Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 18 - Evidence, May 1, 2002
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 1, 2002
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 5:50 p.m. to examine access, provision and delivery of services, policy and jurisdictional issues, employment and education, access to economic opportunities, youth participation and empowerment, and other related matters.
Senator Thelma J. Chalifoux (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good evening and welcome. This is an important action plan for change looking at how we can improve the lives of urban Aboriginal people, especially the youth within the cities.
I should like to welcome you both. Dr. Valaskakis, please introduce your colleague.
Dr. Gail Valaskakis, Director of Research, Aboriginal Healing Foundation: With me is Giselle Robelin, who works in the communications department of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation thanks you very much for inviting a presentation to the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. We know this is an extremely important area, and we are grateful to be included in your deliberations.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation, as you may know, is a federally funded, Aboriginal-run, not-for-profit corporation. It was established in March 1998 to support the healing initiatives for those who were affected by the physical and sexual abuse that occurred in Canada's residential schools. That includes the intergenerational impacts of those residential schools.
The foundation addresses that legacy through funding community-based, holistic healing projects that are developed under the terms of our funding agreement and also on the basis of ongoing dialogue with Aboriginal people. We hold regular gatherings across the country. We have a great many hits on our Web site. We produce newsletters and have a lot of communication with Aboriginal people.
The agreement provided $350 million to a healing fund. We were given one year to set up, five years to spend or commit the funds, and that included the interest, and four years to monitor the projects and submit a final report. That final report will be submitted on March 31, 2008, the end of our 10-year period. That will be the end of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation as we know it now.
Our focus is on the prevention of abuse and the process of reconciliation between victims and offenders, between Aboriginal people and Canadians. Intergenerational impacts among First Nations, Metis and Inuit are a priority focus of what we are doing at the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. We have priority areas in terms of both regions and communities of interest. Youth is an important community of interest.
As a reminder — I am sure people know this — between 1847 and 1969, approximately 130 boarding schools, industrial schools or hostels operated in Canada. They were run as a partnership between the Canadian government and the major churches, including primarily the Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, United and Presbyterian Churches. Though the government ceased this partnership in April 1969, a number of boarding schools continued in some form or another until the 1970s or 1980s. The schools were focused on assimilating, acculturating and Christianizing Aboriginal children who, after 1920, were obligated to go to school from the age of five to 15.
The 1991 Aboriginal Peoples Survey by StatsCan found that approximately 105,000 to 107,000 survivors of the residential school system were still alive at that time. The 2001 Aboriginal Peoples Survey suggests that 93,000 are alive at this time. In the earlier survey, of those survivors, 80 per cent were First Nations, 9 per cent were Metis — Metis were not supposed to be in boarding schools, but indeed they were — 6 per cent were non-status and 5 per cent were Inuit.
Almost 70 per cent of those claiming Aboriginal origins today live in cities or off reserve. Many of those people were affected by the intergenerational impacts of residential schools. According to the most recent survey data, Aboriginal people under the age of 25 constitute 56.2 per cent of the total Aboriginal population. People in residential schools were impacted through the loss of their families, their communities, their language and culture. Many Aboriginal youth have also been impacted indirectly. Many of the people who were in residential schools either witnessed or themselves suffered physical and sexual abuse. It is that intergenerational impact that is important to the work of the committee and to the work of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.
According to the 1996 census, youth make up 60 per cent of the Inuit population, 50 per cent of the Metis population and 54 per cent of the First Nations population. That figure is 50 per cent in census metropolitan areas. Other people have appeared before the committee and given you much greater demographic detail, but I wanted to bring that to your attention once again.
Youth today are not direct survivors of residential schools. The impact of abuse, however, is passed on from generation to generation. That is the legacy of residential schools. That is the legacy that we are addressing at the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. Intergenerational impacts are the effects of the physical and sexual abuse that are passed on to children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Aboriginal people who attended residential schools.
There is a wide range of intergenerational impacts. I have included in the brief two suggested lists of intergenerational impacts. One comes from the doctoral thesis of Rosalind Ing, who suggests that there are 46 intergenerational impacts. She did an interesting study in relation to residential schools over three generations: second, third and fourth generation Aboriginal people. That is in the first appendix to your package. The second is from the Nuxalk Nation Community Healing and Wellness Development Plan compiled in 2000. That suggests 32 intergenerational impacts of residential schools. It is found in the second appendix. There are others, but I bring those two to your attention.
