Human Resources committee  Yes.

Human Resources committee  I think, again, the urban aboriginal focus hasn't been there, so we haven't been able to develop the relationships that others have in order to close some of those gaps. We've recently engaged in a partnership with the Electricity Sector Council, particularly in Goose Bay, Labrad

Human Resources committee  It's interesting that sometimes we get asked how long it will take to turn some of these things around. I think there are a couple of perspectives. First, a number of status Indians have finished high school and have been accepted at universities, but they can't go because of th

Human Resources committee  There are two things. First you need to fund alternative education models to get kids back in after they have dropped out. Education is a lifelong process, so that's one of the things we need to examine. Second, I think there's a disincentive for a lot of public school systems t

Human Resources committee  I think the single biggest barrier we've had to really effective and multi-faceted programs has been this jurisdictional conflict that exists in this federation between the roles of the provinces and of the federal government with respect to aboriginal peoples. Section 91.24, a

Human Resources committee  I think there are more frustrations than obvious success stories. I don't want to be a doom and gloom witness, but from our experience, we've had to really patch programs together as best we can because of the lack of coordination that exists. Where there are urban aboriginal emp

Human Resources committee  The quick answer is no. We haven't noticed an improvement certainly since 2007. I think there has been $300 million in off-reserve housing, which has gone to the provinces. We think the delivery really has handcuffed a lot of folks in terms of having results on the ground at the

Human Resources committee  I think you have a very successful base to build upon out there. There are a lot of native housing providers that have existing stock that can be grown. As an administrator I've always been frustrated by the inability of these mortgagors who are stuck in 35-year CMHC mortgages to

Human Resources committee  I think most of the housing issues that were referred to, of course, are around first nations, and I think it is an embarrassment that we have that kind of infrastructure. But those challenges exist in urban areas as well, and do you know what? It's a market-based approach to pov

Human Resources committee  I think again it's important to emphasize that, yes, it's true, of course, in rural and remote communities that there absolutely are access issues. I think it's hard for a middle class Indian like me to get a family doctor here. It's much harder when you're street-involved to get

Human Resources committee  We have done research ourselves this year on what's happening across Canada on poverty through our friendship centres. One hundred percent of the centres reported to us that the federal, provincial, and municipal governments have not properly addressed poverty for aboriginal peop

Human Resources committee  Thank you for the question. It's critical. One of my first jobs out of university was working at a drop-in centre in downtown Toronto called Native Child and Family Services. We would often see young street women or young mothers coming in who were pregnant. We would help them

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the committee for the invitation to come and speak on this very important issue of poverty in Canada and what the federal response can and maybe should be. It's part of the work that we do every day, so it's a great honour to come and share

Finance committee  The program first started in 1972. It's been called the migrating native peoples program; it's changed to different titles. In 1996 it was the aboriginal friendship centre program. All the way through till today, it's been stuck at the exact same funding level as 1996. It hasn't

Finance committee  I don't think the bureaucratic entanglement we get into is necessarily a cost measure, other than the interest we pay on short-term loans that we take out. I don't think that's going to go a long way to bringing us from the $130,000 on average we have up to the $200,000 on averag