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Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples

Issue 9 - Evidence - Morning session

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VANCOUVER, Wednesday, March 19, 2003

The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:10 a.m. to study issues affecting urban Aboriginal youth in Canada and, in particular, 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 morning senators and witnesses and everyone who has come to hear one of the most important action plans for changes for Aboriginal people that we have had in a number of years.

This is the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples. For the last 18 months we have been working on and action plan for change. Each of us has gone into our own communities and spoken to the Aboriginal agencies and people and asked them what they need in order to assist them in moving forward on all their pressing issues.

This is the beginning of our public hearings. We have heard from all the different government departments concerning the programs that they offer and how those programs are doing. We have come to some very interesting conclusions.

We have arrived in Vancouver from Winnipeg and will be off to Edmonton, the Maritimes, and the Eastern Provinces as part of our committees' hearings. Our cross-country mission is to gather as much information as possible concerning urban Aboriginal youth.

I welcome as our first witness Mr. Morris Bates. Please proceed.

Mr. Morris Bates, Specialized Victim Assistant, Vancouver Police and Native Liaison Society: I have been a specialized victim assistant with the Vancouver Police and Native Liaison Society for approximately 10 years. Our office is handling the Pickton murder trial.

We have a staff of four people: two victim assistance workers, our director, Freda Ens and our bookkeeper. Two of our members have been at the Pickton murder trial for the last four months, so I am in the office with the secretary.

When the native liaison first began we had two other partners, the Ministry of Attorney General for victim services, and the Vancouver Police Department. The Vancouver police gave us two police constables and also gave us in-kind space inside the Vancouver Police Department. Up until a short while ago we had a third partner in the federal government, but they pulled out of the partnership after three years of being with us.

The Pickton trial has taken many resources from the Vancouver Police Department and we only have one constable now in our office instead of two. We have a very busy office. It is easy have anywhere from 70 to 140 walk-ins and calls a day, and the day can be very hectic sometimes.

We are losing too many children to the streets; they are coming to Vancouver in droves from all over Canada. They are young adolescents at risk. We have the biggest drug problem in North America. Over 4.5 million needles a year end up on to the needle exchange; that equates to about 12,000 needles a day. The statistics say that 35 per cent of the people that get those needles are native. Drug use is causing many HIV and AIDS related deaths. We are only 2.7 percent of the population, yet we are just about 24 per cent of all the HIV cases in British Columbia. The ``VIDUS Project,'' the Vancouver Intravenous Drug Users Society gave us those numbers.

The native bands have been bringing their children to us so we can teach them about drug use. The problem is that too often the kids have already caught up in drugs by the time they get to us.

To tackle the problem I started talking to groups of kids once a month. In the beginning the groups were quite small. About three-and-a-half, four years ago, prior to this tape that you are about to see was made, I developed a new program. The program has grown, and has developed quite well.

The program runs for about two-and-a-half hours, and is very intense. The kids sit in my office for about one hour and they see a video and then we discuss HIV, AIDS, and drug using. Then I take them on to the streets of Vancouver not five blocks from here where there is the most incredible drug culture in the world. That takes another 20 minutes. Then, we go back to the office and I ask them about what they saw on the street. That takes about 15 minutes. I also do a section about getting a criminal record and the Young Offenders Act.

I give each of them a little hematite stone to remind them that they have something tangible. I tell them that if they choose the life they saw on the street they can throw that little rock as far as they can because that is what they will be doing with their lives. Then I ask them if they think the people on the street are throwing their lives away?

I do this program on one hour of the society's time and on my lunch hour. I do not receive any funding and do the program on the corner of my desk.

That is the program in a nutshell. Perhaps we can now watch the video I brought along with me today.

(Video presentation)

The Chairman: That was a very sobering video.

Senator St. Germain: Thank you, Mr. Bates, for coming this morning. I gather you are not a policeman.

Mr. Bates: No.

Senator St. Germain: Would it help if you were a policeman?

Mr. Bates: I do not know. I do not think so.

Senator St. Germain: Would it make your job easier if you were a policeman or would it jeopardize the trust that you have established with the people?

Mr. Bates: The native liaison has really bridged the gap between Aboriginal people and the police in the last 10 years. Our office is really busy because we are the most unique organization in Canada; we have made a deal that we are a native organization in part of the Vancouver Police Department. We have established an incredible trust.