One of the things that the committee raised is the definition of ``youth.'' I am sure you are aware of this, but I wanted to explain that different Aboriginal organizations have different definitions. The National Association of Friendship Centres, the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples and the Métis National Council talk about ``youth'' as age 15 to 24. The Inuit Tapirisat, or Tapiriit Kanatami, uses a broader range. They talk about ``youth'' as age 13 to 29. Finally, the Assembly of First Nations, the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Aboriginal Healing Foundation all define it as age 18 to 24. There are reasons for defining ``youth'' differently, but it is something that the committee might want to consider.
The Aboriginal Healing Foundation has produced an interim evaluation report, which I have included in the package. I would be pleased to send any additional information that people would like to have. That evaluation is based on 36 sample files and a survey of 344 projects that were active in January 2001. On the basis of the 74 per cent response to that survey, which is high, we know that 1,686 communities were being served at that time, and that 29 per cent of those communities were urban. We know that approximately 59,000 participants in healing activities responded to that survey. That was much higher than we expected.
The most amazing finding is that only 1 per cent of those people had ever been involved, according to their survey responses, in healing activities prior to the creation of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. We are hitting a target group that had not engaged in healing prior to that, for whatever reason.
Of the participants in healing, 44 per cent were male. That is also quite remarkable because a lot of Aboriginal men had not accessed healing. Fifty-three per cent were female.
Almost 11,000 people were participating in training programs — First Nations on reserve 60 per cent, off reserve 26 per cent, Metis 9 per cent, and Inuit 5 per cent. Again, there is less participation in urban areas than on reserves, but it is sizable nonetheless.
Another remarkable feature was that over 7,500 people identified themselves as having special needs in regard to healing that related to their having suffered severe trauma whose impact they still felt, the inability to participate in a group, or a history of suicide attempts or life-threatening addictions — indications of a need for some precise and long- term healing.
It is of interest that 24.5 per cent of our funding was invested in urban areas. We spent $2,000,547 and-some-cents on youth projects. If we look at projects in which youth are specified — they are included, in other words, with other people, but they are specified as one of the target groups — then our budget goes up to $3,397,637. Youth, although not necessarily in urban areas, have benefited from a quarter of the money that we have spent at the Aboriginal Healing Foundation to date.
As of today, we have committed $208,765,867.37 to 922 projects. However, the 24.5 per cent I just gave you would have applied to the money that had been spent when we did the evaluation in January 2001. I am not sure that we are still spending a quarter of the funds on youth, although I suspect we are.
I wanted to bring to your attention that our board is concerned about youth issues. Because of that and because youth are a priority, we actually held a small conference where we convened 21 people who were either representatives of projects that we fund or of national organizations. We got them together for three days and asked the following: What kind of projects do you think are important? How might youth participate more meaningfully? What do you think we should be looking at in regard to best practices for youth projects?
At the current time, 79 of our 908 board-approved projects serve youth along with others and 48 serve youth only, of which 14 are targeted as urban Aboriginal youth projects. Summaries of those projects have been appended to the documents you have received.
You want to be able to replicate best practices in the Aboriginal youth projects. You want something adaptable, a technique or intervention that can address healing needs of Aboriginal youth, and urban youth in particular, in many different contexts.
An overview of the growing literature on best practice shows it is focused very much on governance, administration, systemic aspects of organizations and accountability. We are very interested, and we have just begun research on this, in focusing on best healing practices. What kinds of practices emerge from what we have learned through our evaluations and also through the evaluations the projects conduct themselves that we can share with our communities? In other words, what can be learned about prevention, interventions and recovery from the intergenerational impacts of residential schools?
Some of those best practices — and some of them are systemic, they are of the sort that I mentioned — have already begun to emerge, and they come to light from the characteristics of the projects that we are funding, but also from the responses of our youth at the conference that we held.
I would like to bring six of those to your attention. One is that projects are most effective — and this was the number one thing our youth pointed out — when they are initiated and administered by youth. That is now the number one priority in our board's youth strategy: We must have youth-accountable and youth-administered projects.
They are probably most effective when they are partnered with or integrated into other community services. They should involve elders, parents and mentors.
It is really interesting that the number one recommendation of the 30 that they made is to tell youth about residential schools. Our parents and grandparents went there, and they will not talk about it. We do not know what they experienced. Please let us meet with our parents and our grandparents; create situations where we have to talk to them and we can be with them. Let us meet elders; we want to.
