Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 22 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Tuesday, June 11, 2002
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:07 a.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: Honourable senators, I wish to welcome our witnesses. First some history.
These hearings are being held in the Aboriginal Room. The room was dedicated about four years ago with a special ceremony that took place here. Therefore, it is a special room, particularly for Aboriginal people of Canada. I feel it creates a good atmosphere for us to discuss some very important issues.
This committee has decided to draft an action plan for change concerning urban Aboriginal issues, with a particular focus on youth. Honourable senators are well aware that Aboriginal youth is the fastest growing population in Canada. We live on the sidelines in the urban centres, and there are many serious issues facing us that we must address.
I have always said that Aboriginal people have been studied to death. We do not need more studies; we need an action plan for change. That is what this committee has decided to do.
Please proceed, Mr. Coon Come.
Mr. Matthew Coon Come, National Chief, Assembly of First Nations: [Mr. Coon Come spoke in his native language]
Honourable senators, I was just speaking in my own language, the Cree language, to welcome everyone here this morning. I have the privilege of sharing this presentation with Ms Ginger Gosnell and Mr. Terry Young. They are young people who will help in our discussions and deliberations. I will proceed with the presentation and they will intervene as we go along.
The Assembly of First Nations, the AFN, is a national organization representing all First Nations peoples in this country. The First Nations, or ``Indians,'' are one of the three Aboriginal peoples recognized in section 35 of Canada's Constitution Act of 1982. Section 35 also recognizes existing inherent Aboriginal and treaty rights of our peoples.
As committee members know, many of our First Nations signed treaties with the Crown. The fact that we signed those treaties demonstrated that we, and our nations, were in a government-to-government relationship with the Crown.
As I walked into this room, Madam Chair, I was most interested in the artwork. As a matter of fact, one of the pieces was done by a lady from my community. Her name is Glenna Matoush. I read, with great interest, the introduction on the art that reflected her work. Glenna Matoush is well known internationally.
The AFN, as you all know, has always maintained that its members are citizens of our First Nations regardless of where they choose to live, whether it is in the Far North, in towns or in cities. I always believed that in this country anyone could live wherever they wanted to. Unfortunately, we are in a situation whereby we describe ourselves by legislation or whether we are off-reserve, on-reserve, urban or rural. It is said that if you are a treaty Indian, you should be on-reserve. That is unfortunate. The reality is that this country does have mobility rights, and we can live where we want to live. Certainly, members who have chosen to live in those areas should be provided, without penalty, the same services and programs that they would have elsewhere.
When I leave my community up north near James Bay, I do not necessarily take off my so-called ``Indianness'' as if it were a jacket and leave it at the community boundary. My citizenship and my rights stay with me wherever I travel.
As a political representative, I can say that our leaders want to be responsible to their citizenship, regardless of where they live. I was one of the people involved in the Charlottetown accord. Unfortunately, it was rejected, but we fought for it. The premiers of Canada, even though the public rejected the accord, had agreed that the First Nations could have jurisdiction and responsibility over their citizens who were living off the so-called reserves. One should look at those provisions because they are still applicable and much work went into them. Certainly, we moved forward more than ever before. At the end of the day, we were extremely interested in providing services to our youth, our elders or our women who live in our communities. Some people were saying that Indians are a federal responsibility. Then, the provinces said that they had no responsibility over Indians who live on-reserve or off-reserve. Thus, Indians were caught in a vacuum and no one provided the services to them. We wanted to gain control over that situation. We tried to extend the jurisdictions because of those legislative problems. The only way to do that was to amend the legislation, and work began toward achieving that goal.
My point is that the Assembly of First Nations is working to ensure that First Nations governments can represent the interests of all their citizens. The federal government must work with us to move beyond the Indian Act and its colonial mentality. It must provide us with the tools to establish self-government powers under the authority of section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. Only then will we be able to establish the institutions that will ensure that all of our citizens are provided with the necessary programs and services for their well-being. Only then will we be in a position to provide our youth with the tools to start preparing for their futures and taking control of their lives.
The Supreme Court's Corbiere decision in 1999 made this same point. That decision focused on voting rights for people living off-reserve. However, it made some larger points. First, it agreed that citizens living outside of the reserve boundaries are still citizens of their First Nations community.
Let us be clear about one point right now. When we speak of urban centres, we do not speak of the major centres like Toronto, Vancouver or Ottawa. Many of our youth and citizens also move from smaller urban centres, or even rural towns. Our efforts here today are also directed at them.
It is also noted that people leave First Nations communities for good reasons, not simply because they want nothing to do with their home. They often have to leave if they want to attend university, if there is no employment on the reserve or if they have to wait for housing. Others choose to leave because of the social and health conditions they face in their communities. In any case, this is, again, the effect that the destructive policies of the past have brought upon our citizens. Government must work with us to improve the social and health conditions in our communities. Our citizens can only be as healthy as our communities are healthy.
At the AFN, we believe on the one hand that we need to strengthen our communities so that people who want to stay can do so and enjoy a healthy quality of life. On the other hand, we want to ensure that our people who leave can maintain a connection to their communities and be entitled to the same programs and services available to our citizens on the reserve.
While I refer to these issues as major concerns facing all First Nations citizens, all of our youth may not agree. I have five children, so I should know. Youth have specific concerns, such as access to education, proper health and housing. These bread-and-butter issues are the major concerns that they will address later. These concerns face them whether they live on-reserve or off-reserve.
I want the members of this committee to understand that the daily reality of the lives of Aboriginal youth is a priority today. First Nations leaders, the government and all Canadians must recognize their needs and address them so that they may move beyond daily survival. We must work with them to correct this situation and to give them hope for the future. That is why we welcome the opportunity of this Senate committee that is taking time to consider options for action plans to develop a national youth strategy.
Over the years, the government has legislated division amongst our peoples. Not only does the government not take responsibility for our people who must leave the community, as its fiduciary obligations demand, but it also does not provide native governments with the necessary resources and programs to allow us to deliver programs and services to our off-reserve citizens.
We are working to remedy this situation, which we see as an injustice. I would not be surprised if we see some of our citizens initiating legal action based on Corbiere to eliminate this on-reserve/off-reserve split. We are also being practical in that we are looking for ways to move forward on this issue right now.
In the spring of 1999, the AFN set up a task force that met with our citizens in all the major urban centres of Canada to determine their expectations of our leaders. Overwhelmingly, they stated that they expected us to ensure that programs and services offered to our citizens on-reserve are also offered to those living off-reserve. I believe you have a copy of ``Helping us to Help Ourselves,'' which we have at the table.
The task force met with First Nations youth, elders, women and men. Their comments and expectations are vividly expressed in the report, a copy of which we are tabling with this committee today. We urge senators to read it and to continue your valuable work by speaking with our citizens across this land to determine how members of the committee are best able to provide First Nations youth with the assistance they so urgently require.
The AFN has also been working with the National Association of Friendship Centres to determine how we might cooperate on issues related to our citizens who live away from their communities. This is especially important because the needs of these individuals, and the youth that comprise a large percentage of this group, are not being fully met by current structures. We hope to work together to convince governments that their tremendous needs are not being met, at the expense of the lives and well-being of our citizens.
Allow me to provide committee members with a brief overview of how the National Youth Council was established after the second National Youth Conference held in March 1999, in Ottawa. At that meeting, the youth passed two resolutions: a call for the chiefs and leaders to bring youth to national meetings, such as confederacies and assemblies; and the establishment of a youth steering committee to find out how youth wanted to be involved with the Assembly of First Nations. The youth steering committee met during the July 1999 AGM of the AFN, where they presented a resolution recognizing the youth steering committee and endorsing their involvement in the Assembly of First Nations. The youth met again in December 1999 when a decision was made to change the youth steering committee name to the National Youth Council.
One of the goals of the Assembly of First Nations Youth Council was to be recognized and included in the Assembly of First Nations Charter. This was done through resolution at the July 2001 Annual General Assembly. The National Youth Council is now a principal component of the Assembly of First Nations, and its composition, role and function are described in the charter.
