SCYR Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

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The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.))

Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance)

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)

The Chair

Grand Chief Edward John (Tlazten Nation)

The Chair

Ms. Heather Payne (Community Health Consultant, Inter-Tribal Health Authority)

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lagasse (Director, B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society)

The Chair

Ms. Karen Isaac (Program Manager, B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society)

The Chair

Grand Chief Ed John

The Chair

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Mr. Robert Lagassé

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The Chair

Mr. Robert Lagasse

The Chair

Ms. Karen Isaac

The Chair

Ms. Heather Payne

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The Chair

Ms. Heather Payne

The Chair

Ms. Heather Payne

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The Chair

Ms. Heather Payne

The Chair

Grand Chief Ed John

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The Chair

Grand Chief Ed John

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The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

Mr. Robert Lagassé

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Karen Isaac

Mr. Larry Spencer

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Grand Chief Ed John

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

The Chair

Mr. Larry Spencer

Grand Chief Ed John

The Chair

Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ)

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Ms. Karen Isaac

Ms. Monique Guay

Ms. Heather Payne

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Ms. Monique Guay

The Chair

Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.)

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Grand Chief Ed John

Ms. Karen Isaac

The Chair

Ms. Anita Neville

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Grand Chief Ed John

Ms. Anita Neville

The Chair

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Grand Chief Ed John

The Chair

Mr. Robert Lagassé

The Chair

Ms. Karen Isaac

Mr. Robert Lagassé

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Grand Chief Ed John

The Chair

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CANADA

Sub-Committee on Children and Youth at Risk of the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities

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NUMBER 018

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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COMMITTEE EVIDENCE

Wednesday, February 27, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Chair (Mr. John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Lib.)): Welcome, everybody.

    The first challenge is to discover whether our video-conference friends in Vancouver are able to pick us up. Yes, they are.

    Let me welcome you to this meeting. My name is John Godfrey and I'm the chair.

    Parliamentarians operate on a somewhat different time system from normal mortals. It's called parliamentary standard time: many of them show up about ten minutes late. But we're not going to reward that behaviour. We have enough members to begin. Others will drift in, but I think it 's best that we get going.

    Let me introduce the three of us who are here: Larry Spencer from the Canadian Alliance Party. Do you want to say where you're from, Larry?

    Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance): I'm from Regina, Saskatchewan. I serve the riding called Regina--Lumsden--Lake Centre.

    The Chair: Thank you, Larry.

    With us also is Anita Neville, who is a Liberal, as am I. Anita, would you like to introduce yourself?

    Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.): Good afternoon. I'm Anita Neville, and I'm a relatively newly elected member of Parliament for Winnipeg South Centre.

    The Chair: I'm going to ask you, our guests, to introduce yourselves. I don't think there is a chair of the group; you're just four equal individuals there.

    Grand Chief Edward John (Tlazten Nation): I'm Edward John, the Grand Chief of Tlazten Nation in the northern part of British Columbia.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Heather Payne (Community Health Consultant, Inter-Tribal Health Authority): I'm Heather Payne. I'm a community health consultant working for the Inter-Tribal Health Authority on Vancouver Island.

    The Chair: Great.

    Mr. Robert Lagasse (Director, B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society): My name is Robert Lagasse, and I'm a member of the board of directors of the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society based here in Vancouver.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Ms. Karen Isaac (Program Manager, B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society): I'm Karen Isaac. I'm with the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society as well. I'm the program manager.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, particularly to those who have come from a distance. Heather and Grand Chief Ed John, thank you very much, because I realize you've had to travel a distance to join us from Vancouver. But I suspect it's a better deal than having to join us in Ottawa.

    My experience with this technology, if you haven't had any example of it before, is that after about ten minutes you'll find that it becomes fairly natural and we just forget it exists. We carry on as if we were having a long-distance telephone call.

    We'd like to begin by having you make various presentations. I don't know if you've had a chance to confer among yourselves as to who might want to go first. Have you had that conversation, or do you just want me to be arbitrary?

    Grand Chief Ed John: It doesn't matter to us.

    The Chair: All right. Why don't we start? I'm being totally arbitrary. Because our witness list starts with Robert and Karen, then moves to Heather, and then to Ed John, why don't we do it in that order, since I have to pick one form or another?

    So would the folks from the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society would care to begin? I guess the one question I would have is whether you have some sense of the study that we're undertaking on aboriginal kids. Were you given a bit of a backgrounder? There was a verbal backgrounder, I gather, from the researcher and the clerk.

    Just to give you a quick 30 seconds before you begin, this is a subcommittee of the human resources development standing committee, so it's all parties. Madame Monique Guay from the Bloc Québécois is about to join us.

    We have focused on children and youth at risk and we've been focusing in previous years on children from zero to six, but across all Canadian children. Since the fall we have been focusing on aboriginal kids, and we have a sort of notion in our heads that we are dividing aboriginal kids into a group of four, if you like: first, aboriginal kids on reserve, from conception to six; second, aboriginal kids on reserve, from six to twelve; third, aboriginal kids off reserve, zero to six; and fourth, aboriginal kids off reserve from six to twelve.

    We're definitely focusing a lot right now on the on-reserve aboriginal kids, pre-natal to six. I suspect the committee has decided it would like us to move over, after we've completed that study, to aboriginal kids off reserve, zero to six, and then work our way through the quadrant, if you like.

    This gives you a bit of a sense of where we've been. Over the fall we've been interviewing federal government departments to get a sense of the different programs being offered, particularly on reserve, by different departments, whether it's Health Canada, the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, Human Resources Development, Justice, and so on. We are getting an impression of a series of silos that start here in Ottawa and end up in equally siloed fashion on reserves.

    I would like to souhaiter la bienvenue à Madame Monique Guay.

    Let us begin. As I suggested, why don't we start with Robert Lagasse and Karen Isaac?

    I don't know whether you're going to do a joint presentation, but welcome, and we look forward to hearing from you.

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    Mr. Robert Lagassé: Thank you, Mr. Chair, committee members.

    We're here today to do a presentation within the first quadrant you were mentioning, Mr. Chair, on-reserve children zero to six. That is primarily the area that the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society has been working on for a number of years now. There are some responsibilities that provide services off reserve as well, but primarily it's been on reserve. I'll speak to that a little bit later.