When it started out I was only doing one group or two a month but now the program is so popular that I do that whole presentation myself inside with the kids.

Senator St. Germain: When I worked the streets in the 1960s the drug users gravitated to the Granville area and to the 100 Block East Hastings area. It seems that when youth come to the big city they gravitate to the drug areas. Is that still the same?

Mr. Bates: Yes, it definitely is. As it happens all the native housing projects are in the Downtown Eastside. We have the Friendship Centre down in 1600 Block of Hastings, and we have Native Education up on 5th and Main. There are 6,000 accessible cheap rooms in the downtown block Eastside here. If you go down towards Fraser Street and you go down to 49th and Fraser the street signs down there are in Punjabi.

People of their own culture like to be around their own people; it is very comfortable. I mean, there are just not native people walking up and down Robson Street but if they are down there they have a really good chance they are going to run into somebody they know. I know it is a horrible situation but that is how it has sort of been.

If you go to Richmond there is a large Asian community there; people would like to be around their own. Unfortunately, we have skid row in Downtown Eastside of Vancouver that the native people basically call home.

Senator St. Germain: I am opposed to the facilities that they are planning on building.

Do you think that treatment centers would be better than shooting galleries? Do you think that more programs are necessary?

I am certain that your statistics are correct. With such a large number of the native population on drugs would it not be better to build state of the art treatment centers?

Mr. Bates: My program is the only one of its type that does not agree with harm reduction. I tell the kids not to even go there. The harm reduction side is very powerful.

They are thinking of having a shooting gallery where you can actually go in and shoot drugs and they are going to allow young people to go in there also. I mean if you are 14 years old they are going to allow you to go into the shooting gallery. I do not know how they can do this legally; last time I looked drugs were illegal.

Harm reduction provides needles for the kids. This gives the kids a confusing message. They see the government giving needles away to people to use with illegal drugs. The kids are aware that HIV/AIDS is killing the native people.

The drug culture is embedded in the society down there. I took a group of kids out last night and there must have been a thousand people in those three blocks. The streets were packed. One kid wanted to know if we were really going to walk through the crowds. I said: ``Yeah.''

I do not mind going on record; I do not care for it myself, but I am the only one that has this program. Everybody is sort of telling you that drugs, you can do them and facilitate them; I just do not go there with the kids. There are other people who they can get that kind of information from and I do not want to be one of them.

Senator Carney: Mr. Bates, are you from Vancouver?

Mr. Bates: I was born in Vancouver. My mother is Shuswap from Williams Lake, and my dad is Haida. I was raised in Williams Lake except I went to high school in Washington State. That is another story.

Senator Carney: How do the kids get here? Are there ways to keep them from migrating to Vancouver? What is the reason for the migration?

Mr. Bates: The RCMP or the school support workers bring the kids into me. We deal with both native and non- native kids. Anybody can come and access the program. We have non-native girls from Abbotsford. I have never advertised; the phone just rings for the program. Once one school hears about it another school calls me. I am asked to do presentations at various functions.

I try to get the kids before the street gets them because once the street gets them I cannot do anything about it. I can do something in that room with 12 or 13 kids. Once they are out there with a needle hanging on their arm or at the other end of a crack pipe, there is nothing I can do.

Senator Carney: Are people referred to you?

Mr. Bates: Yes.

Senator Carney: What is the kids' reaction? Is the video representative of the kids' reaction? Are you trying to scare them off the streets?

Mr. Bates: No, I want to help them make an informed decision about the drug culture; how horrible it can be if they get caught into it. I am not scaring anybody. The producers put in the words ``scared straight.'' The name of the program is ``Reality Check for Indigenous People.''

Senator Carney: You are running a one-man show. What would you like to see the program do? It seems to me you are very effective running a very modest operation. Do you need more people to help you? Do you need more offices in smaller centres?

Mr. Bates: I am sure you are aware of all the cutbacks that have come through the British Columbia government. I am up against a wall in that the program takes about two to two-and-a-half hours for me to do. I usually do it over my lunch hour because I bring the kids in at 11:00 a.m. and we do the hour inside. I am taking an hour away from the society as a specialized victim assistance worker so the victim assistance people are telling me that I am going to either have to cut the kids out or else get my own funding to extend the program. The job that I am paid to do is a victim assistance worker and I have been told that the mandate for victim assistance does not include crime prevention. I thought it did because I have been doing it for four years with their blessing.

