SCYR Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

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

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

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1520

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.))

Hon. Ralph Goodale (Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians)

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1525

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1530

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1535

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1540

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew (Secretary of State (Children and Youth))

Mr. Ralph Goodale

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

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

Mr. Ralph Goodale

Mr. Larry Spencer

Mr. Ralph Goodale

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1545

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.)

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1550

Mr. Ralph Goodale

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1555

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. Ralph Goodale

Mr. Allan MacDonald (Director, Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians Division, Privy Council Office)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. Allan MacDonald

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP)

Mr. Ralph Goodale

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1600

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

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

Mr. Ralph Goodale

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1605

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Ralph Goodale

Mr. Alan Tonks

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mr. Ralph Goodale

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mr. Alan Tonks

Mr. Larry Spencer

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

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1610

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1615

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1620

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

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1625

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

Mr. Larry Spencer

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

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1630

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

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1635

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Ms. Wendy Lill

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

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1640

Ms. Wendy Lill

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Ms. Wendy Lill

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mr. Alan Tonks

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1645

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

Mr. Alan Tonks

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

Mr. Allan MacDonald

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ)

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

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1650

Mr. Sébastien Gagnon

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

Mr. Aron Spector (Senior Analyst, Strategic Policy Group, Department of Human Resources Development)

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

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1655

Mr. Aron Spector

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. Aron Spector

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. Aron Spector

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Mr. Aron Spector

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

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1700

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew

The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville)

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CANADA

Subcommittee 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 007

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2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

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[English]

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville (Winnipeg South Centre, Lib.)): Let me welcome everybody here today and explain that I am in the chair this afternoon in the absence of John Godfrey, who is off to Panama. He has asked me if I would chair the meeting this afternoon.

    Welcome to our delegation here today. I think you're all aware that as part of this committee dealing with children and youth at risk, last year we looked at aboriginal children from ages zero to six, on reserve. We concluded with a study entitled Building on Success.

    We began our work this year looking at aboriginal children in the city, from zero to six. I think it slid into looking at children from zero to 12, or from birth to 12, because the definition or the distinction was too arbitrary.

    So I welcome you here today. I'm aware, Mr. Goodale, that you are on a tight timeline, so I would ask if you would begin your presentation, please.

    Hon. Ralph Goodale (Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians): Thank you very much, Madam Chair and members of the committee, the staff, and others. Thank you for the opportunity to meet with this subcommittee with a particular interest in children and youth at risk.

    I'm very pleased to appear with my colleague, Ethel Blondin-Andrew, and I would like to introduce Mr. Allan MacDonald, who is one of those dedicated souls who works with me within the division in the Privy Council Office that deals with the interlocutor for Métis and non-status Indians. Also with me is Kelly Stone, from the Department of Health, who will be here to support Minister Blondin-Andrew.

    As the federal interlocutor for Métis and non-status Indians, I am confronted every day with the serious issues facing aboriginal families, many of whom are indeed at risk because of the circumstances in which they live. I'm glad that members of this committee have shown such a dedicated interest in the subject matter, and I certainly hope your work can yield some results, particularly, from my point of view, in addressing the needs of aboriginal children residing off reserve.

    I understand you've already received a number of detailed presentations about statistics and background information on aboriginal people, so I won't spend very much time on this, but I would like to draw this one graphic to your attention. It helps to put things into context.

    We need to know that according to the 2001 census that's just been released, there are some 976,000 aboriginal people in Canada who self-identify as aboriginal people. Of these, as this graph shows, only about 31% actually live on reserve; the others live off reserve, either in urban or rural settings. Clearly, from this graphic, the majority live in urban centres or in rural, off-reserve locations.

    Of the almost $8 billion per year that the Government of Canada invests in aboriginal-specific programming of various kinds, almost 90% goes to assist first nations people on reserve--that is, less than one-third of the total aboriginal population. So that leaves only about 10% of the funding to go to all of the rest of the aboriginal people in the country, which would be 69% of the total aboriginal population.

    I know that many have questioned this apparent imbalance of federal spending for aboriginal people. I think it is important to understand it. It's important to stress that the bulk of federal funding to reserves is for the delivery of basic programs and services that are funded by provincial and municipal governments for people living off reserve. So the imbalance is not as drastic as it would appear on the surface of those statistics. Furthermore, off-reserve aboriginal people are able to access programs and services, both federally and provincially, that are available to all other Canadians as well.

    I understand the committee has already had a good discussion about this apparent discrepancy in federal funding, including the idea put forward by the Canada West Foundation that some of the money currently spent on reserve should be diverted to aboriginal people living off reserve, particularly in cities.

    For the record, I would have to say that portraying aboriginal issues as a zero-sum game is, quite frankly, a no-win approach. Rather, we need to recognize that the conditions facing all aboriginal people are serious. More needs to be done to close the gap between aboriginal Canadians and non-aboriginal Canadians, both on and off reserve, and we can't approach that challenge as a zero-sum game.

    Off reserve, 22 federal departments currently deliver a broad collection of 80 programs to aboriginal people. Unfortunately, there is a decided lack of coordination among the departments and among the programs, and I will have more to say about that later on.

    The statistics reflect the federal legal obligations to provide programs and services on reserve and in Inuit communities that for other Canadians, as I said, are provided by provinces and municipalities. It is the established constitutional position of the Government of Canada that we at the federal level have primary responsibility with respect to Inuit and first nations people on reserve, while provincial governments have primary responsibility for all other aboriginal people as regular citizens of their respective provinces.

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    Now, in fairness, I would have to note that this view or constitutional position held by the Government of Canada for many years is not shared by many provincial governments or by a number of aboriginal organizations. They would take a different legal view. They maintain, for example, that the federal government has responsibility for all aboriginal people, whether first nations or not first nations, including Métis, status, or non-status aboriginal people, and so forth, regardless of where they may live. This is the provincial position; this is not the federal position.

    However, despite this legal argument going on between the Government of Canada and the provinces, there are encouraging signs that all governments are willing to work together despite their differences of opinion on the law. More to the point, I think governments are beginning to recognize that jurisdictional posturing has in fact shielded us from the real issues and from making a real difference in the lives of aboriginal people. I'm optimistic we are beginning to enter a new era, where all orders of government will work more closely together to address the real needs of aboriginal people. We can have an ongoing and fascinating legal argument, but at the end of the day it doesn't improve the lot of a single aboriginal child.

    So my advice to my provincial and territorial colleagues—and increasingly their advice back to me—is let's park the jurisdictional argument at the door, and bring to the table all we can from our respective jurisdictions and get on with solving problems rather than having a legal debate.

    Just to complicate things a little bit further, there is a constant population migration or churning going on as aboriginal people migrate on and off reserve and into and out of our cities. Many more change their residence within particular communities during the course of any given year. Over 20% of aboriginal families move each year, about one-third of these within a community and the rest as part of the on-reserve and off-reserve and rural and urban migration.

    To illustrate this churning, which Mr. Spencer would probably be familiar with, I have one first nation reserve in my home riding of Wascana. It's called Carry the Kettle, and is about 100 kilometres east of Regina. Its official population is about 1,800 people, but at any given moment half of those 1,800 would be resident on the reserve and the other half would be resident somewhere else—more than likely in Regina. Within these net figures, about half on reserve and half in the city, the actual people on the reserve and in the city are constantly shifting back and forth. So it is a very mobile population.