    Thank you for the invitation to this meeting today. I was given about five minutes to speak, but I would like to tell you about the need to ensure that the full range of learning and development opportunities is available to all infants and children living in our first nations communities. In my presentation I would like to talk about the importance of early childhood development in our communities, address some of the challenges, and give recommendations on where improvements to services can be made.

    Karen and I bring you a message from the board of directors urging you to recommend an expansion of the supports and services available to all aboriginal infants and children from birth to age six.

    I'll give a very brief background on the Aboriginal Child Care Society, which I'll refer to as ACCS. We are a non-profit society with aboriginal membership that has helped 58 first nation communities in British Columbia create more than 800 child care spaces between 1995 and 1999. The federal government's own evaluation of the first nations and Inuit child care initiative, which we administered, suggested that the ACCS was a model for all of Canada. In fact, we exceeded nationally established targets by more than 10%, and we're very proud of that fact. However, in 1999 the initiative was decentralized to ten regional training and employment organizations. That was due to the one-window framework.

    The society continues to provide both on- and off-reserve child care centres and staff--with resources that reflect the children's aboriginal heritage; with training; with support; and with opportunities to learn from each other's experiences.

    We want to keep the promise we made to the children that they have a special place in our aboriginal culture. Traditionally they were at the very heart of our families and communities. Every child was regarded as a gift to be cared for, valued, and protected by their parents, their family, and their community. Raising children was a sacred responsibility.

    Today, although our values remain the same, our communities have changed. Child care and early childhood development have become critically important for the children themselves, for their parents, and for the entire community. These programs give infants and children a safe, stimulating, and nurturing environment in which to develop physically, socially, mentally, and spiritually. Our programs incorporate enriched learning experiences that reinforce aboriginal traditions, history, and language. We believe aboriginal children need to experience their culture in positive ways in order to feel good about themselves, their community, and their culture.

    Early childhood development and child care programs give parents the opportunity to finish their schooling and to upgrade their skills so they can work and become self-sufficient, contribute to their community, and provide their children with good role models.

    I have an interesting statistic here from INAC's research and analysis directorate, that one-third of aboriginal children across this country are in single-mother families. We have 50,000-plus registered Indian children, and this number is higher in the urban centres as well.

    In other words, early childhood development and child care programs can address many of the problems evident in our communities today. They will take some time to have an impact, but they will have this impact. We know that, and all the research supports that. The Government of Canada has to view these expenditures as investments in our children and in our future. Early childhood development and child care are investments, not expenditures.

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    Our communities face many challenges. In future, while most of Canada will be preoccupied with providing services for its growing number of senior citizens, on-reserve communities will face a challenge of providing development, education, and employment opportunities for its young people. But still, the need far outstrips the availability of these services, and funding has been the major impediment.

    About 10% of on-reserve aboriginal children have access to early childhood development programs, even while 50% of all aboriginal children in Canada live in poverty and are at a much greater risk of poor development outcomes, even while aboriginal children in care make up 30% to 50% of children in care in B.C., and even while drop-out and suicide rates among aboriginal youth are seven times the national average--even while a full third of aboriginal children are living in single-parent situations, as I've mentioned before.

    In terms of prevention and community development, by every measure aboriginal children in Canada are doing poorly. Their families face many different challenges, including poverty, welfare dependency, illiteracy, and family distress. Still, the tendency for government has been to invest resources into fixing problems rather than prevention.

    Research, experience, and common sense all indicate that the need for child protection services can be substantially reduced if we invest more significantly in early childhood programs and child care. There's a pre-school project in the U.S. that shows children who participated in quality child care were more likely to complete school, less likely to receive welfare, or to be involved in a juvenile or adult criminal justice system. In our own country here, researchers at McMaster University determined there would be savings of $20,000 in health care and social services for every low-income, single-parent family with three children in child care.

    Aboriginal communities are at different stages of change and are their own best experts on what needs to be done and how to do it. In the last year there's been a lot of discussion in federal government circles and the aboriginal community about the importance of taking an integrated and coordinated approach to delivering children's programs. In theory this is an approach our communities would support; however, we need to participate and work with the federal government to ensure concrete steps are taken to move forward on such a strategy.

    Talk and more talk, discussions, and negotiations should not be allowed to replace action. The need is so great that the action has to come soon.

    We have some recommendations and conclusions. The federal government and the first ministers are to be applauded for their commitment to supporting early childhood development initiatives for aboriginal children. Nowhere is the need greater than in the aboriginal community, although all children at risk in Canada need to be supported. As stated, gaps in current services do exist and should be addressed with additional investments.

    On behalf of the Aboriginal Child Care Society, I would like to recommend the following:

    -- Expand the pool of resources available to early childhood education, child care, and head start in aboriginal communities.

    -- Devote as much energy and resources to child care and early childhood development as to head start, since these two serve the needs of very young infants in a way that head start cannot alone.

    -- Guarantee access to child care at a level equal to what is available in a non-aboriginal community.

    -- Expand efforts directed at teen moms both before and after the birth of their children so they are well-nourished during pregnancy, so their babies are of a healthy birth weight, and so they can continue in school even after their child is born.

    -- Set aside a portion of early childhood development dollars for aboriginal communities and non-profit aboriginal child care organizations to undertake capacity building, research, and evaluation.

    If I may, Mr. Chair, I have a question for the subcommittee.

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    The Chair: Go ahead, please, with the question.

    Mr. Robert Lagasse: How can you as members ensure our message for more support for aboriginal children and families is heard in Ottawa? To date we don't have information about how the new investments announced in December are to be allocated and when. How can you help us?

    We have a document here to table, a 1997 needs assessment.

    I thank you for your time. We are available to answer any questions you may have.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much. I'm assuming that you, Ms. Isaac, are available for questions but don't have anything initially that you want to add to the opening presentation. Is that correct?

    Ms. Karen Isaac: That's correct.

    The Chair: Let me just say, first of all, thank you. We look forward to receiving the tabled document, which we will make sure is available in both languages before we distribute it to the committee.

    Secondly, I won't give you a complete answer to your question, but let me say this about the subcommittee. We are volunteers in the sense that this is over and above our regular duties. So the people who are around this table.... And I want to acknowledge the fact that we've been joined by Alan Tonks, who is a member of Parliament from Toronto, and I think I told you Madame Guay from the Bloc had arrived as well. We share, despite our party differences, a common dedication to the well-being of all children, and I think we see ourselves as a ginger group to put pressure on the government--this pressure comes both from within, that is to say, the Liberal members, and from without--to make sure the investments we promise in things like budgets and speeches from the throne get made in an appropriate way.