That is indicative of the third point, that they really must involve parents, elders and mentors in different situations. Projects should build identity, community and a sense of belonging. I will speak about that sense of belonging and how important that is in regard to suicide in just a minute.
Projects promote Aboriginal language and culture. Language, of course, is the medium, the carrier of culture, and culture is the carrier of belonging, of community, of family. For that reason, it is really important that that be the focus.
We recognize that healing is a long-term process; it will not happen overnight. It has physical, spiritual, emotional and social dimensions. We must address that wider scope.
I want to speak about one critical issue facing Aboriginal youth, including urban Aboriginal youth, and that is youth suicide. As we know, Aboriginal youth in the cities are vulnerable to poverty and cultural and social alienation. That fosters deeply antisocial, sometimes self-destructive behaviours. It is important to realize that we have done very little research into these kinds of issues.
I speak regularly with Laurence Kirmayer, as we are co-chairing the Aboriginal mental health research network. He is well-known for his work on suicide and did a formidable and fundamental study on youth suicide for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. He currently sits on Health Canada's advisory group on suicide prevention. I asked him about information on suicide among Aboriginal youth in urban areas. He said there is nothing that he knows of.
Senators surely are better informed, but there is nothing he knows of, and therefore nothing I know of, that precisely targets urban Aboriginal youth suicide.
In looking at the data generally, there are many areas in which there is nothing dealing precisely with urban Aboriginal youth. Thus, one of the very important roles this committee can have is in regard to research in these areas.
At the same time, we can look at information from other areas. There is research being done on land-based groups, including on suicide rates. It is five to six times higher among Aboriginal youth than other peers, and the number is even larger if one looks at attempted suicides, self-inflicted injuries, and accidents, which are also significantly, that is, two to three times, higher. This is an extremely important area. Because the risk factors are presented in different ways in urban areas, and the ways that one would foster belonging are different, it is really critical that that kind of research be done.
However, I want to point out to you one study that gained a great deal of attention recently. It was done in 1998 by Chandler and LaLonde, in which they surveyed 196 communities in British Columbia over a five-year period. They recognized a relationship between cultural continuity and youth suicide. The research is really quite astounding, as they took six factors and analyzed them in relation to communities and to a continuum of suicide rates.
They discovered that personal identity formation that is critical during youth is linked not only to a sense of belonging, but a realization that one is connected to one's own past and that one is building a future. A sense of cultural continuity and a sense of empowerment are critical.
They also found cultural continuity is revealed and expressed in a series of activities and practices a community engages in with its members. Those activities and practices showed they had some control over their lives. They have looked at governance. Because they studied land-based communities, they looked at land claims. They looked at education, health and cultural facilities and control over policing and firefighting. They found that the practices that contribute to cultural continuity are interrelated and that their effectiveness is interdependent.
When you look at these six activities on a continuum, and at the continuum in relation to suicide rates, you find that it went from zero to 500 to 800 times the national average, and that there was a direct correlation between communities that engaged in no activities or practices related to these six factors and communities that had activities and practices related to all six. That is a really striking piece of work.
Other people are saying maybe there are other reasons. The authors themselves say maybe there are, but it is a very convincing piece of work that will stimulate other people to do more on this.
What it really indicates is the importance of a sense of cultural belonging, of community. We know that cities and urban areas are not necessarily places where the culture of Aboriginal people is strengthened or supported. Many Aboriginal people live in a very blended world in urban areas, but they really are Metis, First Nations or Inuit, and they feel that belonging very strongly.
There is a deep legacy of colonialism, and that includes sexual and physical abuse, from the residential school system, and that has made it very difficult to maintain cohesion and health in Aboriginal families. Urban Aboriginal people often fall into a cultural and service void between the jurisdictional areas of the federal and provincial governments, and that does not help matters either.
Improving the personal, social and economic prospects has to do with a number of areas. One is research, as I mentioned. It has such an important role in helping us learn more about urban Aboriginal youth. The second is the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal support for culturally relevant and community-based urban Aboriginal initiatives.
I would suggest three kinds. One is youth-initiated and administered healing projects, not unlike the ones of which we have included profiles, because that is what youth are interested in.
The second is the Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres, which is a wonderful example of pulling together the six best practice items I mentioned into a flexible format that is available in urban areas.
Finally, friendship centres, women's shelters, halfway houses and other community organizations should provide services for urban Aboriginal youth.
The Chairman: Thank you very much for a very interesting and informative presentation.