    The jurisdictional distinctions governments use to try to determine who is responsible for the delivery of services are less and less reflective of how the communities are actually organized and how the communities actually live. People often move because of issues connected with family, employment, housing, health, educational opportunities, and so on. We know these frequent moves contribute to family stress and distress, and are particularly hard on children. Instability in the home, as we all know, makes it harder for children to get on with the business of growing up, succeeding in school, and reaching their full potential as they move into post-secondary education and ultimately become members of the workforce. The result of this instability deriving from high mobility is particularly pronounced in major urban centres. Yet the somewhat artificial distinctions determining which level of government provides services makes it that much harder to provide support to these families at risk.

    Looking at the statistics again, we know that fully one-third of the aboriginal population is comprised of children under the age of 15. I just pause at that statistic—one-third are under the age of 15. And 35% of these children live in lone-parent families, compared to 17% in the general population. So the numbers of single-parent families among aboriginal Canadians is double that among the rest of the population. And over half of aboriginal children are living at or near the poverty line. These are very sobering statistics.

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    In the western part of Canada particularly, aboriginal children and youth are a significant and growing segment of the Canadian population. It is projected, for example, that by or before the end of this decade, fully one-half of new entrants into the job market in Saskatchewan will be aboriginal. Looked at one way, that is a very significant social and economic challenge. Looked at another way, it is a huge opportunity for a province like Saskatchewan, if we are able to come to grips with this very significant aboriginal challenge.

    As federal interlocutor for Métis and non-status Indians, I have responsibility to try to grease the wheels of government, so to speak, in order to make a difference for aboriginal people living off reserve. Let me explain my role a little bit, because it's not very well understood. The federal interlocutor is a point of contact for many off-reserve aboriginal people, to make sure there can be an ongoing dialogue between them and the Government of Canada. Even though we have that legal position I mentioned a few moments ago, it doesn't mean we don't talk. We want to have a way to communicate with off-reserve aboriginal people, and the interlocutor's office is that point of contact. Along with being this contact, it's my job to try to represent the interests of off-reserve aboriginal people within the federal system and to be an advocate for Métis, non-status Indians, and urban aboriginal Canadians.

    The jurisdictional issue puts me in a rather awkward position. I have to try to meet the needs of a group of Canadians who have very high expectations of the government, yet the interlocutor has no department of government and no significant dedicated budget to work with. Maybe this explains the emphasis I often put on working in partnership with others in the federal system and with others elsewhere across the country, to get the most out of the limited resources at my disposal. Because a large proportion of Métis and non-status Indians live in major urban centres and because of the socio-economic conditions they face, a big part of my role is to try to tackle some of the problems of the urban aboriginal population.

    This brings me, Madam Chair, to the urban aboriginal strategy. In some Canadian cities, American-style ghettos are unfortunately beginning to emerge. They are characterized by debilitating poverty, and all too frequently, particularly in western Canadian cities, the face of that poverty is aboriginal. We are beginning to see gangs of aboriginal youth in places like Winnipeg, which I know the chairman is all too familiar with. The situation has degenerated to the point that many opinion leaders now view urban aboriginal people as a large and distinct demographic group at risk of becoming a permanent underclass in our generally affluent society. So in my opinion, urgent action is needed to address the legitimate requirements of aboriginal families to halt this trend.

    It is because of the increasing socio-economic problems of urban aboriginal people that we launched the federal urban aboriginal strategy in 1998. The UAS is primarily played out in western cities, like Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, and others. It involves no new resources. Instead, it seeks to achieve practical improvements in urban aboriginal conditions through greater internal coordination of federal activities, and through partnerships with provinces, municipalities, aboriginal stakeholders, the business community, and others without engaging in a futile debate about whose jurisdiction it is.

    Despite all indications that urgent action is needed, we have some big hurdles to overcome. The fact is that no single government, no single minister, and no single federal policy, or provincial policy for that matter, can bring about the quick turnaround we would all like to see. However, we can all begin to address the specific barriers within our control.

    Within the federal government, a major problem we have, quite candidly, is the general weakness in our ability to function horizontally across all departments to deliver services. All of our departmental mandates, our funding, our structures, our accountabilities, are designed vertically within departmental stovepipes—if I could describe them that way.

    There are even more challenges with harmonizing the efforts of the federal government with provincial and municipal authorities outside of the federal system.

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    Our inflexible structures have community groups quite literally tearing their hair out as they struggle to access programs and services and funds from and maintain accountability to a patchwork of programs originating at different levels of government. Scarce resources among aboriginal people are used up just doing the paperwork required to keep local programs going. We often say to these people who are at risk, you make your problem suit our program. I think we have to get it the other way around, where we make the effort to make our governmental response suit their circumstances.

    Another difficulty we face in many areas is the fact that the political organizations representing aboriginal people sometimes operate within their own stovepipes. The federal government, the provinces, and the municipalities are not the only ones who have a stovepipe problem. So do a number of the aboriginal organizations. That sometimes gets into competition and rivalry, and sometimes, unfortunately, outright disputes between and among groups, and that makes the problem even more fractionalized.

    But I want to say to committee members that the news is not all bad. I take pride in mentioning some of the little success stories that have resulted from the urban aboriginal strategy, such as some of the demonstration projects to test innovative management structures, and accountability frameworks to improve federal coordination of what we do.

    The UAS, now five years old, has been given renewed policy authorities and continuing funding. You may have noticed that in yesterday's budget; it's not nearly as much as I would like to have, but I'm glad to see the mandate continue and the funding renewed so that we can continue the work of pulling together the efforts of 22 federal departments and work with all the other stakeholders with whom we have to have partnerships so that we may be able to respond better to the needs of aboriginal children and youth. That is indeed a key priority for many cities.

    Federal coordination is a first step. We need to extend that level of coordination and cooperation to work with others, particularly provinces. In fact, many provinces are coming on board now more than ever before. As I said, there's that growing attitude among all levels of government that we should park the jurisdictional argument at the door and concentrate on how we can forge partnerships and work together with municipalities, community groups, aboriginal organizations, and others.

    In the area of early childhood development, for example--and my colleague Ethel may well speak about this--important federal and provincial agreements have been reached already, which allow for federal funds to be targeted to the particular needs of young children in each province. That's progress.

    In the September 2002 Speech from the Throne, we made the commitment of the federal government to address the gap in life chances between aboriginal and non-aboriginal children. One of the measures flowing from this commitment is the expansion of the highly successful aboriginal head start program, which is an early childhood development program available both on and off reserve.

    Two other related areas were addressed by the Speech from the Throne: housing and homelessness--very important for many aboriginal families. My officials are working with CMHC and the National Secretariat on Homelessness to make sure that federal efforts in these areas, such as the extension of the supporting communities partnership initiative, address the particular needs of the urban aboriginal population.

    Again I note that yesterday the budget did in fact renew the supporting communities partnership initiative, and I trust that in our collaboration with Claudette Bradshaw we will see some benefits flow, as they have in the past, to the urban aboriginal population.

    Finally, Madam Chair, I think we can take some hope from some of the apparently negative statistics that I have put before the committee this afternoon. Look at the tremendous potential that does exist in that large, young, and growing labour force, which can be positioned and empowered to make a huge contribution to the economic vitality of Canada if we can change some of the current pattern of disadvantage and disparity. As I said earlier, often we look at these statistics and we see problems. If you look at it the other way around, there is also huge potential if we work very hard to get it right in terms of government policy.

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    Despite some modest successes, the pressure is on for a more comprehensive response. Our current efforts I believe are under-resourced, but the budget and the announcements made yesterday will help.