    So the report we will eventually draft will very much take into account the kind of testimony you've just given us. That's what we're here for. We are here to make sure we can move the agenda forward from study to action, as you recommend, and we have some thoughts we might want to test on you a little later in the meeting. But I would like to get to the other two witnesses first.

    I want to say one final thing before doing that, which is that I was talking this morning to a mutual friend in Toronto, Dr. Fraser Mustard, who sends you all greetings, because I think we actually got your names, quite often, from Fraser. So the mighty circle continues here.

    All right, let's move on to Heather Payne, who has co-authored a document that is available to members called Entrenched Incapacity: Federal/Provincial Program and Funding Policy for Aboriginal Families, Children and Youth, which was written by Ms. Payne and Judith Johnnie Gohn, who I gather regrets she can't be here. Ms. Payne is going to be presenting for both authors, if I can put it that way, from the Inter-Tribal Health Authority.

    Thank you for making the trip to Burnaby, Ms. Payne, and welcome. We look forward to hearing from you.

    Ms. Heather Payne: Thank you.

    I'd like to begin by saying this paper speaks primarily to the smaller first nations on Vancouver Island. On Vancouver Island there is, for the most part, a fairly large number of small and relatively independent first nations. Although these nations may have tribal affiliations, they don't receive programs and services through those affiliations. So they still tend to go after things like health services on an individual basis.

    The Inter-Tribal Health Authority represents 28 small nations on Vancouver Island, all the way from the Victoria airport to about 150 miles northwest of Port Hardy by air. So there's a broad range of very small communities, for the most part.

    The first part of the paper really speaks to infant mortality in these areas of Vancouver Island, primarily on central Vancouver Island and in the upper island coastal region. A study has been done that will be published very soon in the Canadian Journal of Public Health by Dr. Fred Rockwell, who is the regional medical health officer for the central Vancouver Island zone. His findings are in the first graph you have in front of you, showing the different areas on Vancouver Island and comparing infant mortality among status Indian people to the rest of the population or the other part of the population. Compared to the status people in all of B.C., the infant mortality rates are considerably higher on Vancouver Island. They're about three times as high, if you look at infant mortality overall.

    The second graph shows cause of death, and you'll see pretty quickly that sudden infant death syndrome is the major cause of infant mortality in first nations communities in these areas.

    Unfortunately, the third graph is a repeat of the second, and I will e-mail the proper graph to you shortly. But the correct third graph shows deaths from sudden infant death syndrome by area on Vancouver Island. Sudden infant death syndrome is seven to ten times higher in the central Vancouver Island and upper island central coast areas than in the rest of the population, and twice that for status Indians in all of British Columbia. So not only do we have the risk that first nations people have everywhere in British Columbia, but the risk is significantly higher in these two particular areas. If rates of infant mortality had been the same as for status Indians in all of British Columbia, there would have been 42 fewer deaths in the eight-year period.

    We have heard so much about glue sniffing, and all of the attention that's been paid to that on the east coast. Certainly that is a tragedy, but we are wondering why these potentially preventable 42 deaths don't seem to have received any attention at all. We think it is a crisis of equal proportion.

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    We're not able to show any kind of a causal link at this point between the smaller independent nations and poorer health status, but we certainly see a number of the factors that contribute to infant mortality and poor health status. We see those in independent communities. These are things such as very high unemployment rates, very high poverty rates, a real lack of a social support network, poor housing, low education levels, and really not very good access to appropriate health services.

    With regard specifically to the Aboriginal Head Start program, which is certainly a program that has been welcomed here, only one of eight of these 28 nations we serve received funding from this program. Part of the problem is that they don't have anybody to write the paper, which tends to be relatively complex, although there's the tendency to put it into a template now. They don't have the population to sustain the minimum capacity that's required to provide quality programming. So it's not like we're asking for a Cadillac instead of a Volkswagen; it's like we're asking for a car with an engine versus just the chassis. Because you can't make the program run with no capacity.

    And it's very well to say let's just get together in groups to provide these programs. That isn't feasible in these nations. It isn't even really very feasible to those who are very close to Victoria. There's a high degree of social isolation and a sense, in the smaller communities in the south, that the reserve border is a boundary that is very difficult to cross.

    The one nation that did receive funding from a program among our nations received a very small amount. They were able, with that, to hire an ECE coordinator. They had their evaluation this year and they passed their evaluation. And then their funding was cut by 36% by the regional Aboriginal Head Start committee, because they're attempting to provide funding to more programs.

    The 36% cut would have dealt a death blow to this program. It would mean that the one qualified ECE worker who they have they would no longer be able to keep. We managed to fight for an additional bit of money, although they didn't come anywhere near.... I think they added $10,000 to the pot. And this means that the ECE worker they do have now works only four out of five days and has to take the summer off. First of all, they're at risk of losing her. Secondly, because of the high paper-filling-out demand of the program in the name of so-called accountability, it means that she has to spend a huge amount of time filling out these forms and not very much time doing the programming. So you can see that it puts these smaller communities in a very difficult situation. And they happen to be one of the lucky ones to have received some funding.

    Mr. Lagasse has already spoken to the difference this kind of funding makes. And I'd like to say that Fraser Mustard suggests that about $7,000 per child between the ages of zero and six is required to provide quality programming for children. Although that seems like a lot of money, it really isn't very much. It's really about $36,000 per child. The savings that would happen would mean that communities could then either purchase their services from off reserve, or if they have enough of a capacity they could actually deliver the service on reserve.

    At this point it's just like flushing the money down the toilet, because they're scrambling to provide a program that has huge demands, yet they haven't the money to build the infrastructure to actually provide the program. And they don't have the settings in which to provide the program. I think you would agree, Karen, that quality settings are very important for these kinds of programs.

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    I speak a little bit to the concept of preventive dose, which was developed by Dr. Brian O'Connor. He says that to deliver the preventive dose, one must do the right thing in the right amount--in other words, the intensity and sustained nature of the interventions--reaching the right number of people.

    That is what I see as the primary problem for the Aboriginal Head Start program. It is a canned program that came out of Ottawa. It may do very well at serving fairly large populations in day care settings, but it is very difficult, almost impossible, really, to have any flexibility within that program for the smaller communities. They simply can't make it fit. It's like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. So that in itself is a struggle.

