced approach. Of course the Auditor General agrees with that too.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. I think it's really important that we understand that the standard in child welfare is one of safety and well-being of the child. That's the paramount consideration, much like the Canadian health care system. We don't feather out health care, saying this person needs a dollar's worth of health and all they needed was a bandage, and this person has chronic diabetes and a heart care condition, so they've been given a dollar and have had equity in health care.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you for your question. The provinces were left by the federal government to implement child welfare across this country for first nations, and the results were devastating. For the same reason that we would champion first-nations-based education, we must support first-nations-based child welfare agencies.