    We are, as I have pointed out, horizontally challenged, needing better mechanisms for internal federal coordination, clear leadership, and the accompanying authority and accountability. We need better means to enhance cooperation with provinces and municipalities and other non-federal partners, including the private sector. We must engage aboriginal communities in a more coordinated way without stumbling over their political agendas.

    We must be more flexible to identify and address real local issues, which vary significantly from one city to the next. The urban aboriginal issue is not identical in Winnipeg or Regina or Vancouver or Toronto or other places in the country. A one-size-fits-all approach won't work. We have to be flexible enough to make, as I said before, our solutions suit their issues and problems, and not the other way around.

    Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry that took so long, but I did want to get some of the issues on the table today. I look forward hopefully to the work of this committee in helping us to identify the right solutions.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Thank you very much.

    Minister Blondin-Andrew, are you...?

    Hon. Ethel Blondin-Andrew (Secretary of State (Children and Youth)): Do you have to leave right away? Do you want to go straight to questions?

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Madam Chair, if I could, I need to be away at four. Just for the information of the committee, I wish I could stay longer, but I do have a commitment to meet the three northern premiers. They have certain issues related to health care that they're rather anxious to discuss. That is the reason I must leave at four o'clock, to meet with them.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Let me just check with Minister Blondin-Andrew.

    Are you on the same kind of timeline?

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: I am, but I think the minister's issues are probably interesting for the members of the committee. They might want to ask questions before he leaves. I'll stay and I can do mine after.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Okay.

    Mr. Spencer.

    Mr. Larry Spencer (Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Madam Chairman.

    Mr. Interloculator--I'm having a hard time learning that word.

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Back up and take a run at it: “interlocutor”.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I want to say “inter-innoculator”, but I'm sure you're not here to do that. I understand that is your official position, but anyway....

    I was surprised at one of the three final points you mentioned, the one on the tremendous opportunity that the growing aboriginal population--especially the urban aboriginal population--presents, knowing our national shortage of workers as we look forward into the future. Could you give us some insight into how the government is taking advantage of that opportunity? How are you addressing those opportunities to specifically see these people moved into the workforce?

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: I think, Mr. Spencer, a large part of this needs to be directed toward the creation of opportunity and the adequate explanation and information to urban aboriginal families that the opportunity exists. There can be, as you wade through these statistics I've described, a sense of hopelessness that overcomes families in urban aboriginal settings where they arrive at the conclusion that nothing ever gets better. We have to create the opportunity for improvement and then make it possible, through knowledge and access, for aboriginal families to take advantage of this opportunity.

    Some of it is training. Some of it is the creation of mentoring and first employment services and facilities. All of us have to participate in this. It's partly federal. It's partly provincial. It's partly municipal. It's partly the private sector. It's partly the community itself.

    One example I would point to where we're trying to pull all of these threads together--and this is one of the things that will be financed with a little bit of the money in the budget yesterday--is an initiative in our home city--indeed, largely in your constituency. It's called the Regina Inner City Community Partnership, which was devised in the first instance by the mayor of Regina, Mayor Pat Fiacco. He invited the Government of Canada to join the Province of Saskatchewan, which we did. Minister Hagel has joined in for Saskatchewan. The business community is being recruited.

    The idea is for all of us to bring our respective resources to the table and to work collaboratively together on solutions in the inner-city part of Regina that create those training and growth and employment and prosperity opportunities for young people, particularly young aboriginal people, living there.

    The initiative doesn't involve a whole lot of new resources, but it does mean we all bring what we have to the table and work with each other to get a bigger impact from the resources we already have.

    The priorities of this initiative--I'll just finish this very quickly--include, first of all, community safety and crime prevention; second, the creation of training and jobs and employment and mentoring opportunities for young aboriginal people; the improvement of housing stock in the area, and programs and services to address the root cause of homelessness; and the better coordination of local service delivery within the community. Those are the issues we are working on.

    There's no simple one- or two-word answer to this. It's a complex set of social circumstances, but our approach here is to try to get everybody at the table, not to have a jurisdictional argument about who's responsible for what. Let's do what we can better; and we'll do it better if we're working together.

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    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): We'll have to go over to the other side, because we have limited time today.

    Ms. Kraft Sloan.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): Thank you very much.

    One of the problems we have in making good public policy is having appropriate and adequate kinds of tools at our disposal. The other kinds of problems we face, as you've already identified, are these stovepipe problems of the structure. The way government operates is often a problem.

    I'd like to ask you about some of these horizontally challenged issues we have to deal with. We can name many of these issues. I understood the PCO had been looking at some of these issues. Could you provide some information to committee members about this study and the particular issues actually being examined?

    I have another question around statistics. You identified this issue of mobility and churn. How do you begin to even frame the problem, analyze it, and come up with solutions, when there may be some issues around gathering basic data?

    For example, how many aboriginal people live in urban areas? How many children are we talking about, in what communities, and all these other kinds of things? I know there has been some good work done, but how reliable is this data, and what is it like gathering this information?

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    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Well, on the latter point, gathering the data is indeed a challenge. Very often under our established systems, including those of Statistics Canada, the initiative is left to the individual to self-identify whether they are aboriginal or not, and then into which particular category of aboriginal they would fit themselves, whether it's first nations, non-status, Métis, Inuit, or a number of others. That really does present us with a statistical and data-gathering challenge.

    We could certainly supply to the committee the basic statistics as we understand them. But I think, Madam Kraft Sloan, it's always prudent to bear in mind--I think the admonition is probably there in your question--that we shouldn't assume that these statistics are 100% reliable, because the method of gathering them is a bit uncertain.

    That's why I go back very quickly to this issue of partnerships. One set of statistics might, the way we organize our system, be considered federal, another set of statistics might be considered provincial, another set municipal. Quite frankly, at the end of the day, that statistical game doesn't matter. What we're dealing with here is people in genuine need in our communities, and if we want to have healthy communities and decent futures for these people, particularly young aboriginal people, we need to get past the statistics and on to solutions. And that's why I say park the jurisdiction at the door and let's work on problem-solving.

    On your point about horizontality, I think that's one of the biggest challenges the Government of Canada has to overcome. Some of the money that was in the budget yesterday is intended to go right to that issue. We are going to be conducting eight pilot projects in eight Canadian cities where we will be testing different approaches to dealing with this problem of horizontality.

    For example, one of the things we're looking at is instead of having entirely unique and different program application, administration, and accountability systems for each individual program, can we somehow, on our end of the equation, bring all of that together so there's a common application form with a common structure and design? Do we have to reinvent the wheel every time we write up a contract? Can't we have some consistency among the approaches followed by the PCO, the Department of Health, HRDC, Justice, the regional agencies, and so forth? Let's try to have a common methodology so we know exactly what's in all of these contracts, and the people applying at the other end will understand that they are consistent across the board. These are structural things we're going to test.

    There are accountability things we're going to test as well. This is going to be a big, big hurdle for a lot of federal departments. When they spend a nickel, they are required to report upstream within that department, ultimately to the most senior financial officer and the deputy minister and minister. But that means they are hamstrung in getting out of their stovepipes and working with the department right next door on the ground in the community.

    Would it be possible, say in dealing with inner-city Winnipeg or Vancouver's downtown east side--or Regina, Saskatoon, Toronto, or wherever--for the departments to come to the table and say “We have x dollars in the Department of Justice that we can put on the table to help with an urban aboriginal situation in this community”, and the Department of Health would come to the table and say “Yes, and we have some more dollars”, and the PCO, the regional agencies, and all of the others too? You'd have a pool of funding on the table and they'd work together to decide how to distribute and administer that funding collectively, rather than individually, department by department by department.