    I briefly talk about problems with children with disabilities on reserve. The first example is of a child with Rhett syndrome living in a small community on Vancouver Island. This is a fairly serious degenerative chronic disease. This family moved from on reserve to off reserve to get services in the nearby town. They received money from the at-home program, which is a B.C. program for children with disabilities, and they also received other resources from the Ministry of Health Services. However, they felt socially isolated off reserve, so the father chose to leave the family and move back to the reserve. The mother wanted to stay to get the services. Eventually, she rejoined her husband on reserve with the children.

    All of their services were cut off, including the at-home program. Here again there was no flexibility in hardly any of the funding to provide for little things such as the special food she needed to help increase her weight. She was at a very low weight. Feeding was an extremely difficult problem.

    In this day and age the family was told that if she wanted to receive the services, they would have to voluntarily make her a ward of the court, which I think is completely unacceptable. It's hard to believe that still happens. That happened within the last two years.

    With regard to funding for education, which I'm sure someone else will speak to, there are decreasing, not increasing, resources. In the small communities hardly anybody is getting to grade 12. There are more students, higher tuition, and a hold on the funding. It's an impossible situation.

    There's a sense in the small communities we work in that there is a certain subset of first nation youth that has a growing sense of hopelessness. It may be due to the growing gap between the rich and the poor. It's not just a comparison of the rich off reserve with the poor on reserve, it's also within the reserve setting itself. A few people in these very small communities do have access to funding, but a much larger number, maybe 75% to 85%, are very poor. That gap is growing, and perhaps this is leading to that sense of hopelessness.

    Judith Johnnie Gohn did a chronology of a first nation child. Have you people had a chance to read this?

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    The Chair: We have a copy of it. We are pretty fast readers. Is this is a true story or a composite?

    Ms. Heather Payne: It's a composite. Do you want me to briefly run over it?

    The Chair: Why don't you just give us the highlights and cover just a couple of the salient points.

    Ms. Heather Payne: Well, really the salient point is the poverty trap. It speaks to a young couple--very young, 16 and 18--who have a child, how much they love the child, how much they want the child, and how much the family supports the child. They're all living in one house--thirteen people in a two-bedroom house that was built in the 1960s when Indian Affairs built that raft of houses. The house is clean. This young couple very much loves this baby. Everybody in the family is on social assistance. There are just no extra resources. The mother knits in order to get extra money. That's knitting big sweaters. She has rheumatoid arthritis, so this is a real stress for her.

    The parents left school early. One of the reasons the young people leave school, it appears, is that they tend to lose interest after a while. The thought is that they're behind when they enter school. Even if they get into early childhood education at three, they can be as much as a year behind, specifically around language.

    This isn't a question of a lack of love or attention. These babies are loved and treasured and seen as the hope for the future. It's a combination of this overcrowded housing, not well grandparents, very young parents, and the amount going on in that home in the first year of life, so that really those children don't get the opportunity to have the stimulation they perhaps require. Also, because of residential school, parenting skills have been lost and people are without any help, without any support. You have a community where there are not enough resources--a nurse going in one day a week, no infant development worker, the lactation consultant has been cut off, the baby ends up not being breast-fed because there was no one there to support the mother, and the cycle repeats itself.

    The point of the story is that this baby goes into school late, starts school around grade seven, and ends up in the same trap as the parents.

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    The Chair: Thank you. Perhaps you could just cut to the recommendations.

    Ms. Heather Payne: We recommend $7,000 for every aboriginal child in B.C. between the ages of zero and six. Provide the full range of service and make it a flexible program, not a canned program, so that communities can choose the way they want to get those services. The proof will be.... You can get it pretty quickly, because you're going to have kids entering school and you can probably easily do the testing as to the difference between their lag before and after these programs.

    Ensure universal access to services regardless of location of residence. Increase welfare rates for families. I think Robert spoke to the high number of families on welfare. Increase access to post-secondary funding so people can have increased first nations role models instead of old white people like me. Formulate targeted funding allocations to small nations that identify a minimum base capacity rather than a population base. I think first nations are now developing organizations that can support these smaller nations, so those should be developed in a more geographically sensitive and politically sensitive way. Ensure maximum flexibility for the development of new models of service deliveries for small first nations.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much. I must say, anticipating what my fellow committee members may say to you directly, that I think these have been remarkably helpful reports so far. I think your recommendations are going to be extremely useful to us. We thank you for the focus you've given to them. It's very helpful indeed.

    Welcome, Chief Ed John from the Tlazten Nation. I've probably mispronounced that, so you'd better help me out. We look forward to hearing from you.

    Grand Chief Ed John: Thank you very much again for the opportunity to make a presentation here. I realize the committee is a subcommittee to a larger committee, and the influence on government may be minimal, but it may help, I'm not sure. We're all just sitting here, and I imagine other people across this country who are making presentations are hoping their words, their presentations, views, and recommendations are not in vain.

    I take it in that spirit, and I do thank you for the opportunity and for your time, and for making--as you stated at the beginning of your presentation--a focus on aboriginal children, whether on or off reserve, from age zero to six and six to 12. I think it's an important initiative for aboriginal peoples in this country. I'm talking about all aboriginal peoples--Inuit, Métis, and first nations peoples.

    There are a number of small communities tied into my nation, the Tlazten Nation, which is made up of three villages in the north-central part of this province. It's not a very large population, probably about 1,400 to 1,500 people in total--half on reserve and about half off reserve. There's a lot of transition back and forth, depending on jobs, employment, education, and generally, the lack of opportunities. The communities I come from are fairly isolated. The nearest community to my village is about 40 miles--I'm talking about a non-aboriginal community.

    I've had an opportunity to talk with the clerk and others, in working with your committee, and I understand you have a very good understanding of the significant issues around early childhood development and around first nations and aboriginal communities across the country--the social and economic indicators. I don't need to repeat any of that. I think you're well aware of it.

    Given that situation, given the throne speech last year, the initiatives and commitments by government, and their reflection in the recent budget--this is all important. The question is how this translates into action in the communities, how it makes a difference to each and every child in our communities.

    I've been involved in first nations provincial politics in this province for a considerable amount of time, and I've had an opportunity to see the development politically in this province, and certainly across this country as well. And more recently, in my role as a minister for our children and families, I've had an opportunity to take a look at what governments are doing to work with communities, in particular, aboriginal communities across the province.