I have several comments. My father was a product of the residential school system. My uncle died a simple man because of the effects of that system. My children had to attend one for a while, and my oldest son experienced some different physical terrors, but I tuned them in very well.
I think back on how resilient the First Nations, the Metis and the Inuit were, given the residential school system, the reservation system, the half-breed scrip and the forced Inuit relocation. Our people are so strong they survived all that. That is an important thing that a lot of people do not even realize.
I have to wonder about your percentages, because the Metis were not counted. There were many Metis in the residential schools, but the government did not pay for them. I remember one of my colleagues from many years ago said he attended a residential school for 12 years and learned two things. He learned how to sign his name and how to plant potatoes, because he was a Metis and there was no money for Metis. Your percentages could be a little deceptive because they were not recorded. A lot of Metis and Inuit were forced to go to the residential schools.
Do you focus only on First Nations on reserve or do you consider all of the Aboriginal groups?
Dr. Valaskakis: We consider all of the Aboriginal groups. One of our major priorities is the North, because we have not had as many projects there as we would like.
As you know, the majority of people who attended residential schools did so in the West or the North, and according to the 1991 Aboriginal Peoples Survey, the majority of survivors are living in the Northwest Territories now, but many of the people who actually went to residential schools were in Saskatchewan and other places.
We focus on all Aboriginal people and they are all represented on our board. It is a 17-person board with representatives from First Nations, non-status, status, Metis, Inuit and the five national organizations. Therefore, the women's organization, AFN, et cetera, all have appointees on the board as well as members at large. It is a very interesting experience.
The Chairman: I would like to talk about youth suicide. I was very fortunate to be appointed to the very first Suicide Prevention Committee for the Province of Alberta. Two psychiatrists from the University of Calgary on that committee did a lot of research. I cannot remember their names. It was a long time ago.
I notice that suicide is increasing rather than decreasing, both on and off reserve. Do you feel that what you are doing is helping?
Dr. Valaskakis: It is difficult to know. There is a modelling factor in terms of the literature, so it happens to cluster. That is very difficult to work against, but I do think that talking and healing circles, people having access to elders and better communication with others, and working with peers and mentors do help. It is a long-term process, and we certainly have work to do on suicide.
The Chairman: I can understand that. Now, do you know what percentage of your funding goes to Metis, Inuit or First Nations?
Dr. Valaskakis: We do break it down. I do not know if it is broken down by funding or numbers of projects.
With regard to the Metis, the question on the 1991 Aboriginal Peoples Survey was indirect. The question was: Did you go to school? There was a follow-up question: Was it a residential school? That was the basis for all the information. That is the basis for the 5 per cent Inuit and the 9 per cent Metis, et cetera.
The latest Aboriginal Peoples Survey asks a very direct question: Did you go to a residential school defined as a boarding school, hostel or industrial school? Did any of the following in your family attend such a school? There is a listing, including grandmother, grandfather. We would like to find out how many people were impacted intergenerationally. We will have an answer to your question shortly. When that survey is analyzed, we will have more exact information.
The Chairman: When I sat on the Suicide Prevention Committee for the Province of Alberta, we developed a training module that is still used by the RCMP. We went to Dallas, Texas, to talk about it, and the Americans are using that training module. I found that it did not relate to the Aboriginal communities. We tried to develop a training module related to the Aboriginal people, but we found — and this was 1981-82 — that it was not satisfactory because at that time, nobody would listen to us. Everyone thought that they were the saviours of the Aboriginal people. I hope that a training module is being developed to work with the communities, and especially the youth, because the situation is so tragic. When I see eight- and nine-year-olds committing suicide, when I hear of 11- and 12-year-olds committing suicide, I wonder what we as Aboriginal people are doing. What are we doing to work in partnership with mainstream society in Canada?
Do you have any information on training modules relevant to Aboriginal people?
Dr. Valaskakis: Training modules are being developed, as well as curriculum units and other material, and we will find that the report of the advisory group on suicide prevention of Health Canada and the Assembly of First Nations, which is coming out very soon, will have some very good material to share with us as well.
The Chairman: Are there Metis, Inuit and First Nations on those committees?
Dr. Valaskakis: There is not on that committee, to my knowledge.
The Chairman: That is where the mistake is. Unless you have consultation — and we have very well educated people in our communities now who understand the culture and the history — no matter how well meaning members of the non-Aboriginal community are, they cannot relate. There must be Aboriginal input into their training modules and their curriculum, in my opinion.