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    That would be a big change in how departments function. It would drive our colleagues at Treasury Board quite literally around the bend, but we have to get creative here to find a way to better coordinate our activities without violating the rules of public accountability.

    I don't think it should be beyond the genius of those of us in government to find those solutions. But it's exactly this sort of thing that we're going to try to test in these pilot projects that were funded in the budget yesterday.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Is there a document that PCO has compiled that this committee could take a look at?

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Let me just ask Mr. MacDonald if he can comment on that.

    Mr. Allan MacDonald (Director, Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians Division, Privy Council Office): Some months ago a PCO task force studied the issue of horizontality in the regions and developed a tool kit. We'd be happy to share the tool kit with the committee and get it to you very quickly.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Let's be clear that this is about general government issues, as opposed to this specific issue, but it certainly helps us in other areas.

    Mr. Allan MacDonald: Absolutely.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): We have to move along quickly, because Mr. Goodale has to leave and I know others have questions.

    Mr. Gagnon, do you have a question? No.

    Ms. Lill, go ahead.

    Ms. Wendy Lill (Dartmouth, NDP): Thank you very much for coming here today.

    I was a journalist twenty years ago and did a series on the urban native migration for the CBC in Winnipeg. I used statistics for 2000, which seemed like an awfully long time away. I remember interviewing young native women with babies. They were poor and living in the city. I still have their voices in my head. Those children are all grown up now and in their twenties. Who knows where they are.

    All of the projections have come to pass. There are very dire straits for native people living in the city and on reserves--Métis and non-status Indians as well. I guess it's very discouraging. We know that a lot of investment has gone into this situation, but it doesn't seem to be getting any better.

    I can't imagine what it must be like for native people, Métis, and non-status Indians to just year after year see the same problems, the same rhetoric, and hear about things like horizontality and stovepipes. When faced with poverty and a sense of hopelessness, what do those things mean?

    I know there was a royal commission on aboriginal people--a very important commission. I think people held out great hope for that. I need to know about the status of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and the recommendations that came out of that report. I believe people felt there was real progress and a real structure set in place there. Is what you're working on now coming directly out of the royal commission, or is it sitting gathering dust? I sure hope not. But we need to know that status; it would be beneficial.

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Ms. Lill, I really do appreciate the question, because in many ways I share the kind of frustration you have described.

    The royal commission's report made a significant contribution to bringing things to a head. There had been a number of federal initiatives before it, which had either intentionally or sometimes inadvertently ended up being aimed at urban aboriginal people. As I said, 22 federal departments are involved. Added together, the annual expenditure is somewhere in the neighbourhood of $270 million in the urban area—a not insignificant amount of money. But at the end of the day, it doesn't seem to yield the kinds of results we would like to see. So the royal commission addressed this, and the government's response, Gathering Strength, attempted to pick up the ball in 1998, which was when the urban aboriginal strategy was formalized.

    As I said, it has had some modest successes. It has improved the coordination to a certain extent. It has completed an inventory of the federal programs and services available to urban aboriginal people, which has been compiled into a guide with access points, so urban aboriginal people can see the total collection of what the various departments and agencies do, and how to access these things. We then moved to the stage of testing things in pilot projects.

    We have had some useful experiences in dealing with some aboriginal organizations in the devolution of some responsibilities. In Manitoba, for example, in close collaboration with the provincial government, we're working with the MMF, the Manitoba Métis Federation, on a range of things related to services for children. We're working in Saskatchewan on educational issues, particularly trying to take advantage of the existence of the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College, associated with the University of Regina. And I could cite some other examples going across all provinces.

    So to get directly to your question, the UAS did receive its major thrust and impetus from the royal commission, and since the government's response to the royal commission in 1997 and 1998 we have made some progress. We got a renewed mandate and some incremental funding from the budget yesterday, but we've still got a long way to go.

º  (1600)  

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Mr. Tonks.

    Mr. Alan Tonks (York South—Weston, Lib.): Thank you, ministers, for being here.

    I guess the spirit of my question is similar to Wendy Lill's. It seems hard to believe that since developing an urban aboriginal strategy in 1998, we find ourselves with a continuation of the kinds of statistics indicating high rates of poverty, and everything that is undesirable within the first nations community, particularly in urban areas.

    We have heard from the friendship centres about the necessity of having a holistic approach to the problems of first nations people in an urban context, including the need for available housing, available treatment for FAS/FAE problems, and the ability to be trained or retrained, the ability to lock into job search in a sensitive and helpful way, and all of the things any vulnerable community faces.

    As the interlocutor, or doctor interlocutor, to use a clinical analogy, your analysis is dead bang on. What do you see your role as over the next timeframe in measuring what is happening and reporting on the impact made with respect to the analysis you've given and the role you have?

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Mr. Tonks, I think the critical thing for us now is to make sure these eight pilot projects we're going to undertake with the funding announced yesterday are as useful, practical, and profitable a learning experience as they can possibly be.

    We have to keep impressing on our other governmental colleagues, be they provincial or municipal, that none of us should allow our issues to get hung up on jurisdiction. Let's not have that argument; it's sterile and will get us nowhere. Let everybody get around the table, bring what each of us can bring to the table, and focus on problem-solving.

    Further to the point made by Ms. Kraft Sloan, in using these pilots within the federal system, let's learn as a federal government how to function as well horizontally as we do vertically, and all of us collaborate together on solutions.

    We also need to get other partners and players to come to the table with us. One of the things I particularly like about that Regina inner city community partnership, which I referred to earlier in answer to Mr. Spencer, is the big role to be played here by the business community. When Mayor Fiacco first invited the business community to come to the table to talk about this, he and we thought we'd get 20 or 30 folks who would be prepared to have the conversation. But it was more than 100. They weren't the junior members of the business community, but some of the most senior people in the business community in Regina, and they were there with enthusiasm. They have an important role to play, partly in bringing financial resources, but also partly in smoothing the way for the new, young, restless, and very ambitious and hopeful generation of aboriginal young people through the educational system and into good, meaningful, long-term employment, where they are the fully participating members of civil society they want to be.

    These are the sorts of answers and results I would like to be able to report in a year or two, after we've maximized what we can wring out of these pilot projects. We will then know, I hope, how to pull all the threads together.

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    Mr. Alan Tonks: We characterize this as the search for the perfect model for community-based development of services. I think it describes it pretty well.

    Thank you, Minister.

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Alan, I think we have to recognize it won't be a cookie-cutter model from city to city to city. Each community is different. We have to be prepared to be sufficiently flexible to tailor our responses community by community.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Is there anything else to say?

    Then I will save my questions for another day, but thank you very much.

    Mr. Ralph Goodale: Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm pleased to leave you in the very good hands of my colleague, Ethel.

    I would note that Mr. MacDonald can at least stay for a little while to see if there are any other PCO types of questions. Thank you.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Thank you very much.

    So that I don't forget, just before we move on, can I have a motion from somebody to approve the budget on your desks?

    Mr. Alan Tonks: I so move.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: I will second it.

    (Motion agreed to)

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Thank you.

    Thank you very much for being so patient, Ms. Blondin-Andrew. I would ask you to carry on with your presentation. Thank you very much.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: I'd like to thank you for the invitation to address the subcommittee once again. I welcome the chance to talk about another aspect of the Government of Canada's support for young aboriginal children.