    There is no question that aboriginal communities are at higher risk than the general population. We don't want to isolate aboriginal people in any special way, but we want to provide that extra focus and support to help aboriginal communities help themselves to address these issues. That's where I want to come from.

    I recall a story from my grandmother when I was young, and I understood from the story she told me that they really understood the idea of early childhood development in our traditional ways, as Robert mentioned earlier, and the importance and the place of children in our communities.

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    This is my own personal story. This is about my grandmother. She used to tell me that we have to pay attention to the young ones and the elders and those in our community who need our help. We have a responsibility to them,in particular the young children and the old people. If you see an old person in the community who needs wood or water, you don't even ask if they need it, you just go and get it for them and help them. That's the kind of spirit that many of the people in our communities grew up in.

    Over the years we've had about three or four generations of our community in residential schools. The role models you end up having in these residential schools are not really your parents or your grandparents. You have three or four generations and, in this province with 16 Indian residential schools, up to five and six generations of people who have been impacted. Now we are living with a legacy of those institutions--be it good or bad. The impacts have tremendous import into our communities and how we struggle with these and try to address these in each of our communities.

    I'm well aware in the area of early child development of the concept and the work that has taken place. The research and the science certainly support a strong emphasis on early child development. The question is that the programs put into place by governments, designed largely by people who don't have affiliations to the smaller communities, as Heather was talking about, developed in isolation, and meant to provide some degree of accountability for resources put out there don't reflect the reality in the communities. The resources are certainly needed. But when these resources end up in the communities, first of all, you have this huge application form to submit. Secondly, the criteria and the reports that you have to submit to continue the funding are a bit onerous, especially in smaller communities, where you don't necessarily have all the people to be able to do all the work.

    The bottom line is this. If we are going to make a difference in each and every child in this country--and what we're talking about here is each aboriginal child in this country--so that they have a fighting chance in their future, what is it that we need to do?

    Part of what we're trying to do in British Columbia has been to do one thing. This is more recent. Early childhood development and the programs through Indian Affairs or Health Canada or through HRDC are delivered, as you talked about at the beginning, in stovepipe fashion. The resources come into our communities in that same fashion and the programs are delivered in our communities in isolation of each other. We replicate what Ottawa puts out there. So there's really a need for coordination of activities and coordination of efforts and being strategic about the resources that are put into place right across this country, and certainly in this province.

    Toward that end, there are efforts underway in British Columbia to bring those three major federal government departments--Health Canada, the Department of Indian Affairs, and HRDC--together at the same table in the same room as the society represented here that deals with 58 communities, the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society, an organization in this province that deals with children in care, urban and on reserve, the Chiefs' Health Committee, and the First Nations Education Steering Committee. This effort will bring together our side of the equation, the government department, and there are plans to bring in the province as well, because they have significant resources that they've put into this effort. However, I'm not sure that it wil be too significant, given the cuts in Victoria of late.

    We will be bringing everybody onto the same page so that we are thinking together on this. Given the resources that are being put into place, we have the strategic investments being made in all of the communities right across the province, so that small communities don't get left out and big communities don't suffer because they have larger populations.

º  (1620)  

    The Chair: May I interrupt you at this point, Chief John?

    First of all, I was picking up very much on your last point about the coordinated efforts of the three federal government departments in British Columbia to meet with 58 first nations. We would love for you to send us any documentation you have on that, minutes or anything else, because that would be extremely useful. As you can gather from what we were saying, this is the direction in which we wish to move.

    The other thing is, I wonder if we could move now, if you wouldn't mind, to questions. That way we can have a bit of a dialogue here and also test out some of the ideas, I think, towards our end, which is to move from commitment to action. I think we do want to get on with that.

    By the way, I should have reminded people here of your other life as a British Columbia minister in a previous regime. All I can say is that your reputation precedes you--and it's good.

    Grand Chief Ed John: Thank you.

    If you can give me one more minute, I have just three or four recommendations that kind of fit into the scheme of things here.

    The Chair: Perfect.

    Grand Chief Ed John: Given my experience in first nations communities, and particularly over the course of my lifetime, we've tried every kind of experiment to improve the socio-economic status in our communities. To some degree we've had success, but the biggest thing, I think, is the ability to work together, the ability to plan and look ahead.

    I think any initiative that's federal, or even provincial, needs to recognize that there has to be support for a community-based approach. It can't be something that some bureaucrat sitting in isolation in some tower in Ottawa, Victoria, or Vancouver designs as being the best thing for Indian people. The problems are in the communities and the solutions are in the communities as well, with the assistance and support of government.

    Second, the commitment should be long-term.

    Third, the approach of government should be proactive rather than prescriptive. It should recognize the results. That's a little more difficult and problematic to address. There should be a degree of flexibility in the programs, recognizing that not every program can be delivered in precisely the same way in each and every one of our communities. We have tremendous diversity of first nations and aboriginal peoples across this country, and certainly that's true in British Columbia as well.

    Those are the broad comments I would like to make. As I said, what we are undertaking in British Columbia is a work in progress. It's just under way now. It's really designed to bring our people and government onto the same page on this issue. And it's not just on reserve; it's off reserve as well, and zero to six to begin.

º  (1625)  

    The Chair: Thank you so much. I think this has been a third extremely useful presentation.

    I'm going to move swiftly to the members. I suspect our time together is constricted by the contract we signed with the providers of this service, so I think we have about a half-hour to go. I'm going to ask that people start with a five-minute round of questions and answers, and then we'll see what time is remaining.

    I'm going to start with Larry Spencer, a member of the Canadian Alliance Party who comes, as he said, from Saskatchewan.

    Larry, welcome.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you very much for your presentations.

    To the B.C. Aboriginal Child Care Society, who presented first, you mentioned in your recommendations, on the back of the presentation we were provided, that you want to “expand the pool of resources available to early childhood education”. I wonder if you could just describe for us briefly the components of what you have as a “pool of resources”, and what you see it being.

    Mr. Robert Lagassé: The pool we are recommending for early childhood education includes child care and head start in aboriginal communities. Right now, those fall under two different departments in terms of funding. The head start component is funded through Health Canada. Perhaps Heather can speak to that one, since that's the program she's involved with. I don't know if this document was tabled with you or provided to you in terms of background on what kinds of resources we've offered as a child care society, but those child care resources do not include any financial support to communities any more. Those resources were transferred over to the RDAs under HRDC.

