Status of Women committee  I would say that I look at funding as enabling, as being the first domino. If you follow that, then the implementation of best practices is possible.

Status of Women committee  If we take that away, I would say poverty reduction strategies and investments in programs or even corporate partnerships. There's a great partnership, and I'm not sure the committee has heard about this, by the National Australia Bank with regard to payday loan operations, for example, which in my personal view are very exploitive of the poor.

Status of Women committee  Right, but not as probably systematically as we were seeing in Australia. There was also an envelope around it of economic development and education, etc. So it's worth taking a look at. The other thing is substance misuse and mental health treatment. I think it's really critical; it's really what drives a lot of the problems that we're seeing in our communities.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  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.

Status of Women committee  Well, there are 160,000 first nations children, and approximately half of them are on reserves. The reports I would commend to you, member, are the Parliamentary Budget Officer's report on first nations schools, authored in 2009. He did a rather thorough inventory of the needs of first nations schools in terms of bringing them up to the same standards as offered in the provinces and territories.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, member. I have prepared a written submission with about six very specific recommendations, and also all the research backing up my oral remarks. I think one of the fundamental things is ensuring that first nations girls are getting a good education to prepare them for the careers of their dreams.

Status of Women committee  Thank you, Madam Chair, and members of the committee. A recognition of the Algonquin Nation and of all Canadians.... Of all Canadians when they sing “O, Canada, we stand on guard for thee”, they're called back to the central values of our nation, the principles of justice, of fairness, of freedom, and of equality.

Status of Women committee  We don't know; one of the things that is important to know, though—I know that you were particularly interested in the ties with residential schools—is that the Attorney General has assigned lawyers from the residential schools division to fight this case of equality against first nations children.

Status of Women committee  The transcript is posted on the I Am a Witness website so that you can see the proper transcript. Among the first questions I was asked by the Government of Canada's lawyer was “Dr. Blackstock, do you believe in God?” and “Were you in child welfare care as a child?”

Status of Women committee  It was interesting. I wasn't the only one under oath on the stand last spring. The senior official at Indian Affairs, Ms. Johnston, was called to testify under oath about the funding arrangement for child welfare. I've recreated a portion of her testimony on page 9. It's publicly available.

Status of Women committee  It's what's called the Indian Welfare Agreement and it applies in Ontario. Over a decade ago, in 2000, there was a call for a joint review of that particular formula. Of course there were calls at the community level much before that. In a formal way, the department agreed to that over a decade ago, but there has been no movement on it.

Status of Women committee  What I'd say on child welfare is that we already have on the books two expert solutions developed within the last decade that involve first nations, academics, the federal government, and often the provinces. It's not a lack of solutions. It's a failure to implement properly and to monitor those implementations so that we can make proper adjustments.

Status of Women committee  Thank you for the question. We do have that, in two ways. One is the Wen:de reports, which were completed in 2005. They were done by over 25 leading researchers, including five economists. I personally believe in using the few tax dollars we have for maximum benefit. Our economists costed out every dime that we would use to enhance and provide equality for first nations children.