    As you probably can imagine, this is an issue I take to heart. The nurturing of aboriginal children so that they can achieve their incredible potential has been central to my life's work, as well as that of many of you, I'm sure. In fact, it's one of the reasons I feel so drawn to the politics I engage in. I believe profoundly in the importance of this work. I am very proud that in my role as Secretary of State for Children and Youth I'm able to make a difference, along with my colleagues, of course, in young aboriginal children's lives.

    You will recall that when I last appeared before you I focused on our initiatives aimed at first nations children living on reserve. Today I want to highlight the challenges facing off-reserve aboriginal children between the ages of zero and six and how the federal government is helping to address them, to the extent that I can.

    As you've heard from Minister Goodale, the federal role in off-reserve issues is limited, given jurisdictional considerations. However, that has not prevented us from playing our part in alleviating some of the greatest difficulties facing young children living off reserve. These youngsters are well served by important programs for children at risk, such as the community action program for children, CAPC; the Canada prenatal nutrition program, CPNP; and aboriginal head start, all of which I will talk more about in a moment.

    To underscore the importance of these programs, let me take a minute to outline some of the challenges confronting this population. Of course, many are common to all aboriginal people, but some are unique to children and their families living off reserve. For example, we know that there are significant health inequalities between off-reserve and non-aboriginal people even after socio-economic and personal behaviour factors are taken into account. Whether they live in communities in the north or off reserve, aboriginal people report fair or poor health. Aboriginal people living in communities in the territories have less access to health professionals, putting their health at increased risk.

    I think that's what Minister Goodale is meeting the three premiers about. I'm supposed to head out to that meeting, Madam Chair, but I think it's important to meet this commitment as well.

    In provinces contacts with publicly funded health care professionals are generally the same for both non-aboriginal people and aboriginal people living off reserve. However, poverty, smoking, and obesity are more prevalent in the off-reserve population. More children are born to aboriginal teenage mothers. Don't forget that the aboriginal population is much younger than other Canadians.

    I think these facts were borne out in the census statistics that have come out of late. Committee members have recently heard from Statistics Canada that aboriginal families move to and from reserves and urban areas, and this is what Minister Goodale referred to as the churn, or they move from one urban area to another. This has several implications for young children and their families living off reserve. Children living off reserve find themselves in and out of day care or other children's programs and in and out of different schools as their families move around. Mainstream agencies often don't understand and respond to the unique needs facing these children. Getting the appropriate supports and ensuring continuity of services, whether it be day care or schooling, which are so essential to a child's development, is a constant battle. For many children there's the additional challenge of feeling disconnected from their own culture when they are separated from their community and aboriginal roots. This has a direct effect on a child's self-esteem and sense of belonging, which can result in numerous health and emotional problems at a later date.

    Fortunately, Health Canada's programs for children at risk, such as aboriginal head start, the community action program for children, and the Canada prenatal nutrition program, help to bridge these gaps for children living off reserve.

º  (1610)  

    In the prenatal nutrition program, pregnant women find out about what to do and what to avoid to give birth to a healthy child. There's a lot of encouragement and support there.

    More than 50% of the program's participants in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are aboriginal. This is a very high number. In Saskatchewan, 81% of the women are aboriginal. Canada-wide, nearly 22% of people using the CPNP are aboriginal. You see the concentration of the areas. Where you have more urban aboriginal people you have a greater usage of those programs by aboriginal people.

    In the community action program parents learn about good parenting, which we all know is essential to promote healthy child development. In Winnipeg I went to a program and there they had a parental leadership program, which was the absolute gem of that program. The problem is there's not enough money dedicated to that. The resources are very difficult to come by, but the benefits of having that parental leadership program are really essential to the success of that program. So that's something to consider.

    In the community action program, parents learn about good parenting, and we all know that this is essential to promote healthy child development. Again, a significant portion of the people using this program are aboriginal. For example, 28.3% of CAPC programs across the country are attended by aboriginal people. I'm delighted that we're able to provide 6% of these programs in aboriginal languages to make them more accessible and meaningful to the parents taking part, including 45% of the programs that are offered in Saskatchewan and 20% of the programs in the Northwest Territories.

    I've been to a number of them that offer aboriginal languages. I was in Kugluktuk with a group from Health Canada, and the Inuit elders are part of the head start and the prenatal nutrition programs, and they actually teach the culture and the language. It's a very good community effort to bridge the gap between the young and the old. I was in the Atlantic, where they also had a program. A guy by the name of Noel Knockwood, who is an elder, taught the children their language. Also, this is true in the High Arctic as well and in Alberta with the Blackfeet. There they have a very specialized cultural program. These are good. I think it doesn't matter what culture it is, it's good to have children recognize their roots, but in this case the roots are aboriginal.

    A further important area of federal investment is in fetal alcohol syndrome and fetal alcohol effects. Aboriginal children both on and off reserve are at great risk for these disabilities. It's a perfectly preventable disability if you can get to the people early enough. I think that's what those health programs do. Prenatal nutrition and CAPC programs basically integrate that message into how they interact with parents, especially young parents.

    Aboriginal children on reserve are direct beneficiaries of federal investments in FAS/FAE. However, off-reserve young children are also served by FAS/FAE initiatives because many of the provinces and territories are using federal investments under the early childhood development agreement to provide such programing. Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, B.C., Ontario, and Yukon have stated that FAS/FAE is one of their investment priorities.

    You are of course aware of the five-year $2.2 billion early childhood development agreement we jointly launched with our provincial and territorial colleagues in September 2000. I remind you that one of the key elements of the agreement was the pledge to work with aboriginal people to find practical solutions to address the developmental needs of aboriginal children.

    In addition to the federal initiatives I've outlined, young aboriginal children off reserve are served by a range of programs at the provincial-territorial level funded under the agreement. These include prenatal programs, child care, parent resource centres, home visitation programs, and other community supports.

º  (1615)  

    Off-reserve children also benefit from the five-year, $320 million federal strategy on early childhood development for first nations and other aboriginal children. Even though the strategy is primarily aimed at first nations and Inuit children, off-reserve children are directly affected by some of the initiatives it supports.

    It says “kids”. When I went to school we weren't allowed to refer to ourselves as “kids”.

    For instance, $12.45 million of the new funding allocated under the strategy is dedicated to aboriginal head start urban and northern over the next five years. Committee members know very well how important the head start program is in the lives of children and families who live off reserve. These additional dollars mean we will be able to strengthen project support and monitoring as well as the evaluation and training. The new money will also expand the reach of the program so we can serve more children, improve existing facilities, and better respond to children with special needs, through the training and hiring of special needs workers. Part of that money I believe is dedicated to the special needs of children who have those needs, I guess.

    The strategy has also earmarked $9.05 million over five years to the first nations and Inuit child care initiative, of which $1.5 million is allocated to Inuit. This will translate into 45 new child care spaces for Inuit in northern communities; improvements to existing spaces through training, program, and facility upgrades; and increased departmental support. While project funding is important, it's not the only aspect of the strategy on early childhood development for first nations and other aboriginal children that will improve the lives of youngsters living off reserve. The strategy will create new opportunities for people working with children under the age of six, whether on or off reserve, to share their knowledge, tools, and best practices, and to get involved in joint planning.

    Another advantage of the strategy for aboriginal children is in its research and knowledge component. This will give us better insights into the gaps so we can better target our efforts in the future. The more we know about what works and what doesn't, the better we are able to support the healthy development of all aboriginal children.