The youth council is made up of two representatives, one male and one female, from each of the 10 AFN regions, appointed by the vice chief of each region. Members of the council are between the ages of 16 and 29 years. That leaves most of us out of that council. At the December 2001 meeting of the youth council, it was decided that each representative would take on the profile of their respective vice chief. This would allow each youth council member to work directly with their vice chiefs and would also assist them in staying informed of the issues.
The Assembly of First Nations works with our young leaders to create the youth council. Everyone agrees that they must have a voice in our work. Rebuilding our nations is an existing task and requires the best effort and dedication of all our peoples. We know that we need people who can carry this work forward into the future.
For First Nations, it is especially important that we draw on the expertise and skills of our young people. In fact, it is important for the country as a whole. More than half of the First Nations' population is under the age of 25. The rest of Canada is aging and retiring, but the babies from our baby boom are now coming of age. This is a dynamic resource that is in some ways untapped, but business and industry are realizing these are the leaders of the future. Government needs to follow the lead of industry and reach out to these young people, who want education and skills to reach out to their elders and learn the teachings of their traditions so they can chart their path to the future.
With that, I will turn the presentation over to the representatives of our youth council. The first to speak will be Ms Gosnell from the Nisga'a Nation, and she will be followed by Mr. Young of the Maliseet Nation.
Ms Ginger Gosnell, Youth Representative, Assembly of First Nations: Honourable senators, I wish to start by reading an excerpt from Peace, Power and Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto by Taiaiake Alfred.
To take indigenous traditions seriously means to have a vision for the future; and the current situation of indigenous youth provides a crystal clear picture of the general state of our communities. Native...youth are real human beings, and that as a group they represent needs and wants, good and bad characteristics, and a collective way of thinking that will soon come to define the social and political landscape in native communities.
In many of the presentations made before this committee, honourable senators have heard statistics outlining the dire situation being faced by Aboriginal and First Nations youth across this country. I am curious as to the source of this data. I say this because recently a youth colleague and myself completed research on all literature published since 1990 on high-risk behaviours of Aboriginal youth in Canada. In the literature, we also took inventory of successful interventions and deterrents as reflected in these publications.
What was discovered is that there is very little relevant information on high-risk topics that are Canadian-based, published here in Canada. In fact, most of the Canadian data on high-risk Aboriginal activities spoke only of adults or children, not of youth or adolescents. A lot of what is out there has much American data as well, which refers to youth who are not even of this country. Also — and this is disturbing — data from decades ago, as far back as the 1960s, which is obviously outdated, is still being cited today as information upon which to base youth problems and situations today. As well, there is a significant amount of biased and slanted information given to make you believe something that is really not the whole truth.
This clearly reflects one of the problems you face as a committee and we face as First Nations youth. Very little relevant work has been done on youth-adolescent specific research. What concerns me even more is the limited amount of youth-specific programs designed and delivered by First Nations youth and people. It is my personal belief that this is the biggest failing of many youth-specific programs that currently exist. Many programs in existence are designed using adult-based models. Taking a program that was designed for adults and expecting it to work the same way for youth only adds to its failure.
I understand that this committee is looking for an action plan for change for Aboriginal and First Nations youth in Canada, especially in the urban centres. I will relay to you a solution that not only do I firmly believe in, but also many other Aboriginal youth issue experts. We found it repeated quite a few times in all of the reviewed literature. There are many issues to address and overcome. One must look to a root solution, a starting point that everyone can benefit from.
Our recommendation is a national collection of all Aboriginal youth projects and programs currently out there. This is because there is no knowledge of what is out there. We do not know if we are reinventing the wheel when it comes to projects and programs needed for Aboriginal youth. The majority of these programs end up crashing and burning, but who learns from that? There is no national Aboriginal youth organization for others to draw experience and information from. However, we must learn what is out there. For example, are programs working or failing? Were they designed by youth, for whom the programs are meant to serve, or adults? Were they designed for youth on reserve or in urban centres? Were they designed for youth in school or out of school? How long have these projects and programs been in existence?
There is so much that we can learn from one another if we expose and share this type of information. By exposing what is lacking, we would be in a better position to identify what is needed or what can make a program succeed or fail. This information is a starting point, but it has not been gathered. No one out there can tell us what is truly needed because there is no gauge for that yet. Some may say that increased funding for programs may help, and I completely agree that we need more funding for our projects. However, something else must take place first for them to succeed. A program database would ensure that one does not waste any more valuable time reinventing a broken wheel. With that information, programs for Aboriginal youth can only get better and grow.
We all see a need for programs that work. Each youth is a resource waiting to explode into purpose. We should try hard to access that resource without negativity. If we do not, we may have failed our history and our purpose.
Mr. Terry Young, Youth Representative, Assembly of First Nations: I wish to comment on the National Aboriginal Youth Strategy, or NAYS. NAYS provides a framework for addressing the health, employment, training, education and social development needs of Aboriginal youth by identifying a series of goals and suggested approaches. Although the strategy is fairly comprehensive in its identification of goals and suggested approaches, the probability of it being universally implemented across all jurisdictions seems unlikely. One concern is that without a comprehensive agreement to change how youth programming is designed or delivered or how youth policy is developed federally, provincially or territorially, once again we will be getting youth programs that meet the needs of government but not the needs of Aboriginal and First Nations youth.
The Assembly of First Nations is not a program delivery organization. It is a political lobby group seeking to ensure that our treaty and Aboriginal rights are respected and protected across this land. As such, we do not have the capacity to identify success stories or best practices as has been requested by the committee.
I suggest that, as members of this committee, you are in the best position to travel across the land, to visit our communities, our urban centres, and to meet these youth to hear them out. Work in collaboration with the youth and you will find out firsthand what their needs are. You will, therefore, be in a position to take their recommendations and bring them forward to government. You have an important role to play in this debate, and we urge you to fulfil it to the best of your abilities.
Honourable senators, as you develop your action plan for change, we believe the most important change you could and should recommend is that youth need to be involved in all aspects of program development and delivery. We believe that projects that exist and are successful are that way because youth involvement has been maintained from start to finish.
To also ensure success, youth need access to resources such as increased long-term funding, consistent adult support, capacity building and access to traditional knowledge.
For the most part, current youth programming receives only minimal and short-term funding. It does not allow youth to focus on high-risk areas such as HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, violence, homelessness and sexual exploitation. Funding must be made available for awareness and prevention programs around these issues.
Finally, education reform is crucial to Aboriginal and First Nations youth so that they are able to achieve the highest standard of living possible.
Mr. Coon Come: In closing, I should like to provide our recommendations to the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples.
First, as the standing committee gathers information on best practices and success stories, they should compile the information in a database that can be accessed by anyone looking for this information. There is a lack of information on youth programming that is working. The information would fulfil a need by helping urban communities develop programming.
The database should not just contain information that is program-specific. It should also provide enough details that an interested service provider would know how to develop a similar program. I do not believe in the one-size-fits- all program. It must be adapted to the changes in circumstances and needs. Certainly, some templates would be very helpful.
Gathering this information would also provide a starting point for the standing committee in that it would provide you with information on how you should proceed. It would answer questions such as: Do existing successful programs have access to stable long-term funding? What other kinds of programs are needed? How can they further develop what is working? All of this would assist you in your work in developing your action plan for change.
Second, as recommended in the Assembly of First Nations' Urban Task Force Report, First Nations people, and more specifically First Nations youth, should design and deliver their own youth programs. They are best suited to make them relevant, sustainable and culturally specific to our youth. Youth programs need to have long-term sustainable funding attached to them.
Third, the standing Senate committee must travel across the country to both small towns and large cities and speak directly to First Nations and Aboriginal youth so that the youth can directly inform and educate the committee on what is working and what is not.
With that, we thank you for listening to us, and we look forward to a dialogue.
The Chairman: I wish to thank all three of you for your insightful, interesting and informative presentation. You have expressed it very well, from what I have been hearing for many years from our youth.
Senator Gill: I am glad to see you here, Mr. Coon Come. I do not know the young people here, but I imagine that you are working very closely together.