I work with the Vancouver Police Department and their mandate is crime prevention. Either way I am doing it. I am with the police department and I am doing it for them. If victim assistance prefers not to have me do the program I can do it with the police department under the umbrella of crime prevention.

Senator Carney: What do you do in your role as victim assistant? I thought that the program that you run is part of your job description.

Mr. Bates: No.

Senator Carney: You say it is a volunteer program on your lunch hour. What do you do as a victim assistant?

Mr. Bates: We do a lot of court accompanying. We used to do a lot of criminal injury compensation forms. We are the office in the Vancouver Police Native Liaison Society so we cover the whole gamut of whatever comes through the door, but our core funding is from specialized victim assistance.

Senator Carney: What can we do to help you?

Mr. Bates: Fund my program.

Senator Carney: That is pretty straightforward.

Mr. Bates: That is about all I can say. I do not know how much longer the victim assistance people are going to allow me to do this. I know the police department's got no problem, we are doing our mandate with them, but it is going to come down to probably have to look for some funding to do that program on my own, probably under the umbrella of the Vancouver Police Native Liaison Society.

Senator Carney: I think your program is wonderful.

Mr. Bates: Thank you very much.

Senator Carney: You are certainly getting a bang for the buck if you're keeping kids off the street.

Mr. Bates: It is amazing to see the kids' response. When the kids finish the program they have to go home and write me a letter. I left you a bunch of those letters for you to read. I have also left the names of people who have used my resources: the RCMP, the schools and so on. There are quite a few.

Four thousand young people have gone through the program. I did one on Monday, two on Tuesday, I am doing one this afternoon, two on Thursday, two on Friday, I am off on Saturday, and I am doing two on Sunday.

Senator Carney: I am just going to read some of the comments for the record.

Senator St. Germain: Will we make those letters part of the record?

The Chairman: Yes, they will definitely be part of the record.

Senator Carney: Let me just put in some to give you the feeling of it. Somebody wrote:

Thank you for the talk. It made me disgusted the way the alley stunk. I wanted to vomit. I know what drugs do to you. Drugs are bad for you. I am not doing drugs.

Obviously you are really getting your target audience. This is another one: ``Yesterday what I saw was an eye- opener. It makes me think about the decisions I am making in my life. When you say that 99 per cent of the junkies started by smoking bud does that mean that 99 out of a hundred people that smoke will become junkies?

What I learned yesterday is how serious a problem drugs really are. After it all I felt disgusted at how they just do it anywhere.''

You are obviously getting your message across.

Senator St. Germain: How many police officers in Vancouver are of Aboriginal background?

Mr. Bates: I think there are seven.

Senator St. Germain: Seven out of how many policemen?

Mr. Bates: Seven out of 1200. We had one in our office for a while but he was seconded to the Musqueam Indian Reserve.

Senator St. Germain: I think it should be on the record that we have heard in Winnipeg that this country has focused so much on bringing immigrants in and they have neglected our own Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal people have been neglected to the extent that they have that we have these horrific problems in the streets of all our cities and millions of dollars are being spent on assimilating immigrants where right at home we have one of the most horrific social situations that could exist in any civilization.

We run around as Canadians trying to be this, that and the other thing, and profess to the world that we are going to look after everybody that is from everywhere else and we have failed to look after our own people at home.

I think it is a disgrace. If you look on the police force you will see that they come into contact with large numbers of Aboriginal people yet they are very poorly represented on the force itself. People from around the world are better represented on the Vancouver police force than our own native people. It is a bloody disgrace. It is a shame.

Mr. Bates: I was invited to Ottawa and I represented our office for the national forum on policing in a multicultural society. There were 15 Aboriginal police there. We all sat down together and not one of those natives was a detective.

Senator St. Germain: It is a bloody shame.

Mr. Bates: Nobody is promoted past constable. There are all these issues, but at the very beginning it is those kids, and that is why I am here.

The Chairman: I would like to recognize someone in the gallery and that is retired Senator Ray Perrault, who was a tireless worker for the people in British Columbia. We have missed him greatly since he's retired. Unfortunately, we all must retire at 75 when we are in the Senate. Welcome, Senator Perrault, and if you would like to the committee has invited you to come and sit and join us here today.