    There's no question there is still a lot of work to be done to bridge the gap in the life chances of aboriginal and non-aboriginal children. There's also no debate that we need to pay close attention to the unique challenges confronting youngsters whose families live off reserve.

    I can assure you, Madam Chair, we are certainly doing that. We're working with the three main national organizations, the Métis National Council, the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, as well as the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, the Native Women's Association of Canada, and the Pauktuutit Inuit Women's Association in the early development of the federal strategy on early childhood development for first nations and other aboriginal children.

    There is quite an extensive involvement, of course, of the friendship centres. The National Association of Friendship Centres have spoken very clearly about how they are involved in so many aspects that touch on the lives of aboriginal people who come from reserves, or live in the cities. This is a constant challenge in terms of resources, but there are mixed responsibilities and mandates there, depending on which department you're dealing with or what program you're dealing with.

    The interdepartmental working group implementing the strategy at the national level is engaging these national organizations to encourage their active participation in aboriginal early child development issues and planning.

    And of course we continue to work with our provincial-territorial partners in the implementation of our joint early childhood development agreement. I'm proud of the progress that we have achieved together since its launch in 2000. I'm certainly not suggesting the challenges aren't great or that the solutions will be easy. However, I knew that when I took on this job.

º  (1620)  

    I'm confident that we are on the right track in making meaningful progress in improving the lives of all aboriginal children. And I take great comfort from knowing that this committee takes a particular interest in this and has undertaken a study to look at all aspects of the development of aboriginal children, whether on or off reserve. We use your support. We see that as support for us to carry on this critically important work for all aboriginal children across Canada.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Thank you very much. That was lots of good information.

    Mr. Spencer.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I'll say one thing for the record. My riding is not in north-central Regina, where the Honourable Goodale implied. That's Mr. Nystrom's riding, but mine adjoins it.

    I have a couple of questions, and I'll inform her here of both of those at once in the interest of saving time.

    I want to ask you for a little bit further explanation of the work of the friendship centres. That you could probably do pretty quickly.

    The other thing I'm concerned about is the fetal alcohol syndrome work that's being carried out, as I adopted an aboriginal son who I believe demonstrates some problems with that situation, although it was not known back 25 years ago, when he was little.

    There's the high incidence rate of FAS/FAE on reserve, as you've explained to us, and we're well aware of that, but there must be some reflection of that incidence rate reflected in the urban population of aboriginal people. Are there any statistics available, any studies that would show us if that urban rate corresponds to the on-reserve rate?

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: I have some general statistics on FAS/FAE, and we can try to get you those figures. But I can just share these general statistics, because one of the biggest challenges we have is diagnosis to get an absolutely clear 100% picture of what the issues are across the country regarding FAS/FAE.

    We have found that in some aboriginal communities the FAS/FAE rates are significantly higher than in non-aboriginal populations. The estimated rates of FAS internationally are one to three per thousand. Approximately 650 children are born with FAS each year in Canada. The incidence of FAE is conservatively estimated at ten times that of FAS. So you can calculate that with your math.

    Studies in specific aboriginal communities have estimated the rates of FAS/FAE to be as high as 46 per 1,000 in the Yukon--I'll just give you examples--25 per 1,000 in northern B.C. These estimates, coupled with the birth rate of the aboriginal population, double the Canadian rate, mean that FAS/FAE is a serious issue in aboriginal communities.

    I don't think we have the specific breakdown between on reserve and off reserve. We don't have that yet.

    I have had other examples given to me by people who have worked in aboriginal communities, and this one I'll cite was an off-reserve figure in a community. I don't want to say its name because there's a stigma attached to it, but it was a military base in a community where this aboriginal woman worked as a specialist in this field. And when the military base was there the FAS/FAE study they did was 15% for aboriginal people, but when they moved out, the rate went up to 85%. The incidence of FAS/FAE was very high.

    So of all the FAS/FAE cases they had in that community, the incidence for aboriginal people shot up really high because they removed most of the non-aboriginal people from the community, but it was alarmingly high.

    We get a lot of analogies and a lot of personal experiences from the work of people who have long worked in that field and that's the stage we're at. What we're trying to do is to get a clearer idea, and the money that we get will be invested in doing some of the work. A lot of the research still has to be done.

º  (1625)  

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I have a couple of questions here.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Sorry, you asked me about the friendship centres.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Yes.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Yes, 27% of the CAPC projects and the prenatal nutrition projects are delivered from either a friendship centre or an agency band office, and another 20% report friendship centres as their partners. So there's a very high involvement in these projects by friendship centres.

    I must tell you that from my experience over the last...well, I had a previous profession or occupation, and even then, the friendship centres have always been one of the most excellent service delivery centres for different kinds of projects. They're very community-oriented. They reach out to everyone, and the door is always open, and they really are progressive in the way they take new projects, work with them, and integrate them into the community.

    Mr. Larry Spencer: Okay, and I have one other really little question: What department funds friendship centres?

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: It's the Department of Heritage. There is a list of funded friendship centres. I don't know the exact number.

    How many are there, a hundred and something, that are funded?

    Then there's a list we're working on, that are still unfunded. But they do excellent work.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    I'm just trying to reconcile what you were telling us about the problems of FAS and FAE. Even if it's anecdotal, it's pretty astounding, from one particular community's point of view.

    I want to ask you about what kind of consultation process has been going on. I know you had mentioned a number of aboriginal organizations you work with, but I'm particularly concerned about any possibility for consultation and input into the kinds of services that might be provided to urban aboriginal people from the point of view of children and the voice of children. I thought this committee was looking at ages zero to 12.

º  (1630)  

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Yes, ages zero to 12.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I know your presentation is focusing on ages zero to six, and you may not be able to answer this question directly today, but perhaps as a follow-up, I'm wondering if there is any consultation going on with some of the children themselves, if there are projects that incorporate the voice of children. That's one question I would have. Perhaps you could respond to that.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: This is a really important aspect. One of the most riveting experiences I've had with FAS/FAE was dealing with a group of adult women with FAS who were undertaking training and had children of their own. They were learning new skills in a controlled environment. That was very interesting.

    The other experience I had that was really interesting and gripping was listening to an aboriginal judge who said most of the young offenders who came before her in court were of aboriginal descent. Most of those she believed, from her expertise in dealing with the issue of FAS/FAE, were affected.

    I also dealt with someone from the parole board who was aboriginal and indicated that he suspected from the research he was doing that many of his clients who were repeaters also had FAS/FAE. These views were not founded in research or science, but were from the ongoing work of professionals who deal with young people.

    The national advisory committee on FAS/FAE has a whole range of expertise and professionals, including two or three aboriginal participants, and has dealt with young people. I had a phenomenal exchange with these young people. The parents of one of them sit on the advisory committee.

    I've also been to many conferences where I've heard young people who've gone to give their experiences and tell how they want to reintegrate into school and about the challenges they face. This disability puts enormous challenges in their lives, on education, development, and their profession, if they want to have one. It's seems insurmountable, but with the right support, resources and the proper facilitation.... Even educating schools and professionals about FAS/FAE is an enormous task that both the federal government and the provinces are looking at.

    The responsibility from ages six to twelve is provincial. As you probably know, we have provinces and territories that are doing excellent work. In Manitoba, Minister Tim Sale is doing some really ground-breaking work through his department. There are others across the country, but that's just one that jumps out at me. There is the involvement of young people in getting their stories, challenges, and the barriers they face. It's quite interesting. It might be an idea for this committee to engage some of those young people.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: That's very helpful.