One of your recommendations, Mr. Coon Come, is that a program be built by youth themselves to fit the needs of the region and the people living in the region. What about collecting information? You do not say that you should do that yourself, but that it should be done by the committee. It could be done by anyone. Am I correct in saying that? I am surprised to hear that.
Mr. Coon Come: We would love to do it if we had the funding. The committee has the necessary financial and human resources. We, as the Assembly of First Nations, do not have the resources. If we had the financial resources, we would accept the challenge of collecting that data and working closely with the Senate committee.
Senator Gill: For me, it is a change. Perhaps I am old and that is why I have not changed my mind. I am surprised to hear that you cannot do it. You come and say, ``If we had the financing, we would like to do it.''
You should say in your recommendation that you be given the tools to do it because you should do it. You should recommend that you would do it because you want to see something according to the needs of the people. No one else could better address the needs of your people.
Mr. Coon Come: The youth are insisting, in terms of a priority, that they want to develop a program themselves. They want to be involved from day one.
While the data collection has been done, the lives of our young people are at stake. Certainly, you would like to do a parallel process where you are collecting data. That is the work of your committee. At the same time, these young people are developing the programs to with the day-to-day issues with which they must live. We should have a parallel process.
Senator Pearson: I should like to know more about the youth council and how it works. It is relatively new, having been established in 1999. Could you tell me about your experience? Both of you are members of the council. Is this your second or third year?
Mr. Young: I have been on the council since December 1999. I believe that they had their first meeting earlier that year. I made it to the second meeting. I have been part of the council since then.
Senator Pearson: How did you get there?
Mr. Young: The vice chiefs of the region, with the Assembly of First Nations, appoint two youth from each of their regions. Manitoba has a forum where the youth vote for the members of the AFN National Youth Council. In the other regions, members are appointed by our vice chiefs.
It is difficult sometimes because some people might not be able to attend the meetings, so new people are appointed. I met Ms Gosnell about a year ago when she was appointed to the council.
Ms Gosnell: That was in September, actually. I do not think Mr. Young mentioned this yet, but the council is composed of youth from each of the regions in Canada. We have a 20-member council at this point.
Senator Pearson: How often are you able to meet?
Mr. Young: It depends on the situation. Sometimes the Assembly of First Nations can bring us in for a confederacy or an annual general assembly. Most times, we have collaboration meetings. We will meet with the elders for two days and then with the youth council for two days. It might be once, maybe twice a year that we can all come together.
We have developed a Web page in order to stay in contact. All of the youth council can post any information. After today, we will post what we did and what we presented so that the rest of the council can see what we have done.
Ms Gosnell: We also have no money for the youth council, which is a complete barrier to us getting together to provide AFN with some solutions on how they can push a youth agenda toward something that we could actually produce.
Senator Pearson: That is an important point.
Ms Gosnell: It is very frustrating.
Senator Pearson: It is frustrating. Ontario has now mandated that every school board have at least one youth trustee. They have only been meeting now for about two or three years. Their school boards are mandated to pay for them to meet once a year in a council where they meet alone. They invite whomever they want. They organize it. The youth board members are the only ones there. You can see already, in two or three years, the coming together of these young people from quite different backgrounds — francophone, anglophone, Catholics or whatever. They are finding common issues that they are now taking to their school boards as advice.
I am really encouraged that your youth council exists. I would support that you receive core funding so that you can communicate more often, make resolutions about things and have some influence on programs. I look forward to hearing more about what you are doing. We are trying to make a list of what is out there, which we can share with you. Good luck in your continuing work.
The Chairman: As a supplementary to Senator Pearson's questions, in the urban centres we have Metis youth, we have Inuit and we have Bill C-31. Are you communicating with any of these groups? Are you coming together as youth? I know the Metis have a youth council. They have the same issues as you have, with funding, et cetera. Are you dialoguing with them? Are you working with them?
I am finding that our youth come from reserves into the urban areas and they come from Metis settlements into the urban areas. Then we have the youth that have been there for three, four or five generations. They have lost their identity. Are you doing anything in that area to begin a dialogue?
Mr. Young: The National Aboriginal Youth Strategy had a meeting in Edmonton. The Metis, Inuit and AFN youth councils were there. Native women and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, or CAP, had representation. We did actually have workshops together. There was dialogue and there was communication between the people.
In the Atlantic region, where I come from, there is no Metis population in the urban centres, per se, but I do communicate with First Nations or Inuit people on a regular basis. As far as the other regions are concerned, I am not really fully knowledge about that. I do know that NAYS has been working toward sharing ideas, just to talk, just to get some communication open and share some thoughts and ideas on how we can move ahead.
Ms Gosnell: In B.C., particularly in Vancouver, we are trying not to recognize stuff that sets us apart — ``I am Nisga'a and you are Metis and you are urban; you are Cree, you are not from here.'' We do not get into that at all. We do have a good relationship with one another in Vancouver.
In B.C., we too are working together with all of the organizations and all B.C. youth council member counterparts to develop a strategy for Aboriginal B.C. youth. We just started a few months ago. It is at the stage of baby steps right now. However, in terms of working with the other nations, the other Aboriginal groups, we do it quite well in Vancouver. We hate that separation.
The Chairman: This committee will be travelling. We do not have much of a budget, but we will be going to some centres, and Vancouver is one of them.
Whom from your region would you recommend make a presentation to this committee? Also, what recommendations would you give us to put into our report regarding the issue of the separation of nations within the urban areas?
Ms Gosnell: It is hard to have a blanket approach to this issue. Each of the regions is different. As Mr. Young said earlier, they have limited Aboriginal distinctions or population. In Vancouver, we are completely different, too.
I would recommend the Urban Native Youth Association in Vancouver or the Vancouver Aboriginal Council, which does hold a youth portfolio that meets every month and brings all the organizations and all interested people together to discuss projects that are happening at that time, future projects, funding and other issues.
The Chairman: Our committee members have done a lot of brainstorming. We do not want this to be a report where we propose all of the recommendations. We need to hear from you, what you want to recommend. We want you to guide us on how this report is written. I think that is very important.
Mr. Coon Come: One thing that is important to clarify is what percentage we are talking about. According to AFN information, we say that 46 per cent of the population of our 633 First Nations live off reserve, meaning that they live in small towns or in urban centres. Out of that, what is the percentage? I am sure you have heard CAP says it is up to 70 per cent. We disagree.
What is more important to me is to find the exact youth target group within that population. If we can come to grasp that number, we will have a target group.
Also, when you do go to the communities, I hope that you will not forget places in the North that have become real hubs for First Nations across this country and that have the same problems as major urban areas, be it Winnipeg or Saskatoon or Montreal or even Vancouver. There are lots of First Nations people in mid-sized towns like Val d'Or, Timmins or Prince Albert. We probably see one in five First Nations people on the street.
One good agency that has been working extensively with many First Nations to deal with the real hurt and pain of our people — HIV, substance abuse, violence, homelessness — is the Aboriginal Healing Foundation. They have a very good body of information. Also, they have a list of organizations with which they deal, like Aboriginal councils, friendship centres, all the social agencies that work for First Nations and know the First Nations issues. These are groups that can be invited to make presentations.
Senator Christensen: You have highlighted many of the problems that we know about and, of course, with which you live on a regular basis. We always return, whether we are dealing with Aboriginal problems or other issues, to the question of money to support programs and development. It seems that what we must first do is maximize monies that are available. In many cases that is not happening.
When I talk to people who work at the grass roots level, there seems to be a significant amount of money coming into the umbrella programs, but accessing it is a problem. It seems to get lost in the First Nations bureaucracy as well as the federal and provincial bureaucracies. Our committee must address that problem of maximizing the dollars because there are a lot of dollars out there. How do we maximize that money?
I believe that the Assembly of First Nations produced a report written by an urban issue task force. One of the report's recommendations was that there should be an urban issues secretariat. Was that ever developed?
Mr. Coon Come: I will ask one of our people who worked on that report to respond.
Mr. Jean Larose, Director of Communications, Assembly of First Nations: I was one of the persons who established the task force and helped it organize meetings throughout Canada in 1999.