    So our child care society provides conference supports, advisory supports, a lending library, and other research supports to centres across the province.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Thank you. That helps a good deal, I believe.

    Ms. Karen Isaac: Can I add a comment to that?

     Mr. Larry Spencer: Certainly.

    Ms. Karen Isaac: It's just anecdotal information.

    I think what we're trying to say in our brief is that parents and communities and children need a wide range of services. I think the government has focused on putting a lot of effort and resources into the head start basket, and that's good. But we think that parents and children need a range of services, be it infant and toddler care--that's a very strong need in our communities--mom and tot programs, after-school programs. There is a whole range of programs that are needed. I think what we've done with federal funding right now is captured a three-to-five age group, and I think we need to look before that age and after that age as well. I think that's what we're trying to address.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Thank you.

    I think what you've just stated there sort of lends its support to what I was wanting to get at with Grand Chief Ed John here, the little illustration of teaching the community to identify a need--when you see the need for wood or water, just go and do it, and help it happen, or make it happen. I guess I want to pursue that a little bit.

    How successful do you think you are, or how are you passing that down to your younger children or your younger parents? How successful are you at involving your own communities in this problem?

º  (1630)  

    Grand Chief Ed John: It's a bit of a mixed success in all of this. My own children...I have one who has two sons. She's very good with her kids. She is a teacher, and she's taken time off work to care for her two children. So there's a range that happens in all of this.

    I think a large part of the difficulty that I see is the issue that Heather raised, the issue of employment access, the issue of poverty, the issue of dependence on social assistance. That's the problem we're grappling with and dealing with.

    Recently, in talking with the director of our health committee in my village, in my community, he said that last year alone we had about 42 new births, and of the 42 new births they had some indication from the health workers in our community that at least half of those were to some degree FAS/FAE. Those concern us in a very big way, because FAS/FAE, fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effect, are entirely preventable, yet they still happen to a degree. That's why I'm saying there's mixed success in all of this.

    I think that working and supporting communities in their efforts to address it is a good way to begin with this. We do know the teachings that we have and we try to incorporate those into what we have; nonetheless, we still end up in these kinds of situations.

    We're not magicians. We don't know the solutions or the answers. But as we sit down and work through these things and talk about them, we find solutions that work with this family, find solutions that work with another family. No one solution works for everybody.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    If I may move along, Larry....

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I just have one little question.

    The Chair: Okay, one little question.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I have one little question to add on that. If I understand what you're saying, then there really need to be also some resources and help directed at the adults involved so that they can involve themselves in assisting their children, etc.

    Grand Chief Ed John: Yes. You can't focus simply on the children on their own. I think the resources available for children, whether it's immunizations early on or some other programs.... But you need to also tackle the issue of the mother or the dad, or the mother and the dad, as the case may be.

    There are some successful programs that I'm aware of, certainly in this province, and they may be available in other provinces, where the parents are involved. A good example is one near here, at the Britannia school, called HIPPY. That's the acronym of the program, HIPPY, and it's not about what you normally would think it is. It's a program that's designed to work with kids and work with moms or dads or both, not in an institutional setting but at home, for that parent or those parents to work with their child prior to being admitted to school. From what I understand, it's had some degree of success, and it's got a very good reputation. It increases the ability of that child to be successful when that child enters the school environment.

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Chief John.

[Translation]

    Now it is Ms Monique Guay's turn.

    Ms. Monique Guay (Laurentides, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    First, I would like to tell you to how glad we are to have you with us today. Technology being what it is, it is quite extraordinary to be able to communicate far more economically than in the past.

    I'll come straight to the point. Earlier, you said that we, as a sub-committee, obviously have a report to make to the government. You also said that you weren't sure what more you could give us. I sincerely hope that the report we will write here - and I hope that we will be able to write a joint, unanimous one - will be used in the very near future because there is a crying need. It is not just crying where you live; it is crying everywhere.

    However, I do have some questions. Obviously, I am from Québec, and you are familiar with our day-care programs which greatly help women and families to escape from poverty. I know that in British Columbia, there was a planned program of day-care centres. Do you benefit from those programs?

º  (1635)  

[English]

    Ms. Karen Isaac: Madame Guay, I'm from Quebec as well.

    Ms. Monique Guay: Ah, good.

    Ms. Karen Isaac: In British Columbia, there has been some access to provincial child care and day care funding. It hasn't been significant. Since 1995 only, our communities have been able to access provincial grants for subsidy for seats, for wage enhancement, and for capital equipment, emergency equipment, and supplies. That's been happening for five years. Prior to that, there was very little access, very little provincial involvement.

    In terms of this current government, they've indicated to us that the current commitments that are made to first nations on reserve for child care will be maintained. I can't give you a figure on what that is. I would say probably less than 1% of what they would spend for other children is being accessed by our communities.

    I think there are some significant changes that are going to be made to provincial child care and how it's funded in British Columbia. As I said, we've been told that those commitments will be maintained but that there will be no new commitments. I think that in the next couple of years we'll probably see less investment provincially in on-reserve facilities and programs.

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: You also spoke about the weight of the bureaucracy, the documents, the forms to be filled in, the applications. Moreover, we now have the Guaranteed Income Supplement for the elderly. People have a great deal of difficulty filling in those documents. In addition, many have not applied because they did not have access to them or did not know how to go about it. Therefore, there is certainly work to be done at the level of the bureaucracy, and that will be part of our recommendations in the report, I'm sure of that. In any case, we will try to find a way.

    But, at the same time, there must be criteria. When a program is set up, you must be able to meet certain criteria, otherwise, we would be throwing money out the window, again, and that, that is worrisome.

    Is there no way, when a program is implemented, for the government to also provide, at the same time, people to help us? Perhaps I'm dreaming, but I think it may be possible to provide us with people with the required skills to help us fill in these requests or to apply them in the field.

    Clearly, you will always be better served on the reserves by your own people, because they know your culture, your abilities, your needs. On that point, there is no going back. It is very clear that it must be applied by people on the reserves but, at the same time, could we not try to find a parallel between the two to help you to avoid spending hours, days and weeks on requests that are, frankly, too complicated for people to complete.

[English]

    Ms. Heather Payne: Can I speak to that?