Dr. Valaskakis: We only fund Aboriginal organizations, so the training modules and curriculum units that we are producing through the Aboriginal Healing Foundation are indeed Aboriginal-based.
The Chairman: Who is doing it?
Dr. Valaskakis: This committee on suicide prevention is in Health Canada, and it is working with AFN, but to my knowledge, it does not have Inuit and Metis members.
The Chairman: Are they working with the Metis National Council or the Congress of Aboriginal People?
Dr. Valaskakis: I doubt that they are on this particular one.
The Chairman: It is important that our leadership become involved because that way, it gets down into our communities.
Dr. Valaskakis: In regard to the money that is going to Metis, I will have to look it up in the evaluation. I will submit that to you.
Senator Christensen: The statistics are extremely useful. How are your projects developed? How do people access them? How do we put the meat on the bones and actually have things happen in communities, or wherever the need is? Where is that? I did not see it here.
Dr. Valaskakis: The communities themselves apply for funding for projects. Because we were a new organization, many people did not apply initially. What we did was twofold. We have regional community workers across the country. We had 10 originally. We now have six because we are well on the way to moving into another stage of development. These workers were in the communities talking about the foundation, the nature of the projects and helping people understand the application forms. They were holding workshops in communities to talk about the issues, the resources and the meaning of the various terms.
That has been an extremely successful program because they are the eyes and ears of the foundation in the communities.
We made small grants of $5,000 when we first started for people to hire, if they chose, someone to help them complete these grant application forms.
We do that because we are working in the area of healing, which is not an easy thing. We wanted to do something solid. We also wanted to fund projects on their merits and not prorate the money. At the same time, we did not want to discourage people. We encourage them to resubmit their applications.
During the first round we did say, ``No.'' However, we then became aware of how we could better help communities. We would send back a series of documents saying, ``You do not have this. Please detail a treatment plan for that.'' They would then respond. No one was automatically turned down.
The success rate has changed dramatically. In part, that is because we have taken a great deal of time to analyze what comes in from communities, using it as a learning experience.
Capacity building is one of our focuses. We need to do that since we must form partnerships among the organizations that we fund and other groups, or there will not be sustainable funding. We would then be going down the same trail that many have gone down before.
Our approval rating in the first year was 62.5 per cent. In the second year it was 78.3 per cent. In the current funding year, it is 86.5 per cent. That increase is the result of much work on our part, as well as on the part of the community.
Senator Christensen: I appreciate what you are saying, but once they have gone through this bureaucratic process of making the application, what happens to the people who are supposed to be healed? Who monitors the success rate, not of filling out the applications, but of the people who are receiving the benefits of the project?
Ms Valaskakis: The project monitors it. We have an entire monitoring staff in the finance department. Projects send in quarterly reports that are monitored carefully. To date, funding has only been provided on a one-year basis. People have to reapply.
We will now provide multiyear funding. Again, we have learned, and the communities have learned. Everything is monitored on a quarterly basis.
Senator Christensen: You say ``everything,'' but are the results of the healing process monitored?
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes, but remember that we are a funding organization. We do allow people to define what ``healing'' is for them. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is concerned that we do not dictate healing.
In addition to the evaluation, of which you have a copy, and which we will redo in late 2003 and have it available in 2004, we have done a series of case studies. We have funded 13 different types of projects. One would be a curriculum unit, for instance. Another would be a multidimensional healing centre.
We have eight case studies completed. I would be pleased to send those over to the committee, should you wish to see them.
The problem is that the unit of analysis for those case studies is the community. We have looked at the community in relation to five social indicators, including rates of incarceration, suicide and family domestic violence. We had hoped to look at those communities again in 10 years. We now realize that we will not be around in 10 years. There will be no reason to do that.
Dr. Kirmayer and I co-direct one of the research projects funded through the Canadian Institute of Health Research, namely, the Aboriginal Health Research Project. We will be doing in-depth case studies. We will take six of the case studies and look at them in a much deeper way.
One of the problems is that the board has felt strongly that we should not identify individuals, nor should we invade their privacy in any way. As a researcher, that has made it difficult, because if you cannot follow the healing path of that individual, then you cannot make a judgment on what you are asking, which is, ``Did someone heal? How did they heal? What was the time period, and what were the factors involved in that?''
We had long discussions and struggles over whether people should be named. One reason for that is that one of the exciting projects we are doing, and you are all invited to it, is an exhibit on residential schools in partnership with the National Archives of Canada. The Governor General will open that exhibit on June 17, 2002.