Following the tabling of the report that was adopted at our Annual General Assembly in 1999, we approached the federal government to obtain funding to set up the secretariat and move on the various recommendations, which included more communication with our citizens living off reserve and conducting a formal survey of how many of our citizens are living off reserve. We have conflicting data depending on who we receive it from, such as StatsCan, DIAND or whomever. We are not getting the same numbers from all of the parties. It is hard for us to determine exactly who we are trying to serve, who we are representing and where they are because we do not have access to that information.
Unfortunately, the request for funding was denied. Up to this point, as an organization, we have been trying to provide some services and some assistance, either through our regional offices or through cooperative work with organizations such as the friendship centres to try to help as best we can. However, there is still no structure, which we feel is critical, within the organization to assist our citizens.
If you read the task force report, our citizens state overwhelmingly that one organization represents First Nations, whether we live on or off reserve, and that is the AFN. They say, ``No one else can do the role that you do and no one else represents us except you.'' That is where we have been trying to move ever since.
Senator Christensen: Mr. Coon Come, I agree with you that a First Nation or Indian person is an Indian person whether or not he lives on reserve. He does not suddenly change and become something else, just as when we travel abroad we do not change and become something else. Do you have any thoughts on how that problem is resolved?
Certainly, bands on reserves and on their own lands have agreements but have great difficulties meeting the needs of the people in the communities. As those communities grow, because they are limited in size, people have to leave because they have no opportunities. Do you have any idea how those people are served? They are still members of that band or community, but they have moved into another area. How are they served by the community that they have left?
Mr. Coon Come: We are talking here about the long term and the question of meeting needs and how our leadership is trying to provide programs to our members and citizens who do not live in our area.
At present, I agree with you when you talk about the reallocation of funds and trying to centralize and maximize the return on that dollar. However, we must go beyond that.
In the long term, First Nations people are looking at building capacity. We are looking at the recommendations from the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People, in particular the recommendations that talked about the redistribution of lands and resources. I believe it is through that redistribution that we can generate new revenues.
This government now wants to pass legislation called the First Nations governance initiative. If the government wants to pass legislation, they should pass the legislation that was recommended by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, which was to implement the treaties through legislation. That would give a mandate for the federal government. We would then be talking about customs and traditions and how we can share in the wealth of this country.
In this country, 80 per cent of our reserves rest on some kind of natural resource. If there was a change in attitude in this country so that we could share in the wealth of this country, we could generate revenue. Right now, the funds that we presently receive only administer our own poverty. Our population is increasing; our budgets are not. They are decreasing. How can we provide services to our people? I am talking about those who live in the community, let alone the people who live off reserve.
Certainly, there are jurisdictional problems. Those jurisdictional problems can be resolved. We are trying very hard to raise this issue. We have succeeded with the federal, provincial, territorial and Aboriginal conferences where we meet about three or four times a year. The youth strategy is on the agenda. We want to deal with the whole question of provincial jurisdiction.
Our youth, whether they are Metis or off reserve or treaty Indians, are people. They are human beings. As Ginger Gosnell quoted from Taiaiake's writings, she said that we must give the youth a choice and allow them to make decisions. It know it is difficult.
I want to share with you the presentation of a young man named Mike. He made a powerful presentation to the Federation of Saskatchewan Nations just last week. I spoke right after him. This young man grew up in the streets. This young man was addressing the issues that the youth are facing. Some of it was very graphic. He said to the leadership, ``Do not forget us.'' He challenged us on the problems that we face. Most of us know what those problems are. If a young girl is a prostitute and is making $1,000 a day, it is hard to compete when we try to get them off the street and into a program. We tell them that it might take them a month to earn that amount off the street. The youth who are selling drugs and are members of gangs have certain prestige, recognition and confidence in themselves, and it is very difficult for us. This youth highlighted the problems and the areas we need to tackle.
I told my staff that I would try to get a copy of his speech. I would like to give it to the Senate. It was one of the best presentations. It dealt with the grass roots or street level and what this young man saw in terms of youth and what they would like to see and the problems that they encounter. I was surprised. He even had solutions that are very different from yours and mine. I was very impressed with him.
Honourable senators, the challenges are there. Yes, we can talk about jurisdictional issues at federal, provincial, territorial and Aboriginal meetings. We can talk about how we can tackle these issues so that no one falls through the cracks because of jurisdictional problems. This is all necessary, but I feel that as First Nations, we can provide those services. We can go over the hurdles, but we need to go beyond the present status quo and think in terms of how we can expand the jurisdiction of the First Nations to be able to look at external revenues so that we can provide services and programs. If we have that external funding, we do not have to rely on government handouts. We can then promote what some of the youth are talking about in their presentations.
You heard the words ``cultural'' and ``traditional.'' Each nation should be able to provide that to their respective citizens so that they will know who they are and be proud of themselves and not have an identity problem.
I see that we need a major shift in the thinking of this country in dealing with the jurisdictional issue and with funding and expanding the territories of the First Nations of this country. How can there be an economic base when a reserve is only three-quarters of a mile wide? As one chief from B.C. said, ``Man, if I have a good tail wind, I can spit right across my reserve.'' That is how small it is, and it has no economic value.
Senator Christensen: Ms Gosnell, when you were addressing the statistics of youth in urban areas, you seemed to imply that the problems attributed to them are perhaps exaggerated and that we are using statistics from another country, the United States, but also our old statistics. From your experience, do you feel that they are exaggerated?
Ms Gosnell: Definitely. When I was talking about exaggerated information, Mr. Young and I had a good discussion on one report that we had both read in regard to gambling being the root of all problems for Aboriginal youth. I do not wish to name the organization that put that report together, but it went on further to describe gambling as playing video games and playing a little children's game called Pogs. It went on to say that youth gamble to get away from their personal problems and that youth gambling causes substance abuse and violence. That is just one example of the biased and slanted information that is out there.
In terms of identifying statistics for urban centres, I know for a fact, just by trying to collaborate with the Urban Native Youth Association that is there, that it is hard to track the number of urban youth, especially if they need assistance for something. You cannot follow them. You may see one youth one day asking for help with, for example, employment, education and housing. You can only refer them to the service agencies that you know, but you will not see that youth again for another year or two perhaps. You do not know what has happened to them between those times. There are many youth who do not even know what services are available for them. It is daunting to try and get around the city if you are so new and so unused to the conditions there.
Urban youth are really hard to track. The ones who you will get hold of are the ones who are trying every single day to have their voices heard. There are many active urban youth in the centres across Canada right now, especially in Vancouver. We meet together all the time.
To address the question the senator asked earlier, but which was not answered, regarding the amount of funds available for youth programs, available funds are out there, but they are not the sorts of funds we need. There are no funds to address capacity building, which is what our youth and our service providers are asking for.
How can you access funds if you do not have the capacity to write a decent proposal or to do community mapping and the organization that you are working for is stretched to the limit? They are stretched because so much is asked of them already for the funding they receive. There are no funds available to address issues like HIV and AIDS. There are no statistics anywhere for Aboriginal youth and HIV and AIDS. This is serious. There are communities in B.C. that have tremendous percentages of people living with HIV and AIDS, but their needs are still not covered. There are still no programs that can effectively deal with these issues or help them cope or find support.
While there may be funds out there, they are for programs like resumé building, or small-scale recreational activities that may last the duration of a summer, or something that may help youth with their homework. There are no funds to address major issues that young people are asking about today. For issues like homelessness and sexual exploitation in the urban centres, there is a lack of funds to help support the young people who are coming to them on a daily basis and who they must turn away. They know what they want. They are asking for solutions. They are asking for increased funds for their solutions, for projects that they see a need for, but those funds are not available for them at all.
What do you do? Do you divert funds from an untapped resource into a funding source that people are asking for, especially for high-risk issues? This is just not happening, especially for young people. I am hoping that this committee can address that issue that we are screaming for.
Senator Sibbeston: The senators here today all have life experiences from our communities. We now sit on this side of the table and, to a certain extent on your side, in a kind of lofty position, trying to deal with people's problems. I was an elected MLA in the Northwest Territories. I have spent much of my life dealing with very day-to-day type problems.