    The problem isn't just with filling out the forms. Health Canada for sure is devolving responsibility to the first nations communities and there really aren't many people left to help out, but probably they're not the best people to help out anyway. I think there are first nations organizations, like the Chiefs' Health Committee and the Inter-Tribal Health Authority, that can provide support to those communities. They are run by first nations people.

    One of the suggestions for early childhood programs might be a hub-and-spoke model, where larger first nations communities are able to provide a solid programming base and the spokes of that wheel would go out to the smaller nations. That way you have the expertise but you're also reaching out and building capacity within the community. So that might be one way.

º  (1640)  

[Translation]

    Ms. Monique Guay: I have a small comment, Mr. Chair. I simply want to say that, in my opinion, you can't put a price on raising healthy children. So, it is not a question of money. It is often a question of finding the right way, the right ways, because there is not one way but probably many ways, according to needs of each individual. So, you can count on our support to try to promote your cause as best we can here, in committee.

[English]

    The Chair: Thank you, Madame Guay.

    Before proceeding to my next questioners, I just want to tell the folks in Vancouver that you can't see what we can, which is that, appropriately enough for a committee that is focused on children and youth, we have just been joined by a school group from the Mabin School in Toronto.

    We welcome you. What you're seeing at the back of the room there is a video conference with witnesses who have come together from different parts of British Columbia to talk to us about the challenges of doing the right thing for aboriginal kids on reserves, particularly the aboriginal kids from zero to six. Rather than bringing people all the way from British Columbia to spend an hour and a half with us, we are using modern technology, including the translation. I hope you will find the appropriate channels if we get back to French class, if I may put it that way. I think it's entirely appropriate that this committee should be having kids present. It seems like an obvious thing, doesn't it?

    With that, I turn to my colleague, Mr. Tonks.

    Mr. Alan Tonks (York South--Weston, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    Thank you for your deputations.

    The question we have been asked, or the charge you have given us to fulfill, is how can we ensure that the message for additional resources is heard here in Ottawa? In order to answer that, if either you or your staff could provide me with a number, it would be very helpful, in terms of knowing the challenge here.

    My observation is that we have the Aboriginal Head Start initiative and the prenatal nutrition program. We've heard about the community action program for children and the first nations child care program. Your deputation made reference to the primary education program of DIAND, and a number of other programs.

    It's been mentioned that in our December budget we had $185 million to be directed over two years to aboriginal children, mostly on reserves, with $100 million of that for child care, and $60 million for children at school with special needs.

    Underscoring that magnitude of support is the fact that in your deputation you said that in spite of all of that's happening and additional resources that will be put into it, we have reached only 10% of those aboriginal children who are at risk. I find that absolutely shocking.

    My question is, how much have we spent to get to 10%? If you can give the committee an idea of that, it will give us a sense of the proportion of the issue, so we can carry the message here, in Ottawa.

º  (1645)  

    Grand Chief Ed John: Can I just take a quick stab at that? I think Karen and Robert will be able to address the specific program you're referring to, but there is a whole range of programs and services there.

    I would ask whether that is the appropriate range of services and programs to begin with. I don't know the answer to that question, and that's one of the challenges we have in British Columbia, as we move in our meetings with government to determine the appropriate services required in the communities. It may be that a whole range of different programs and services is required, to be used as needed on a community-by-community basis.

    If a community has no need for FAE or FAS services, obviously they're not going to be able to access those programs. I would dare to think that given all of those programs, all children are being reached, in one form or another.

    Some programs, such as the one Robert and Karen are talking about, are only in certain communities, given the limited resources that are allocated or proponent-driven. Given the nature of the resources, limited amounts are given to each of the 58 first nations. There are 200 first nations communities in British Columbia--just so you are aware of that.

    Ms. Karen Isaac: Yes. I wanted to answer that question.

    I can only speak to the child care funding and the program that we administer, but I do want to say, as I think was pointed out in Heather's presentation, that there are gaps and we are missing communities. I think we're missing a substantial number of communities in British Columbia, and I think part of the problem is that the government hasn't identified where the gaps exist.

    I think that's one of the messages we want to give to the committee. There are programs, there are investments. They are working in most cases. But we are missing some people. I think that's been the thrust of what we're trying to say.

    In terms of the first nations and Inuit child care initiative, when we got the initiative in 1995 we were using 1991 stats to determine the zero to six population because that was what the government said we had to do.

    Secondly, the government had a quota on how much B.C. would be allocated to do child care. So we had a minimum amount, and that worked out to be about $4 million annually. So we have 197 communities in B.C. How do we create sustainable, quality child care programs with $4 million?

    We were very successful. We were able to cover 58 communities. And they are licensed services. They are offering full day care programs to children. They have a strong cultural component.

    So in terms of the need, we haven't been able to create. And whether or not we have to create a child care centre in every community is not the issue. I think we were able, with limited funding, to create 800 child care seats that weren't there in 1995. I think that's a very successful initiative.

    If we have the money we can deliver the kinds of programs that are needed.

    The Chair: I'm going to have to intervene at this point, because we are contracted to end in exactly ten minutes. The mighty link goes down. We won't be able to see the rest of the game.

    I'm going to move to my colleague from Winnipeg, Anita Neville.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

    I don't have the time, but I'd like to pick up on the comment earlier of the chair here in his request to Chief John about information as it relates to the consultations going on among the three departments of government. I'm interested in knowing where you are in these consultations, how they're proceeding, and how the provincial government factors into the consultations. I'm aware--in Manitoba at least, and I assume that it's the case for you as well--that decisions made by one department often impact on the services delivered or not delivered by other departments and/or by the provincial government. And it's compounded by the fact that many communities, or many families and children, move back and forth from reserve into an urban setting and there's a lack of congruency in the programing.

    So I'm wondering if you could speak a little bit to the consultations that are taking place and what your advice would be to us in making recommendations on consultations between departments of government and levels of governments.

    I've been long-winded, I'm sorry.

º  (1650)  

    Grand Chief Ed John: No, it's a very good question.

    There are no per se consultations as such at this point. What we are embarking on is a process at this stage, and we've had two small meetings of senior officials within the Department of Indian Affairs, the medical services branch, which is part of Health Canada, HRDC, and senior officials from the first nations side, including the First Nations Education Steering Committee, the Chiefs' Committee on Health, and the Caring for First Nations Children Society.