Senator Pearson: Thank you for your very moving and interesting presentation.

You must have 26 hours in your day. What else does the Native Liaison Society do? What else is in your mandate? You have victims' assistance, but what else do you have?

Mr. Bates: Well, we are basically set up as a community policing office. We function within the community. We had two constables before and they sort of went into native organizations. We are like a miniature police department. We do not handle just native people. If anybody in Vancouver is a victim of a crime they get a standard form from the police department and their letterhead says they are to contact our office for victim assistance.

Ours is different. There were three different kinds of victim assistance. The first one is victim assistance with the police department and they only attend at the initial tragedy and then they are done. There was the Crown victim service's that has been slashed out completely, and there is our service.

We are specialized victim assistance program so we can be with the family for the whole duration. I have been on five major murder homicide trials. One of the first ones I started with, the guy was going to be paroled and I took the family to the parole hearings. That is my responsibility also. We handle anything to do with victims of crime and just about anything else that walks into that office. We do everything in that little office, it is amazing, and we have one constable.

Senator Pearson: Clearly, resources are a huge problem. You said you had some federal resources and it had come to an end. Where did that funding come from?

Mr. Bates: I do not really know. I am not sure where that came from. When the society was first started they set up these little — it was called a ``storefront project.'' Mostly they set these little projects up to fail.

Anyway, ours never failed because it was such a needed thing. I mean we have 65,000 urban natives that we take care of. We also deal with the sex abuse stuff.

We deal with spousal abuse, common assault, sexual assault, and historical sexual assault. We get those people from up north, because mostly when they have been sexually assaulted on their own reserve it is hard for them to go back to that reserve and they end up being ostracized and end up coming to Vancouver.

A girl came to see me when I first started and she had been sexually abused since she was — she had her first miscarriage when she was 11 years old. She didn't even know she was pregnant. The male members of her family had abused her. She went into counselling for three years just to get the statement out. The abuse happened when she was a little girl and she is in her 50s. A lot of stuff comes to our office because it can start there but initially have to go back to where it happened. We get people from all over, not only British Columbia but from all over Canada that come and use that little office. It can be a very busy place.

Senator Pearson: It obviously is a very busy place and you obviously need more resources. I also know that the police force has been occupied with the Pickton case. Hopefully that will soon tomorrow come to an end.

Mr. Bates: They have 110 forensic anthropology people out there right now and they have got a lot of resources from the Vancouver Police Department. The RCMP is also part of the task force.

Senator Pearson: That situation has put a drain on your own resources.

Mr. Bates: It is a drain because we just started the preliminary work five months ago. I have been in that office my by myself for five months.

Senator Pearson: You have to deal with the victims' families.

Mr. Bates: My director and co-worker have been at the preliminary trial, which will likely last until the middle of May.

Senator Pearson: Talk about an example of how prevention would have helped. Look at the cost of not having a prevention program.

Mr. Bates: I just hope you read those letters that those kids wrote.

The Chairman: I am going to ask that the committee receive copies of the letters so that you can each read them and they will be definitely put on the record.

Senator Lawson: I agree with Senator St. Germain it is shocking that in your spare time a program as valid as the one you have and the success rate that you have is done with no financing.

I am concerned with the number of natives on the police force. I am also concerned with the lack of funding for programs such as the one you operate.

Madam Chair the round table discussion that you had with the young people last night was wonderful. There is no doubt in my mind as to the talent, ability and skills of these young people. Their presentation last night was remarkable. They have found help under very difficult conditions.

One of the major focuses of the last budget was that zillions of dollars would be spent dealing with Aboriginal problems. I do not want to tell the committee how to do its business but I think it would be imperative to find out where the money going. Follow the money. Where is money being sent? Why are these kinds of programs not funded? Why are we not helping the young people?

We have all this fuss going on concerning the gun registration issue. That issue turned out to be a billion-dollar boondoggle, and if I had my way we would scrap it and re-direct some of those monies to deal with real problems.

This committee should recommend that the government focus on this problem and direct some of the available funds into programs such as this one. We see that this program works. It gets results. Why keep pouring money into the sewage where it disappears with no accountability and no results.