    I do a lot of work in the area of environmental health, and I'm particularly interested in child environmental health. I noticed, in taking a look at the way some of the provinces are spending money on the zero to six population through the early child development fund, a lot of money was going into autism supports. I found that to be a tremendous anomaly when I looked at the other kinds of programs that were available.

    We started to do a bit of research into it. Within the general population the numbers on autism are just screeching forward at a phenomenal rate, and it's not because of better detection and things like that. There's autism and Asperger's syndrome, so there's a range of functioning as well, with related developmental problems.

    This is totally apart from what you were talking about, but I'm just wondering, particularly when we're talking about these kinds of services and how some of the neurological problems can cause huge behavioural and adaptive issues, abilities for adaptation, if you have any statistics on autism within the aboriginal population. Are you seeing any anomalies versus the general population? If you don't have that, are you are looking at it? It's a huge problem, and it's growing faster.

    A lot of it may be due to kids being genetically disposed to autism, but they are saying there are often environmental triggers, and aboriginal people often live in parts of the country that have huge problems with contaminants and other substances.

º  (1635)  

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: On this particular question, we don't have the figures with us. We can try to get them for you to see if there's anything unusual.

    My general observation on autism is that there are a lot of really big champions, like Doug Flutie, whose son is autistic, who give it the kind of publicity it needs and build the case for proper resourcing and that sort of thing. A lot of it has to do with the kind of attention it gets.

    I want to go back to your question about consultation. We encourage youth involvement in consultation. There will be a range of stakeholder meetings this spring. The aim is to develop a national FAS/FAE action plan and have some agreement on the priorities.

    Even though there's been a lot of talk about it, there hasn't been the kind of comprehensive approach that's needed. We've had to fight very hard for the funding we have, and it's still a huge struggle. It's not that we have to convince people there's a case here for support. It's just that we have to come forward with a comprehensive action plan. I think that's important. But I've definitely noticed in most of the forums I've been in that they encourage youth participation.

    I also want to go back to the issue of friendship centres. Across Canada, 29% of aboriginal head start sites are sponsored by friendship centres. So in addition to the other two programs I mentioned, that's another one that really demonstrates their involvement.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Thank you.

    Mr. Gagnon, do you have any questions? No.

    Ms. Lill.

    Ms. Wendy Lill: Thank you very much for coming here.

    I just have a couple of questions about the head start program. Just putting the statistics together, 50% of aboriginal children in cities are living in poverty, and 50% of them are in lone-parent families. Your statistics about FAE/FAS are astounding. So we're building an enormous case for the importance of early childhood education and head start programs.

    I'm just wondering how many are actually going to be addressed at this time. You probably said this at the beginning of your statement, but how many new spaces for day care have been identified for aboriginal children in the city and how many new spaces will there be for head start programs, given the fact that there are 100,000 aboriginal children living off reserve? Are you making a dent in it? How do you feel about the amount of money that's available?

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Well, the issue with head start is it's such a phenomenal success. It has such great potential to do such wonderful things with children and their families in building the basis for a healthy democratic civil society. It does all of that really good stuff. Not only do aboriginal people alone want head start, everybody wants it.

    Currently we have 3,500 spaces. With the new money we received we'll be creating 1,000 more spaces. It's never going to be enough, because it's so popular, but we are building. Currently we have 411 sites across Canada in eight provinces and all three northern territories. This the second or third expansion. We've expanded it because it's so popular and successful. It's one of the things we know is definitely working.

º  (1640)  

    Ms. Wendy Lill: Then there's child care. Will identified aboriginal child care spaces be in place after the budget?

    I'm interested in the fact that the friendship centres are funded by Canadian Heritage. You said that 29% of the head start programs are run through friendship centres. Will their funding be going up? It sounds like they're doing wonderful work, so it will be important for them to get that kind of increase in funding.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: They usually get amounts commensurate with what's needed to deliver the programs they're sponsoring or partnering in a meaningful way. They get the administrative fee, which is usually anywhere from 15% to 25%, although I shouldn't say that, because it differs.

    The other thing is we will be expanding child care, but in this last allotment announced yesterday it is only for on reserve.

    I meant to mention when Minister Goodale was speaking that one of the things we have been able to do in Human Resources Development Canada is address one aspect of the royal commission recommendation. They asked for a ten-year training program, and we developed a five-year program for $1.6 billion. It covers the Métis, Inuit, first nations, CAP, and the native women of Canada both on and off reserve. The friendship centres are service delivery agents, and they apply to deliver programs or partner with other groups.

    We've had to fight very hard to find the appropriate accommodations. It hasn't been easy to do, but we did it out of necessity. Basically, training is available to everyone and is not necessarily tied to any section in the Constitution. It's not a right as such, or an entitlement. It's a program we've developed that people have had.

    The new money will help expand existing sites, do renovations, buy equipment, fund new spaces, old sites, and some new sites.

    Aren't they good; they just provide all this information. I'm not that smart, by the way. I'm just kidding--I am, but not on all these tasks.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Are you finished, Ms. Lill?

    Ms. Wendy Lill: Yes.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Mr. Tonks.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: Thank you.

    Just to follow up on the line of questioning, on the friendship centres I'm trying to find the major threshold we cross toward the comprehensive integration of programs and the input you get on from the aboriginal community in developing those programs. If we go back to the aboriginal urban strategy of 1998, the head start program emanated from that, and the creation of friendship centres. We have a number of thresholds.

    In terms of the early childhood resources that are going to be expanded and the report Gathering Strength--Canada's Aboriginal Action Plan, is that the threshold we go over in creating an integrated model? To what extent is the community being consulted, for example friendship centres, in developing proposals and programs?

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    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: The aboriginal head start program has full participation of a national committee and then they have provincial and territorial participation at various levels. Basically, there's consultation all the way down to the local communities. I feel very comfortable with the way those programs were developed. I know head start, the prenatal nutrition, and all of those programs have the participation of and extensive consultation with key stakeholders. Some of the representatives from those key stakeholder organizations are even in the groups that help design and put forward ideas for building these programs.

    I can tell you that's one of the reasons it's so successful. There's buy-in; there's ownership. And there's a sense of pride in what's been put forward as a program, especially with head start, but also with the aboriginal human resources development strategy. They're successful programs for those very same reasons. The people feel they have ownership of them. They take pride in them.

    With the aboriginal human resources development strategy--even though we're not talking about that, we're talking about a consultation process--we started the renewal process the first year after it expired. We have five years. We're in the last year. It expires 2004. We've been doing a consultation and renewal process for the last three years--not the last six months, not the last year, but for an extensive period--with the actual stakeholders, which is very helpful. I think you'll see this with all the programs we are involved in.

    Is there anything else--any wonderful gems there?

    We have the involvement of other departments that also have an interest. Generally, you have HRDC, Health, and INAC. Of course, we never move without the PCO and/or PMO. We always have someone there in the midst to do the machinery-of-government issues, but the consultation is very extensive.

    Mr. Alan Tonks: I have a sidebar to that, if I may, Madam Chair.

    In regard to the five pilot projects that were mentioned by the previous minister, is there also a crossover with respect to program development that will feed into the five pilot projects that were mentioned?

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: I think it's still early days, wouldn't you say?