There was great discussion about whether the photographs of people should include their names. One of the board members said, ``I went to residential school for years and years, and I have a photograph of myself next to my abuser. It has taken many years, but I have dealt with that abuse. I do not mind if you name me, but I know that the person standing on the other side of my abuser was also abused. I do not know if that person has dealt with the abuse.'' That was that.
They do now say that we can name people as long as we have appropriate consent. However, we are careful about that, and it is a problem with regard to research.
Senator Johnson: This is obviously a huge topic. My colleague was getting at a concrete example. I know you are a funding agency, but can you give me one example in my province of Manitoba of what you are funding and the results?
Dr. Valaskakis: That is what we attempted to do in the brief.
Senator Johnson: I would like something specific. You hand out the money. They determine the kind of healing process they will use in a given situation. There are 93,000 people alive now who attended residential schools. What is their average age? I guess that it would be in the 50s?
Dr. Valaskakis: Indeed, I do not know what the average age would be.
Senator Johnson: They would be in their 50s to 80s now?
Dr. Valaskakis: I do not know if they would necessarily be in their eighties?
Ms Giselle Robelin, Communications Department, Aboriginal Healing Foundation: The last school closed in 1996, so there would be people who are still relatively young.
Dr. Valaskakis: Participation varies. We have good, solid participation in Manitoba. In the North, it is much more difficult, because one of the measures of our success is whether people are talking about the program more.
That is just beginning to happen in the North.
Senator Johnson: Do you fund Thunderbird Lodge, for example?
Dr. Valaskakis: I do not know about Thunderbird Lodge specifically because there are 999 projects, but I can check that for you. I think we do, actually; it sounds familiar, but I cannot be sure. Every project is listed on the Web site, including how much money they are receiving and a summary of the project.
Senator Johnson: Do you make use of experiential staff at your foundation, people who have come through it?
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes, absolutely. People are asked about those who are survivors. That is one of the aspects and is covered as well in the evaluation.
Senator Johnson: We have not had a chance to read through all of your documents.
Dr. Valaskakis: About 50 per cent of the people working at the foundation are survivors of the residential school system and 88 per cent of the people who are working in the projects are Aboriginal.
Senator Johnson: The most important people impacted are the younger generation — that is, those whose parents and grandparents were in the system. They are your focus. Is education not as important as research? You talked about research, mental health issues and the required cultural continuity in terms of belonging and living in a blended world now. I still think education is important, too.
Dr. Valaskakis: I do not think the intergenerational aspect is the most important, rather I suspect that the survivors themselves are important. The intergenerational impacts are very important, as is education.
We have a number of projects developing curricula on residential schools, and we too are doing the same, because there has been so much interest in this area. That, again, is because the young people feel it is absolutely necessary to talk about issues that their parents and grandparents are extremely reluctant to discuss.
Senator Johnson: Are they still reluctant?
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes, they are, particularly in the North.
Senator Johnson: I do not find that to be the case in Winnipeg and some of the other centres. What can be done about that? I suppose we can just work on more projects with people who have been involved and make use of the available expertise.
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes. Parenting skills are necessary as well.
Senator Johnson: Of course, this ties into all the other work we are trying to do in our study of urban Aboriginal youth. I remember a residential school on Academy Road in Winnipeg that no one was allowed to go near when we were kids. It sat there in the middle of the city, on a major road in an affluent area, but it was off limits to everyone. People came out of that kind of system and are now living in the city, where they have raised their families. It has been three generations and we are still dealing with those issues. Is that what you are finding?
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes, we are definitely still dealing with those issues.
Senator Johnson: How successful do you think we will be?
Dr. Valaskakis: There will be a range of success.
Senator Johnson: I am talking about people feeling some measure of peace and a level of comfort with the past. How many more generations will this take?
Dr. Valaskakis: I do not think there is a quick fix in healing. However, this sense of belonging and of fostering the lost identity of Aboriginal people is the secret to that.