In my view, a community is where the action is. While we can think and talk about these problems from our lofty position, in the end, the action that is needed is down in the community where the people live. From the perspective of the Northwest Territories, I cannot help but think that we are very fortunate in that we do not have a large population. Native people are still kind of in the majority. Native people are still very involved in government and all aspects of society. If you were to go to the Northwest Territories now, you would see that the economy is just booming.
Many First Nations and native people are being educated with a hope that they will have jobs and go back home. That is the situation I see up North. While I am not saying that it is perfect, there is an air of optimism that exists in the North, in part because of land claims. Land claims give people rights that are put down on paper. Native people in the Northwest Territories have the land and financial resources to become very involved in society.
We have a government in the Northwest Territories in which native people are very much involved. In some ways we have an atmosphere or a setting in which native people can do reasonably well. I wonder if the answer is that in order for us to deal with young people, we need an atmosphere and circumstances in which native people are involved in all aspects of society so that they can have optimism and opportunities. I would like to hear from Mr. Coon Come, Ms Gosnell and Mr. Young about that. What are the conditions to create optimism, hope and opportunities for young people? Is this not what we are dealing with?
Mr. Coon Come: I speak as a parent of five. I have a son who is 24 and who recently graduated, a daughter who is 22 and a 16 year-old boy who is still in school. I have a 14 year-old daughter and an 11-year-old who is my baby and who is taller than I am. I believe our society has collapsed in terms of the family unit. There is an attack on the family unit from all sides.
In the First Nations, we have lost our parental skills. We even question the difference between right and wrong. We question society as a whole in terms of the laws that are now forthcoming. There is a great challenge to parents as to how they raise their kids. I think the parents as a whole must assume the responsibility that they have given up. We have not even realized that we have given up that responsibility. Therefore, we find ourselves in a situation where we blame society. We blame the police for taking our kids. We blame the educator for not educating our kids. We blame social services. We blame everyone else except ourselves for the way that we raise our children. As parents, we must rise up and take back the responsibilities that we have as parents.
Certainly, the family nucleus is not there. As a young person going to an urban setting, you do not have that family network that is very close in the community. You do not have an uncle or an aunt to whom you can turn. You cannot sit around the camp fire and get your grandfather or grandmother to give you advice because that whole network is no longer there.
I would like to see conditions that give rise to young people who are confident in themselves and who can say that their hero is their dad. That is what I want. I want my kids to say, ``My hero is my dad and my mother.'' I do not want Tyson, Jordan or Gretzky to be the heroes. For their kids, they are heroes. I want the parents to be the heroes. As parents we have to assume those responsibilities. The home is where it all starts. That is what is lacking. In this society, those who are the cream of the crop benefit. We do all kinds of things to help them. However, do we help the struggling single mother who is trying to raise her kids in downtown Vancouver? Do we help the mother who is working full time and raising four or five kids? We help the ladies who want full-time jobs by giving them daycare centres and many other services because they are working mothers and earn an income. For the mothers who stay at home, we do not have any specific programs. The root of our problem is the family unit, which is where we need to focus.
In the Northwest Territories, there is an economic boom. There is a feeling that there might be opportunities for jobs. At the end of the day, people walking the streets in Yellowknife, people who are sitting in bars and people who are not educated will not see this as a great boom. How do you reach out to those people, the majority of whom are young?
Some of the chiefs do not like it, but I take the time to go to bars and talk to young people, although I do not even drink. I go to the street corners of Vancouver and Winnipeg to talk to young prostitutes so that I can know where they are at and why. Everyone has different stories, and it is important to listen to those stories. How do we help the ones in Yellowknife who are sitting in the bars and who do not have an education because they did not have that opportunity? What kind of vocational training can we offer them? How can we entice them to leave the bars? That will be a challenge. If you do not admit that you are an alcoholic, well, we cannot help.
I do believe that there is hope in this country. From what Senator Sibbeston has said, and I repeat myself, 80 per cent of the First Nations are sitting on lands that are ready to be developed, but they are being pushed aside. We could look at a new partnership in which the First Nations can participate to stimulate the economy.
We are not anti-development, but we want to participate and have a say in the way development takes place. We want to share in the revenues and put pressure on the existing funds. When you reallocate funding and resources, you are asking the poorest of the poor to prioritize their needs. Why do you not move housing down the list and put youth at the top of the list when there are limited resources to begin with? That is what happens when funds are reallocated — the poorest of the poor, whose funding is already limited, are asked to prioritize their needs for funding. That is the problem: Should youth be the priority with the same level — not additional — of funding? I am seeking ways to obtain extra funding. There are opportunities where resources such as minerals, trees or water are in our areas and land claims can be finalized. Those land claims would bring revenue and that revenue would help to develop programs. That requires a shift in the way we think right now.
Mr. Young: I was listening to Mr. Coon Come speak and I wonder what the conditions are that create optimism. I grew up in a community where my grandmother was the boss. She was the one who made all the decisions. She raised many of the new-born in my family. She cooked the meals and dressed the kids. There would be 10 or 12 of us at one time at my grandmother's house, and she would get all of us ready for school or for church, or for whatever we were doing that day.
When that generation of people left with my grandmother's passing, many of the values left with them. When I talk about ``values,'' I mean traditional values. My grandmother spoke her language fluently, and she taught all of her children how to speak it fluently. Her mother made baskets. She knew what the medicines were. She knew where certain things grew. She knew what animals were good to eat and when to get them. She knew all of that just as my great grandmother knew.
When they passed away, they had not fully passed on their knowledge to us. We were the unfortunates in that we had to go to school off reserve because it was better to get an education as a white person, per se, would get. We were moved away from our traditions and our values. We were taught that speaking our language was bad; that having this colour of skin was not okay; and that because of this, I was less than someone else — I was less than your children or your grandchildren. I was told that to my face in the schools by my teachers and that I would never become anything. I was told that I would never finish school. I was told all of those things.
When I think about optimism, in spite of all of that, I remember that I am a part of the National Youth Council; that I am on an international advisory committee with the Youth Parliament; that I am on an indigenous caucus; that I am going to a Caribbean exchange in July; and that I have travelled the globe. I have my Bachelor of Arts degree in anthropology and native studies. I have become someone.
The key to all of this was that in high school, I was given my identity. I was given my ``Maliseetness.'' I did not have a jacket that was nice, but I had one that was really dirty. I had a jacket that had ``drunk'' on it and ``alcoholic'' and ``drug user.'' However, when I met the elders in the high school, they gave me a new jacket that had words such as ``Maliseet,'' ``pride,'' ``fantastic,'' ``brilliant'' and ``smart'' printed on it. They had all those things on the jacket.
We have to return to those jackets. Yes, money and programs are good, but as the national chief said, our families are broken and destroyed. They have been cut to pieces more and more often because of lack of funding and because of determinations such as off reserve, on reserve, Metis versus status Indian, et cetera.
I moved away from my community seven years ago to pursue my schooling and to find my life. However, I maintained a connection to my community and I go there every day. I spend time with my family. I can see my aunts and uncles who, as Mr. Coon Come said, are there to help me if I need it.
We have to instill in young people that we are not just individuals; we are members of our nations, of our communities and of our families. When honourable senators have the chance to speak to these young people, allow them to speak the way that they speak.
It was fine and dandy that we are able to read about these things, but Ms Gosnell and I worked very hard to put this on paper, and I felt pretty good about reading my words. Too many times we come to these committees and people do not want to hear about how terrible things are and about such realities as sexual exploitation in Vancouver, or HIV/ AIDS in the Maritimes, et cetera.
You have to let the young people stand up and tell you who they are and what their needs are. The future, as Ms Gosnell and I said, will be the time when the current youth of the First Nations will come of age.
We are getting ready to step into positions that have been slow to open up for us, but we have our educations. We have our doctors, lawyers and nuclear physicists. We have our bank of First Nations people in these amazing fields.
We only need a little push. We just need the ability to make those dreams possible and create the optimistic view that you asked about. I am happy to be a member of the First Nations and to be a member of my nation. That in itself is what our young people need.
The Chairman: We need to change the jackets.
Mr. Young: Yes, for sure.