    There have been preliminary discussions on putting ourselves, as I said, on the same page on early child development. What programs and services do we have in British Columbia currently? What is the magnitude of the resources that are there? We are asking ourselves these questions. Are those programs and services working, and how effective are they? We expect to be receiving reports from groups like Robert's and Karen's organization to give us a sense of what is working there and to move into a direction in British Columbia that has a strong focus in each and every community on early child development as one part of a strategy to address the long-term socio-economic situation in first nations communities. At least that is the thinking.

    At this point, we haven't brought the province into the discussion mostly because we're getting our own act together. This is part of a long-term commitment and a long-term strategy we're looking at in British Columbia, which would place a strong emphasis on early child development. The bottom line is simply that we think if we put the investment into our communities and into our children early on, in the long term it's going to make a difference. It may not make a difference this year or next year or five years down the road, but in one or two or three generations, the impact's going to be seen. If we put our minds together, think together, and have a common strategy that we can promote and push forward, certainly that's the thinking we have.

    Ms. Anita Neville: Thank you.

    The Chair: In the brief time we have remaining to us, let me exercise my chairman's prerogative, or abuse, depending on your point of view, and test an idea on you.

    We haven't written our report, and I guess we're at the stage of examining hypotheses. I think if we were to have a big dream on this committee of how to move from commitment to action, our dream would be that the way in which the Government of Canada, along with other partners, with aboriginal partners and with the provinces, deals with early childhood development on reserves, zero to six initially, would be the model for the rest of the country. That is a huge dream, obviously.

    We do have examples of parts of the country that do better than others. Madame Guay's province of Quebec, for example, is further along. Indeed, for a while British Columbia was looking quite encouraging. Things have changed. I won't comment further.

    The question is, what would that look like and how do we get there? The problem is that if you just put money into general funds that get spread out equally over all communities, you can't achieve the critical mass or the right dosage or whatever the term you used was. It's also going to be a large figure of dollars, no doubt about it.

    So what I'm thinking about, and maybe the committee will come along with this and we'll just see where we are after we've talked to more people like you, is that in order to get the process going what we might want to do is begin--I hate to use the words “pilot project”, but if that's the way it's going to work, let's call them pilot projects--an extra fund that would allow certain communities to produce an integrated set of early childhood development services focused in one child and family centre, we'll call it, which might be based on health care centres but might not. I think it would very much depend on where it was. It would provide the appropriate mix of services for the specific community, but in a way that allows us to feel comfortable about measuring the results over time so that there would be a bit of a demonstration effect.

    So while we wouldn't get the gold standard, as it were, right across the system initially, we could get some communities that have the capacity, the desire, and the will to come along with us. I certainly hear from you that we could find such communities in British Columbia, I think. We'd want a variety of communities that would test the challenges of different situations, whether it's an isolated community or in the centre of Vancouver Island.

    Now I just want to throw that out to you and say, would we be crazy to establish such a fund as long as it was culturally appropriate, community-specific, and not have dictated to it from Ottawa what the balance had to be? We know what the integrated system has to look like because we've all read Fraser Mustard, right? Take a shot at it and tell me what you think.

º  (1655)  

    Grand Chief Ed John: Can I take a quick stab at it? If you're going to do something like that and are thinking about it, you can't do it at the expense of those who are not part of a pilot project per se. A pilot project, if it's to proceed, should be on the basis of going over and above and beyond the basic services that each community would have access to.

    In effect, Karen and Robert have been piloting in British Columbia for a number of years, and their recommendation is that we don't need more pilots; we just need to be able to move the resources out to the communities in a different way. I'm not sure what you would want to pilot. Is it going to be FAS/FAE? Is it going to be Aboriginal Head Start?

    The Chair: Perhaps I could explain.

    What I would see us piloting is the total package, right from conception, where you want to make sure that moms are doing the right thing, through to six. So the blend of services would be universal. I see this as not being targeted in the sense of people just volunteering to walk in. I'd want to target all expectant moms just the way a public health nurse might.

    What I'm trying to get at is something that isn't focusing on one service. But what would be the blend of services that would change the fate of those kids so that we don't have half of the 58--or whatever the number was that you gave me, Chief John--suffering from FAS/FAE? Looking at the total package needed, it would have to be over and above what we're currently doing. We have to have some visible successes so we can then get the thing going, if you follow me.

    Mr. Robert Lagassé: Yes. I'm really excited about what I'm hearing from the committee. You've listened to what we have to say. You asked for some solutions, some ideas, and I like that.

    Between 1995 and 2000, $15 million was provided for the child care society. We broke that down into $6.1 million for construction, $7.2 million for operations, $1.7 million for program development and support. That's how we got our 58 licensed centres, the 800 child care spaces that we speak to, and we created 100 jobs for aboriginal people in the province of British Columbia.

    Those centres could be vehicles for what you speak of in terms of the holistic services needed. It's a captive audience for our community health nurses to go to and for parents and support groups. Of the mix of services you talked about, many of them can be provided within that centre or by that centre.

    It's a simple math job here. We have provided new facilities for child care centres for 58 first nations and their communities. Multiply that by four if we have a centre in each community in this province of British Columbia of about 200 first nations communities, on reserve only. We'd be talking about a $50 million program for construction, operations, and program development and support. It would require some extra funding for this integrated approach that you speak to.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Because we're parsimonious here in Ottawa, I suspect the contract is about to expire. They're going to pull the plug and that's going to be it.

    Let me say this on behalf of the committee. First of all, thank you very much for helping us out. Secondly, I think this technology actually works. We get quite comfortable with it pretty quickly. I hope you agree. Thirdly, let's stay in touch, because as we start to refine our hypothesis or hypotheses, we may want to test it on you. We want to be able to have you say “that's nonsense” or “more of that and less of that”. We want to be able to make sure that whatever we're thinking up here in Ottawa actually works in the various parts of the country that we test the idea on.

    On behalf of the committee, thank you for a very stimulating afternoon. We've enjoyed it. I view us now not simply as witnesses and parliamentarians, but as unindicted co-conspirators for future great things. Thank you very much.

    Ms. Karen Isaac: Thank you.

    Mr. Robert Lagassé: Thank you.

»  (1700)  

    Grand Chief Ed John: Thank you very much, and good afternoon to the young students as well.

    The Chair: Yes, thanks, kids. Bye now.

    The meeting is adjourned.