    Mr. Allan MacDonald: Yes, I think it is still early days. But certainly the thought is that in the eight pilot projects that Mr. Goodale hopes to kick off in the new year, part of it will be to see how Health Canada operates, how Canadian Heritage operates on the ground, to bring all the federal resources together through this strategy to better focus our efforts and choose the priorities of those communities. So there will be consultation with our colleagues from Health Canada and other government departments and with community advocates on the ground, like the friendship centres, which will play an important role, a consultative role, in the process.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Are there any other questions?

    Mr. Gagnon, go ahead.

[Translation]

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon (Lac-Saint-Jean—Saguenay, BQ): Good afternoon. Thank you for coming here today.

    I was wondering whether your points of service are the same throughout the different provinces. For example, is it the same thing in Ontario and in Quebec?

[English]

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Are you referring to the points of service for all these programs?

[Translation]

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: I am referring to those that were discussed, FAS/FAE.

[English]

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: Well, as you can probably see, the programs are not all delivered through the same agencies or partners. Twenty-nine percent of them are delivered by friendship centres for CAPC. The rest could be bands or other kinds of agencies. It would be different where you have large urban populations from where you have rural communities. What happens in Edmonton would be different from what happens in Paulatuk, which is a small community in the Arctic. So it's not all the same.

    The capacity is also not all the same, but people do what they can to deliver the programs according to the standards that are set. The safety of the children, the objectives of the programs, are basically the same no matter where they're delivered.

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[Translation]

    Mr. Sébastien Gagnon: In previous hearings, we heard the representative of the Quebec native friendship centres. It would appear that they are not quite as well equipped as those of other provinces, for example. Reference was made to the fact that certain programs were provided by other services in Quebec. The idea was to provide the most effective type of intervention and to find out whether in Quebec, for example, the native friendship centres are the best vehicle for providing such services.

[English]

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: This would probably be best answered by the heritage department, because the capacity of friendship centres is built by that department.

    In partnering with them on any other kinds of projects, we give them the funds to carry out those projects, what would be needed and identified to carry out, for instance, a head start project or a prenatal nutrition project. We're not there to build the overall capacity of the friendship centre to deliver all its projects that might be within the purview of our department, like the health projects or anything else like that. So it probably would be better referred to the heritage department, which actually does the funding of friendship centres. We're looking at two different issues here.

    I agree with you that if there were more....

    I've been to a friendship centre in Quebec, and I thought it was very well.... It was in Madame Robillard's riding at one point. But I haven't been to all of them, so I don't know what their level of capacity is.

    Merci.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Are there any further questions?

    Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

    I was just looking at the Library of Parliament notes for your presentation, Madam Minister, and I was wondering if perhaps you could respond to this particular question. It talks about the under-representation of aboriginals in the national longitudinal survey of children and youth. I'm wondering what steps might be taken to address the situation of under-representation with off-reserve aboriginal children.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: I'm sort of here on behalf of Health Canada today, but I wear two hats, because I work with HRDC. I have someone who could probably respond to that more adequately.

    I'll just put it this way. I'm not prepared for that question. It's fairly technical.

    Do you want to introduce yourself and take that?

    Mr. Aron Spector (Senior Analyst, Strategic Policy Group, Department of Human Resources Development): Hi, I'm Aron Spector. I'm senior analyst for the strategic policy group of HRDC.

    One of the issues is in the NLSCY, the national longitudinal survey of children and youth. The issue there is the inadequate sample size. It's a survey that deals with all children in Canada, and there's just a small proportion of children who are aboriginal.

    As a result of that, we've now initiated a new study. We've obtained funding, and we're at the very early stages of it. It's called the aboriginal children's survey. The aboriginal children's survey will focus primarily upon children zero to six, children both on reserve and off reserve, and will attempt to alleviate the problems of inadequate sample size in the NLSCY.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: How are the questions developed for the survey? As I understand, there were some real issues with the particular kinds of questions that were originally laid out for the national survey for the general population. So could you address the issue of how the questions were developed for the survey?

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    Mr. Aron Spector: The questions have not as yet been developed.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Oh, they haven't?

    Mr. Aron Spector: We're now at the feasibility study. The only thing I can say about that is that wherever possible and in order to allow for comparability, we will be using NLSCY questions.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Right.

    Mr. Aron Spector: That's wherever possible.

    We will be going into the field and doing consultations with all aboriginal groups, and we will try to develop questions that are sensitive to the particularities having to do with aboriginal culture and issues within the aboriginal community.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: How are you going to identify off-reserve aboriginal kids?

    Mr. Aron Spector: That's a very interesting question. Again, we're at the very early stages of doing that. We have a real problem, for example, with regard to children who have not been born yet. We will be asking questions about children who are zero to six. So that's an issue. We will be looking at the information we've gathered through the census and supplementary material that was gathered through the APS. But that's only a starting point.

    I can't really go beyond that, because there are a number of issues and questions that StatsCan is trying to address. They're probably the more appropriate persons to talk to in that regard. They don't have the answers yet either.

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Canada's relationship with its first nations and other aboriginal people is certainly different from most countries' relationship with their indigenous peoples. The relationship we have in Canada is very different from, for example, that of the Australians and their Aborigine people and New Zealanders and the Maori. I was in New Zealand and met with the children's ombudsman or commissioner, whatever they have there. Some of the conversation had to do with issues related to the Maori people. To be honest with you, a lot of concerns are very similar. There are probably good reasons as to why those problems exist that are very similar, and there are probably very distinct reasons as well.

    Even though Canada has a different approach and a different relationship and we have different aboriginal populations and a different history, I'm wondering if any research has been done by either department, through you, Madam Minister, on international regimes where you've been able to use some of their experience or gain some wisdom in how to gather the data and understand the problem and then also provide solutions through programs and other approaches.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: One of the prime examples would be the head start program. The initial head start model, which was thrown about quite a while ago, was the one that was done in Hawaii.

    We're not ashamed to take good ideas and expand, reduce, or shape them to our needs. I think the advantage we have these days is that through the Internet and the exchanges we have internationally there's always an exchange of good information taking place. Not only do we take from other countries, but also they borrow from us. We have to recognize that. The one thing I did want to say is that we always welcome good ideas, and we're not afraid to take them and use them.

    In addition to what was said on the survey, we're at a point in the aboriginal community where we've developed a lot of professional people who have the capacity to help to design those surveys and questions taking into account the linguistic and cultural sensitivities and to actually break down those barriers. StatsCan has always had huge problems.

    Any of the groups that wanted to do surveys nationally have always cited three things: the remoteness; the linguistic challenges; and the cost of going into northern aboriginal communities. It's an onerous task. I think we've gone beyond that. Caledon Institute did one on aboriginal youth and one on aboriginal literacy, which were very good.

    So times have changed. We have a lot of aboriginal professional people who can help to bridge that gap, but we have to have the resources to enlist those people to do that. I think we're in that world now. We can actually do that, and it will make a difference in the kind of product we come up with.

»  (1700)  

    Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you very much.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Are there any other questions by any members of the committee? No.

    Thank you very much for staying today, particularly when you had another meeting to go to, which I assume you're off to now. I think this has been a very lively and good discussion. Thank you.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: May I say something?

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Absolutely.

    Ms. Ethel Blondin-Andrew: I think the questions reflect the interests and the dedication of your committee. I want to congratulate them on pursuing their agenda on children. I think it's so important for our country. I just wanted to thank them for their good questions and their participation.

    The Acting Chair (Ms. Anita Neville): Thank you.

    The meeting is adjourned.