Ms Gosnell: To sum it all up, we need empowerment. That can come through involving us as First Nations people and communities, especially the youth.
What programs out there involve First Nations youth? Most of them are developed by non-Aboriginal adults. Empower us through involvement. It is as simple as that.
Senator Léger: I wanted to say this privately, but I have chosen to say it publicly. I would like to thank Senator Chalifoux, as in her presentation she said ``we.'' I felt the two sides of the table are together in this.
Second, Mr. Coon Come, you always mentioned ``citizens.'' I hardly ever heard the word ``Aboriginal.'' That is common talk. I think that is the way all Canadians should speak.
Third, Ms Gosnell mentioned having more youth involvement. Are they engaging? Do you have a hard time with them? When we are young, we are young. When we are in our teens, we are self-involved.
Mr. Young: It is difficult, sometimes, because many of the young people are in school now. I meet with a couple of the young people on the provincial youth council. It is really difficult to together because, in New Brunswick for example, there are many miles separating our communities. Again, the difficulty is money, to try to bring all of these young people together. The province has no money for us to do that. To try to access federal funds takes, it feels like, 25 years or so.
As far as having exchanges, there are many e-mail groups in the province. Many Web sites have developed that allow me to send an e-mail out if I need to contact someone. By the end of the day, I can find two, three or four people with the resources that I need, and I can bring them in or talk to them on the phone and get the information from them.
As I mentioned earlier, our youth council has its own Web site, and we have contact phone numbers and e-mails.
There is a woman on our youth council from here in Ontario. I call her up when I come down and we talk, get updated, and I share information with her. Back in the regions, it is somewhat more difficult to bring everyone together. I will present this speech when I get home. I will fax it to the different communities and e-mail it to the youth councils to say that this is what we did and this is what is happening. To try to get them together to talk about a presentation that is difficult.
Senator Léger: In regard to the need for more data, Mr. Coon Come, I understood that this issue would not be just another study or other studies; is that correct?
Mr. Coon Come: No, it has been studied to death.
Ms Gosnell: We are not asking for another study. We are just asking for a chance to learn from one another. Due to the lack of resources out there, we have no idea if the project that I want to develop in my community is being done somewhere else in the country. Would that project be working or failing? We need that type of information.
We do need studies on HIV and AIDS. As I said earlier, there is nothing out there. When you break it down to certain issues that are of high-risk, yes, we do need studies in these areas. We do need the statistics.
Senator Léger: Is that for your area?
Ms Gosnell: The statistics are needed across the country. There are no HIV statistics. We have no idea how many Aboriginal youth are affected by this plague.
Senator Léger: Yes, thank God for the shift in thinking. I am so fortunate to be sitting here. I wish everyone would hear what you are saying, what you said about the family. I do think that, yes, you are the precursors of change. You might save us. Thank you.
Senator Johnson: What does one say now? I am deputy chair of this committee and have been for many years. This is one study I do not want to be studied. Like you are saying, we want action.
Ms Gosnell and Mr. Young, you remind me of when I was involved with the student movement in the late 1960s and 1970s, talking about empowerment and being proactive, and the place of women in the student bodies and the governing councils of universities. I am with you.
In my experiences in this country today, I do not know of a more proactive youth population at this point in our history than the First Nations, the Inuit and all Aboriginals. You are doing excellent work and your recommendations are very good. I thought the presentation hit many of the points. We will not get into governance. That is not our study, but it will factor in as things progress down the road.
The bread-and-butter issues are health, education, housing and parenting. I was a single mom myself, and I know what you are talking about in terms of teaching people in the home. I also come from an Icelandic background. Without the Aboriginals, we would not have survived in the late 1870s.
I feel it is very important to give something back. I wish to concentrate on a number of things. My colleagues have covered the territory on a number of fronts. I am really interested in the area of your youth council and education. Specifically, how does your youth council and the steering committee apparatus that you have set up work with the AFN? What work are you doing together now that you are in the AFN charter? I would like to know about that relationship.
Ms Gosnell: Mr. Young would be best to answer that since I have only been on board for a few months.
Senator Johnson: I know that it is relatively new, but I wonder how it is doing.
Mr. Young: As mentioned in our presentation, we spoke about having two representatives from each region. We decided that it was nice that we had the council, but we did not really have any proper movement. We were just kind of there. ``What do we talk about? What do we do?''
Senator Johnson: You had to identify what areas you would tackle.
Mr. Young: Exactly. We decided that we would take the portfolios of the vice chiefs, such as culture, language, housing and health. We appointed a person to follow a particular portfolio.
Culture and language are huge for me. I am always standing there on the ready to go and fight for them. Therefore, they gave me culture and language.
Another person may have had an interest in health. Assigning portfolios made it easier to decide who would go to what meetings. As mentioned in the presentation by the national chief, we sometimes get to attend meetings, workshops and presentations. It is easy now just to pull up the name for a portfolio and say who goes to make a presentation.
Senator Johnson: That was leading me to my question about the portfolios. You say in your paper that you take on the portfolio of the respective vice chiefs. That is how you are integrated into the AFN structure.
Mr. Young: That is correct. We have a youth intervenor who works with us. She updates us and give us information. Each of us has our own area to follow.
Senator Johnson: Do you feel empowered?
Mr. Young: Very. The Caribbean exchange is a cultural exchange that they wanted someone to attend. As my field is culture and I know my language and culture — the songs and traditions of my people — I was a prime candidate to be sent.
It is empowering to attend these sessions, and know that if I need to understand something on land claims or health- related issues, I can contact another person on the youth council for an update.
Senator Johnson: I go back to education, which is so critical. Where is this issue on your agenda? Three of our witnesses talked about a separate Aboriginal school system. Has that come up for consideration?
Mr. Young: Is it being talked about?
Senator Johnson: Can you do it through the current system with the proper kind of cultural programs?
Mr. Young: It is a great idea. My father's community in Cape Breton, Eskasoni, had problems with the non-native schools in the city. They had teachers abusing kids. It was just really mean. There were big fights.
That community built an elementary school, a junior high school and a high school right so that none of the children had to leave. They all receive their education within their community. They design their own criteria. I believe they follow certain guidelines from the province. For the most part, everything is community-run. To me, that is a positive thing.
In some communities, such as the community in which I now live, there is a school, but they do not function the way they could. There is no real cultural aspect to them. They do not have a full-time Maliseet curriculum within the school. It depends on what the situation is in regards to having a separate education system.
That is my point of view. I cannot speak for the entire region and for the AFN, but that is my understanding.
Mr. Coon Come: In regard to education, we currently have 10,000 students who have been accepted into a post- secondary institute but have no funding. We have shared this information with the Standing Senate Committee on National Finance and the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. We say that education is a ticket out of our poverty. Certainly that is an area where we could help our youth. There is no funding for them.
I was one of the principal negotiators in implementing section 16 of the James Bay and Northern Québec Agreement. Having been raised in residential schools, we wanted to bring back the schools to our home areas. We did that by changing the legislation. We introduced the Cree language in pre-kindergarten and grades 1, 2, and 3. Everything is now taught in Cree. We changed the school calendar but still have a 180-day school year. We closed the schools in the fall for the goose hunt. We introduced cultural studies.
More and more First Nations across the country are doing hat. They are changing the curriculum and also closing their schools so that the parents can be out with their children in order to teach them their culture and their way of life on the land.
In Saskatoon, there is an all Aboriginal school. It was not created to be Aboriginal, but it turned out that way. Aboriginals were the majority of students. Therefore, it was seen as an Aboriginal school. Being the majority, you would want to change the curriculum and bring in the elders. It became an Aboriginal school.
I personally do not believe in separating ourselves because the world is a mosaic. We have to learn to live with one another.
Senator Johnson: We can better mould our education systems for the benefit of everyone. I am from Winnipeg, and I believe a number of schools are trying to do that. I do not know if you think it has been successful or not with some of the inner city schools. They do not want to be separate. Do you feel that we can do it through the present system?
Mr. Coon Come: We have had success with some schools and we have a higher rate of graduates across this country. These are young people. It is very difficult for them. The dropout rate is about 75 per cent.