I do not know if I should speak on the basis of my own experience, but I was the founding director of the Native Friendship Centre in Montreal and served on that board for eight years; I was also the president. I did a great deal of work in the prisons back in those days. I was always struck by the fact that the prison brotherhoods and sisterhoods were really the training grounds for leadership. As people got involved in those, you would actually see the shift from a kind of criminal identity, which is probably not a proper term, to an Aboriginal identity. As that shift occurred, there was also a shift from, ``poor me, woe is me, look what happened to me in life,'' to ``look what happened to the people'' — period. A sense grew that it was just a system and that the people who survived it could do something about it. This incredible change occurred and people really put themselves headlong into working for the Aboriginal community. I have always been struck by the fact that that identity of belonging and seeing one's past and future, such as one sees reflected in the Chandler and Lalonde study, is very persuasive in thinking of a way to approach long-term healing. So much of what we see around us is a kind of dysfunctional Aboriginal world — the Aboriginal gangs, for example, are, in a sense, another way of belonging. They are a formation of community.
Healing is so much cheaper than incarceration. We did a study of two successful healing programs, and I would be pleased to send those documents to you. We partnered with Aboriginal Corrections on a cost/benefit analysis of healing.
Senator Johnson: That would be great.
Dr. Valaskakis: That is indicative of the fact that healing is a lot cheaper than incarceration or having people on welfare. Education is much cheaper than welfare.
Senator Johnson: Yes, that is what I am saying. I find that there has been change in my own community of Manitoba, where I grew up with Aboriginals in Gimli and went to school with them. There are young people who are not carrying this burden around anymore, unlike those who are my age who could have been in the system. There are good programs, that I have seen, and I commend you. I look forward to reading the rest of these documents. You are a dynamic individual and the work you are doing will be helpful to our committee. Although you are a funding agency, you can appreciate what it is like for people around this table who have come from the North or the West, have grown up with Aboriginal peoples and have been extraordinarily distressed about the lack of movement over the years. I see now that there is much movement and good things are happening. Suicide is still a factor, but I think we are making progress.
Dr. Valaskakis: I believe we are making progress. There are strong Aboriginal people in the urban world, and we can draw on them.
Senator Johnson: That is right. They have more role models and mentors now.
Dr. Valaskakis: I would be pleased to submit any information that would be of use to this committee.
Senator Hubley: I too thank you for your presentation this evening.
You were established, I believe, in 1998 to support the healing initiatives of the Aboriginal people who were affected by the physical and sexual abuse in Canada's residential school system. You are addressing a specific area of concern. Are your projects perhaps different from those that would be presented to other Aboriginal agencies?
Dr. Valaskakis: I think so. The critical difference is our insistence that, first, they must be community based and, secondly, they must be holistic healing projects. At the same time, there is a range, because curriculum obviously does not sound like a holistic healing project. Somehow, whatever they do must relate to, first, residential school survivors and, secondly, physical and sexual abuse.
Senator Hubley: Do you find that Aboriginal people have taken ownership of the search for a healing process, given the opportunity?
Dr. Valaskakis: Very much so. There has been a real response to that.
Senator Hubley: That is very encouraging.
Dr. Valaskakis: ``Healing'' is a word in widespread use now in the Aboriginal community. It is being taken up in a general way, but people are also engaged in healing. That is wonderful. People are talking and working with each other. Peer groups are working with elders. There is much more attention to this now than in the past.
Senator Léger: In 1981 you said, ``no one listened,'' and in 1998 we realized the need. Your research will continue until 2008?
Dr. Valaskakis: The Aboriginal Healing Foundation itself, which will fund the projects. Research is a small aspect because the Aboriginal Healing Foundation was a response, in part, to RCAP, the royal commission. In our funding agreement, the emphasis is on research on implementing, evaluating, designing or redesigning healing projects. Healing is the focus.
Senator Léger: That is until 2008. Am I right in my understanding of what was said a while ago, that there were no Aboriginals presently involved in the leadership? In other words, if you continue to 2008, can you change the present leaders? As you find them, can you add them, or do you have to wait until 2008?
Dr. Valaskakis: You mean in our organization?
Senator Léger: Yes.
Dr. Valaskakis: Our organization is entirely Aboriginal. They are all Aboriginal leaders.
Senator Léger: I misunderstood something, then.
The Chairman: I think we were talking about Health Canada.
Dr. Valaskakis: The Health Canada group, perhaps.
Senator Léger: It was something we mentioned here.
The Chairman: Yes, it was the Health Canada advisory committee.
Dr. Valaskakis: That advisory group includes Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, but I think the Aboriginal people are appointees of the Assembly of First Nations.
Senator Léger: Therefore, that cannot be changed. It is not your department. Is that the conclusion?
Dr. Valaskakis: The Aboriginal Healing Foundation is an entirely Aboriginal organization. The 17 board members are all Aboriginal.
