Human Resources committee  Thank you, Peter. The head start program provides opportunities for children zero to six years of age to be able to start off on their lifelong learning at very formative ages. The people, who are predominantly aboriginal women, working in these head start programs provide cultu

Human Resources committee  No, that's fine.

Human Resources committee  The one thing I want to add to what Peter was saying is that when we go to school as first nations students, we learn very little about ourselves. Curriculums contain very little about first nations, Métis, or Inuit. Curriculums need to change; they need to be more inclusive. A l

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am first going to begin my presentation by offering my executive director Peter Dinsdale's regrets for not being able to be here. Unfortunately, he was called out of town. I want to also acknowledge and recognize the territory of the Algonquin Nation tha

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There's very little doubt the organizations are financially struggling. The friendship centres are presently struggling due to the lack of increased funding since 1996. Additional work is going to be created through the addition of hundreds of thousands of people coming to ask qu

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Yes, you've got it. Right on. Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The friendship centres have had a long history of leveraging money from other federal departments, provincial and territorial governments, and municipal governments. The new funding will be brought into the friendship centres and will help to provide much-needed services for yout

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't think there's a lot of new money. I think it's replacing what was there.

Status of Women committee  Madam Chairperson and members of the Standing Committee on the Status of Women, woliwon. Thank you for this opportunity to present to you a briefing on behalf of the National Association of Friendship Centres. Allow me to begin by acknowledging the Algonquin Nation who first in

Status of Women committee  Okay. In 2007 the report states that aboriginal communities and organizations, as well as mainstream organizations and service providers, have long asserted that aboriginal women experience significantly greater rates of violence than non-aboriginal women in Ontario, and that ma

Status of Women committee  The core funding that we receive from the Department of Canadian Heritage is $16 million. That provides the core funding of approximately 116 of the 120 friendship centres. The rest of the money, the $114 million, is generated by the hard work that the people in friendship centre

Status of Women committee  Yes.

Status of Women committee  Sure. The people who work in the friendship centres across the country put in a lot of personal time. They work for very low wages. The amount of money involved and the number of programs that we have and the number of people we employ may give the impression that it's a lot. But

Status of Women committee  Yes. That is definitely the case. What we report in State of the Friendship Centre Movement: 2009 is a compilation of the variety of programs friendship centres have, from St. John's to Port Alberni to Inuvik. Not all friendship centres would provide each one of those programs.

Status of Women committee  That is the core funding. That is the skeleton. We call it a skeleton because it is a skeleton. That $16 million has been frozen since 1996. The friendship centres program has not had an increase in funding since 1996, and we are at 2010. It is putting a major strain on friendshi