In Northern Ontario there is a school with an enrolment of 90 students. These are 13 and 14 year-olds who go up to grade 9. You can send them down to a school, but it is very difficult. In that community, they are connected through the Internet. It is a long-distance school, and it is very successful.
These young people keep talking about e-mail. That is one way of helping our young people. They are not afraid to press any button, you know.
Senator Johnson: We could go on for a long time. I wish to thank you very much. Just remember the North American Indigenous Games in Winnipeg.
Mr. Coon Come: We will be there.
Senator Johnson: I hope you will be there because the games will be very successful.
In terms of optimism, I must remind my colleagues about Thunderbird House, the Winnipeg Native Alliance and the Aboriginal youth initiatives. I think Winnipeg is doing a tremendous amount in terms of the urban youth situation, including the mentally handicapped kids in our Special Olympics programs.
Many of us want to look at the positive things, too. We will go across the country. As the chair said, the recommendations are succinct. Is there anything further you wish to add at this point?
The Chairman: Amiskwaciy Academy is an Aboriginal school in Edmonton. It is doing wonderfully.
Mr. Coon Come: Yes, it is. I had an opportunity to speak there.
Senator Cochrane: I wish to apologize to you for being late. My ears were tuned to the television in regard to the Voisey's Bay deal in Newfoundland and Labrador. I must tell you, from what I have heard, I think there is hope for the Innu and Inuit youth in terms of skill development. There is a lot of R&D taking place.
I am impressed with the two youth you have brought with you, Mr. Coon Come. It is wonderful to see how far you have come along and that you have found yourselves. You have made a great presentation here.
Could you tell us about the services that you have been able to access yourselves? I am particularly interested in hearing about services provided to Aboriginal students when they leave their communities for post-secondary studies. What types of Aboriginal student services exist and what impact did they and do they have on you?
Ms Gosnell: That is a difficult question to answer. In my mind, I hear the voice of the young people telling me what is missing.
In Vancouver, the Urban Native Youth Association has set up a homework club for the main Vancouver-based public schools. They see a need for Aboriginal students to have help in order to get their homework done. They do not have support at home. There is no space that they are comfortable with to do their schoolwork, to get it finished. As you know, you do not do any schoolwork in school; you just sit and you listen. Then when you leave school, you have homework to do. Getting work done during school hours is pretty difficult. That must be addressed as well.
There are many employment agencies across B.C., probably in the rest of Canada as well. We have maybe five or six in the Vancouver area that help with resumé writing. They hope to have job placement opportunities for the young people. We just need a lot more services. Again, that is a very difficult question to answer. There is a lack of support.
Mr. Coon Come spoke about young mothers. They especially need support in the urban centres. There is a lack of daycare facilities. Young women who are 16, 17 years old have no support in the schools and no support if they want to go to work. Those opportunities are not available to them. They are ostracized for having a child, and we love children. Stuff like that needs to be looked into.
Mr. Young: While I was in high school, a First Nations studies course was part of a pilot project that the school wanted to get off the ground. They offered a native art course as well that you could take instead of having to take contemporary art. I think the native studies class also covered a social studies credit. I took both of them. They were okay, but the courses were very spur of the moment and very disorganized. The teacher was worried about whether their contract would continue from month to month and we were always worried that we would lose our teacher. That was one of the services that I accessed.
Growing up, we did not have a homework club, per se. There were summer jobs for students, which usually came from fishing agreements or claims signed by my community with outside governments. I accessed those opportunities for summer employment. Other than that, I did not access anything else.
Senator Cochrane: Was this within your community?
Mr. Young: That is correct. When I left, I do not think I accessed any other programs outside of the community. I worked for customs for a couple of years. That was with the government. That was not really a program or service.
I do not think I have accessed any of those services. I know there are many Aboriginal youth programs with human resources, different programs like that, but I have never accessed them.
Senator Cochrane: You have done okay. Once you left your community and went to the urban areas, you were on your own. This is where you are today, without any help.
Mr. Young: That is correct. I have had to take care of myself.
The key to my success was reliance on my culture, my faith, my ways and attending ceremony. I have been attending ceremony for about eight years now. I have not had any alcohol or drugs in my body for eight years. I do not attend bars. I do not go to big parties. I do not do any of that stuff. Instead, I would rather sit with my elder. For example, I have been working with them in my community for five months now making baskets. We were at the end of the line with basket-making. He is the last one in my community who knows how to make baskets, how to go out and get the wood, pound and prepare the wood to actually make the basket. I took it upon myself in January to go and see him. He is 84 this year. That knowledge is now safe. I have learned almost everything there is to know to make sure that basket-making remains alive.
The reliance upon my culture and upon my elders has been done on my own. There are no programs that the community offers for cultural workshops or anything like that.
Senator Cochrane: How many of your youth group have done like you have done? How far have they come? Have they come as far as you?
Mr. Young: They have come as far as they need to be themselves. They have their own unique experiences. Some of the people on the council live in Winnipeg. A friend of mine who was on the council for a while, in order for him to go home, he has to get on an airplane for a couple of hours because there is no other way in to his community. He cannot easily get home. He had not been home for a few years.
In regard to culture, Aboriginals have been able to access programs in the urban centres, say at the friendship centres or at the powwows or whatever areas are around. They have been able to access them. I have been the fortunate one in that I live 10 minutes from my community, so I can just get in my car and go and stay for a week or a day. It does not matter.
Senator Cochrane: Ms Gosnell, is it the same for you?
Ms Gosnell: I look upon myself as being more fortunate than anyone in my family has ever been in their entire lives.
Senator Cochrane: Why is that?
Ms Gosnell: Because this is where I am today. I do not suffer from addictions the way my cousins do. I know where to look for support. I am lucky because I do not look so ``native,'' which was a problem when I was growing up because there was so much racism to deal with in the school system. I almost dropped out of school. I was almost kicked out of school. When I first moved to the urban centres, I was an alcoholic and a drug addict. I do not know how I came out of it. I just believed that if I made my grandparents proud and strong, if I could do something that they could love me a little bit more for, then I would do it.
However, then I had no friends. Everyone that I knew and grew up with in the cities are still back where I was before.
Mr. Young has done magnificently, and I consider myself to be extremely fortunate. I only hope that other youth could see that they have these opportunities as well. I do not want to take them all for myself. I just want to find more opportunities for them so that they can find their voice and gain empowerment. I am like the cream of the crop now, and so are my colleagues on the youth council, and so are my friends with the Metis Youth Council and with CAP and with friendship centres. We are the exceptions. I hope you do not base your opinion about Aboriginal youth on us because we have not even been able to tell you more than a little of our stories.
Senator Cochrane: Still, you are role models, which is so important.
Ms Gosnell: Definitely. I remember when I was 16 years old and I looked to the Assembly of First Nations. I looked to the role models who came out on posters, and they were promoted all across Canada as being Aboriginal youth role models. I remember meeting one of them. I was just so amazed. He was so far up there. I could never attain what he attained because of where I was at the time. It was like a dream. That is how far away that was for me. I could not possibly fathom being there. At the same time, I do not know why I am here today. I still cannot get over it.
Mr. Young: A lot of young people will see this, and to sit beside the national chief is a big deal. It's like, ``Wow, I get to sit beside Matthew. Right on, that is cool and exciting.'' I can take that back home and say, ``Hey, you know, this is what happened.'' It's good.
As Ms Gosnell said, we have to make it clear that we are the exception to the rule. My own brother and I are different. We grew up in the same house, with the same parents and everything. He is this way, and I am this way. We are very unique and different people.
There has been a lot of hard work and there have been sacrifices. Ms Chabot and I were talking about that yesterday. She said, ``Don't you feel like you missed out?'' Sometimes I did. I did not have real teenage years, per se. I was busy fasting, or in the sweat lodge ceremony, or gathering wood, or splitting wood, or gathering rocks. There was no time to get myself messed up in the whole party life.
As Ms Gosnell said, remember that we sit here, yes, but we are not the ideal. I guess we are the ideal, but we are not how it is out there. We are not a full representation of the hard times and the suffering that our friends and our own families face.