Senator Léger: I understood from you that when applicants present a project, you do not simply say, ``No, that is not right,'' and you tell them to reapply. Can you also send a person to help them out because often these papers are hard to follow? Is that a good idea?
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes, we do that through our community support workers. We did have 10; we now have six, I believe. They visit communities upon request and do exactly that. That has been a successful aspect of what we have done.
Senator Léger: My personal experience of questionnaires is that very often, the questions are asked in such a way that we do not really understand — when I say ``we,'' I imagine it is the same for Aboriginals. We have the same good intentions but the process is long. That is why I wondered whether a human being was also accompanying the letter, as much as we can do that.
Senator Johnson was talking about the positive reviews. Do send them out. Spread the word, please. When we heard about suicide and all these terrible things that happened, which is the basis of your study, I was crying because I have never been faced with this before. When I heard about that, I became extremely emotional. We must bring the suicide rates down. Please spread the good news about all the successful work and accomplishments of the Aboriginals.
Senator Johnson: I have found my list of projects and I wanted to ask about this one: The Winnipeg Metis Association received $345,800 for a project to determine the needs of residential school survivors and their families and then to develop a holistic healing program. These residential school survivors would have to be in their 50s. I suppose the focus would then be on the families. Would that be why they have received that much money?
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes.
Senator Johnson: I will find out about this program at home. I was curious to know if you had any information.
Dr. Valaskakis: It would be youth and their families.
Senator Johnson: We would have to ask them how many residential school survivors are actually involved in this particular program. It is a Metis association. However, I am sure that if I went to them, they could give me further details.
Dr. Valaskakis: Yes. We would have exact numbers on the application form, because they must submit how many people involved in or advising on their project are residential school survivors.
Senator Johnson: Before we go on the road in the fall, we must decide where we will go and to whom we will talk. I have not had a chance to read all the material, but I noticed that there are two or three here from Winnipeg or other parts of Manitoba. I did not know anything about one of them and I usually know about the ones in Winnipeg, at least.
Dr. Valaskakis: I can provide you with more information on the ones from Manitoba, if you like.
Senator Johnson: We will probably come to you for more information as we finalize our travel plans. We want to find out more about these things on site so that we can integrate it with the rest of our work.
The Chairman: I just happened to find this in your documents, too. I only see one from Alberta, and that is from Lethbridge. What is happening with our youth projects in Alberta?
Dr. Valaskakis: There are not as many youth projects as one would imagine, I think, and part of the reason is that it is difficult for youth to apply for projects like this. That is why we held the conference. We had hoped to have a second youth conference but, as it happens, we will hold a large residential school conference in 2004. We will have youth gather as part of that, but we will not have a separate conference for them now. I agree with you. It is surprising how few Aboriginal youth in urban areas are organized to apply for projects.
The Chairman: I find they are getting organized, but do they know about the projects? I know they have heard about the healing foundation, but do they feel that they could apply? I think it could be a lack of communication.
Dr. Valaskakis: You may be right. It is difficult to get in contact with youth. We have tried to go through the youth delegates at the conference we held.
The Chairman: I can assure you that they will be made aware of it as soon as I get home.
Dr. Valaskakis: Good. I mentioned that the board has a youth strategy, because they are so concerned about youth. A special issue of our newsletter dealt with youth. We forgot to bring it, but we could send it over.
The Chairman: I would appreciate that.
Dr. Valaskakis: A part of our Web site is devoted to youth so they can talk to each other about issues. We have tried to emphasize youth more. We have a youth member on our board. The original group that gathered in what we call ``the Squamish meeting'' suggested that. That board member communicates with youth as well, but I know that we are not as successful as we would like.
The Chairman: I would appreciate it if you could send me the information so I could get it out to our youth, because I deal with them pretty well all the time throughout Alberta.
Dr. Valaskakis: I will.
The Chairman: If there are no other questions or comments from any of the committee members, I thank you both very much for making this presentation. It gives us hope. I know lots of things are happening in the communities in spite of the lack of funding and the lack of communication. I am sure we will be in touch with you again.
Dr. Valaskakis: We are grateful to be invited. I just remembered that we have one grant program for projects under $50,000, and I will send that application form over, because that would be very good for youth. Many of the youth who have applied for that have been successful, because that is not as complicated to fill out.
Again, thank you. You are doing important work and we are very grateful for it.
The Chairman: Thank you.
The committee adjourned.