The Chairman: As a grandmother, a great grandmother and the matriarch of a huge family, I must remind you that you survived because you have thought about the values that your grandmother gave you when you were little. That is a big difference in families. I see that in my own children, my grandchildren and my great grandchildren. I compliment both of you on surviving and coming forward in such a positive way.
Senator Christensen: You are exceptions, but are also what is possible.
Mr. Young: Exactly. That is what I tell young people wherever I go. I have been to Australia, all over Canada and the States. They say, ``You are so lucky.'' I say, ``No, I worked really hard, but you can do it too. Just be patient and get out there and meet the right people.''
All of you who sit here will keep our images in the back of your mind. When an issue comes along where you need advice or when you need direction, you will hear our words and you will see us. That is the impression that I wanted to bring here today. We are here and we can show you what can be done to make changes for our young people across this country.
Senator Christensen: You make your own luck.
Ms Gosnell: I developed a youth health workshop for B.C. It ended up not being a youth health workshop but a youth issues workshop. I would travel the province and go to communities that asked me to be there. I would work with the youth to find out what their community issues were, their community health issues in particular. However, when you look at the medicine wheel, when you look at the four aspects of life, everything that we do encompasses some level of that spirituality, that tradition and that medicine wheel. When you ask our young people about the issues in their communities, 20 youth will come up with 50 issues within 20 minutes, issues that affect them every single day of their lives, whether on reserve, off reserve, in a city or a small isolated town where a Beaver plane has to be hired to access. Their issues are pretty well all the same.
I realized that no one really talks to them. I had youth telling me that this is the first time they have ever been asked questions and have been able to break down the issues. I asked them, ``How many youth are affected by the issue?'' They told me that 50 per cent or maybe 91 per cent of us are affected by this issue. Then I asked them why it is an issue. They would tell me how it affects them. Then I would ask them what the consequences of the issue are. They would tell me how they would see it affect their family, themselves, their friends and their whole community. Then I would ask them, ``What can your family do to help you with this issue?'' They would think about it. I would ask them what their school could do to help them with the issue, because they are there all the time, hopefully. Then I would ask them what they as young people could do to affect that issue. Then I would ask them what adults could do to help them with that issue. Then they had all the answers. This is the first time that anyone actually sat and talked with them about why their lives are so important to the health of their community.
We would cry and we would laugh, and they would not want me to leave. They would tell me that their leaders are not listening to them. The adults and their parents are not listening to them. You must keep that in mind when you do decide to travel. If you ask the right questions, you will get the right answers. This might be the first time that leaders do talk to these young people. It does not happen often.
Senator Christensen: I would certainly agree with the national chief on the parenting issue. That is not just an Aboriginal issue; it is a national issue in many cultures. In fact, perhaps your culture has even a stronger feeling for the extended family than other cultures. The family is there for them in many cases, where they are not in other cultures.
On the financing issue, when we are developing programs, I agree with you on prioritization. You do not ask a single mother or try to, at the lower levels, get people to prioritize what is more important. That is not where the prioritization must take place. When a program is developed, it is developed for a need. At least 90 per cent of that money should get to the need and not to administration.
We have talked about statistics on HIV and AIDS, but we have not talked about another major issue, which is fetal alcohol syndrome.
Senator Pearson: I first wish to express the appreciation of all of us for this extraordinarily interesting session. I would also like to commend Mr. Coon Come because there is something about him that has allowed these young people to speak and to create the climate of dialogue. That is important. If you do not create the climate, then you do not speak out. You have been speaking about that considerably, Ms Gosnell.
I appreciated both the comments of Mr. Young and Ms Gosnell, but I am interested in the comments of Ms Gosnell on the empowerment of young people, with which I totally agree. The challenge for us is finding some of the best practices. I was going to ask you about giving us a good practice model but, in a sense, you have just done it.
Was that done for the youth group in Vancouver? How was it done?
Ms Gosnell: It was done through a youth health organization called the McCreary Centre Society.
Senator Pearson: I know the centre. What we need to do is support more of those kinds of opportunities.
Ms Gosnell: It was funded through the Population Health Fund of Health Canada. They have been very good to us through that project.
Senator Pearson: The point you make is that many young people feel no one ever listens to them. The way in which they will commit to solutions will help us devise, with them, much better solutions to the issues.
I understand the question Senator Cochrane was raising. Your presence as role models is extremely important. The young people I have worked with have suggested that when other things have failed in their lives, the presence of a mentor has been extremely important. Has that been true for both of you?
Ms Gosnell: Yes.
Senator Pearson: It is a strong message.
Senator Gill: In regard to relationships, my main goal for being here is to help to have a better relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. I am not the only one who has this objective.
Mr. Coon Come, you spoke about connections within the family. I would like to know more about the communication and connections between Aboriginals and Indian Affairs.
Mr. Coon Come: Oh, no, you do not want to know about that.
Senator Gill: I would like to hear some suggestions on how to improve that, if there is something to be improved. Can you say just a word about that? This is the key, Mr. Coon Come, to achieving many of the things that you spoke about today.
Mr. Coon Come: I have said this before and I will say it again: It is a form of insanity to continue with the same thing over and over again and expect different results.
The approach of using the existing Indian Act, for example, as a way to maintain colonialism and a stranglehold over First Nations is totally unacceptable in this day and age. The Assembly of First Nations is prepared to sit down with the government to develop a working relationship and to help them implement the Throne Speech. We have done all the joint initiatives that were recommended by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, from education, to veterans, to housing, to social services. All we need is someone from the government to sit down and tell us: ``Are we nuts or what?'' You spent $58 million of taxpayers' money over five years on the best minds in the world. They came up with very good recommendations. We are trying to build on those recommendations and to put numbers to them. If government says, ``Well, our priority is the Indian Act,'' then we will not go anywhere. That is a form of insanity. The government did that in 1969 with the white paper. You were involved in opposing that, Senator Gill. Always doing the same thing has not worked. We must move away from that thinking and deal with the issues, which is what we are doing here. We have to deal with the day-to-day bread-and-butter issues.
I would like to paint a rosy picture. That is important. However, we are here to identify those problems and to seek out solutions. Using the past as a springboard is not helpful.
Senator Johnson referred to some very important issues that I should like to highlight. One will help this committee. I refer to the IRDA agreement with Human Resources Development where we have some champions at the table. Within that agreement, we are working with industry to identify some of the labour force that is required to give some idea to the young people of what is out there, not just in the professional areas, but also the non-vocational skills that are required to give them an indication of what is available so that they will not go down a path where we have so many secretaries. We do not need more secretaries. This will give them direction. They have done a lot of work and studies. Their work would help you.
When we are looking at different role models, I have always admired John Kim Bell with the National Aboriginal Achievement Awards. They are celebrating their tenth anniversary this year. These awards recognize the achievements of our young people. We have some successful young athletes, academics, activists and business entrepreneurs. Young people can say, ``Look, these are achievers.'' They can be looked up to as role models. If you and I try to share experiences, young people put us in a certain bracket. If we use people in their age group, they can relate.
If you were to contact John Kim Bell and his group, you could get the names of all the young people who have received achievement awards over the last 10 years. I would be nice to ask those young people to make a presentation to you. You are seeking solutions. You should find out how they became achievers.
Senator Johnson: It is interesting that you should mention that. I asked yesterday why have we not asked to hear from those who have received National Aboriginal Achievement Awards. I am on the committee.
The Chairman: It is coming. I have already talked to John.
Mr. Coon Come: That is wonderful. I am glad to hear that. I should be a senator.
Senator Chalifoux: I was very fortunate. I was in the first 10 to be awarded a National Aboriginal Achievement Award 10 years ago.
I would like to thank you all. It was a wonderful presentation. You gave us some good recommendations, which is what we are looking at so that your voices can be heard at all levels of government. That is very important.
I will be attending the elders' conference at Onion Lake. I have been asked to go down there. We will be talking about governance. It will be very interesting. I may see Mr. Coon Come there.
Ms Gosnell: The youth of Onion Lake recently finished an anti-tobacco campaign that was very successful. Please remember to talk to them about that.
The committee adjourned.