Thank you for coming in and sharing your program with us.

Mr. Bates: Thank you for having me.

Senator Carney: I want to follow up on your comment that most programs fail. There are 67 native associations and groups. Why have so many of the programs failed?

Mr. Bates: The federal government will finance a program for three years, and after that time they stop funding the project. This is the cause of many failures. They did the same thing to us but we were fortunate that the Vancouver Police Department took us in and gave us offices rent-free. The Vancouver Police Department in essence picked up the federal slack so it was only victim services, our core funding for salaries, and the police department.

Senator Carney: Where did they expect you to get the money for a program like this?

Mr. Bates: I do not know.

Senator Carney: I just wanted to clarify that for the record.

Senator St. Germain: Madam Chair, for the record I want to say that this is something that we have heard repeatedly. The federal government funds programs and even if the program is successful at the end of the three-year term they withdraw their funds. The government then finds another problem and begins all over again.

The Chairman: You have just put it on the record.

Senator Léger: Would you mind to say a few words on the housing issue?

Mr. Bates: There is not very much of it in Vancouver. There is a very long waiting list. My mother is retired now, and she is living in native housing. She was on the list for about 15 years. There are people who have been on it for six, seven, and eight years. That is a bad situation because the system itself is exposed to a form of nepotism. I have known people that have been on that list for six and seven years, and are still on it. I have known people that have worked in other native organizations and before you know it they have native housing. That is just sort of how it works. That is their business but there is just a real lack of affordable housing for native people.

If you want to see a real problem you should look at the school system. Up north the problem is severe. The schools get money for each child and cash that cheque in November. Soon after that the child is kicked out of school.

The highest rate of street-kids is native kids that have bee kicked out of school for whatever reason. These native kids are not being education.

I had a kid come to me one time to give me a report on some stolen car, and he could not spell his middle name and he was in Grade 10. When I get kids in for the program I show them a flip chart and ask them to read it. Most of the kids cannot read the words, and yet, they are graduating these kids.

As soon as the little box is marked that you are native the school gets an extra $9,000, and that money goes in general revenue. If and when the kid makes a mistake and leaves the school the school can take the money and do what it wants with it. That situation occurs a lot up north.

I see a lot of northern kids in my program. Many of them are already in alternate education; they have been kicked out of mainstream education. The schools should be forced to keep those kids in school and give them an education.

They put the native kids there and they have these little cultural programs, I mean, there is a little native girl that I know but she's got blonde hair and blue eyes and they have her going to computer classes and everything like that. Her little girlfriends are sent to play Barbie or go on a camping trip. They are not getting education to these kids and it is just pathetic.

I had a police constable, he is non-native but his wife is native and he took the little box and crossed the ``X'' because his wife had a status card so when he crossed that little box said that his family was native they took his son immediately out of mainstream education and put him in alternate education. He had to go back and fight like crazy to get his son back into mainstream education.

You know, I mean, I get the part where kids are getting kicked out of school for drugs. I try to make sure they understand what it is to get a criminal record. I explain about theft under 5,000. If you get caught with a joint it is supposed to be against the law and you are going to have possession of a controlled substance. It does not say whether it is two joints or a bag of cocaine, you can see it is possession of a controlled substance and I want them to really understand that. The girls like to steal cosmetics. I just preach to them that it is theft under $5,000; the charge does not say it was a $5 tube of lipstick.

That is what I do. That is my wrap-up thing I do with the program. I take it off the drugs and go to that. They understand if they get a criminal record they can basically kiss their butt good-bye. When you have a criminal record you cannot even get across the border. There are many consequences of getting a criminal record.

The Chairman: The federal government has said that they are putting so much money into Aboriginal services and programming, but it is all on reserve. This is where the big gap is in my opinion, and I have brought this out several times: We really have to start looking at off-reserve funding. There is a big battle there between the on-reserve funding and the off-reserve funding, and that has to be brought out loud and clear.

Mr. Bates: There are basically no resources for Aboriginal people in the city of Vancouver. Vancouver has come to the conclusion that there are no urban Aboriginals here. The city is only responsible for 1000 natives on the Musqueam Indian Reserve. Only one-half live on the reserve. To the city of Vancouver there are only 500 urban natives in Vancouver and they live on the Musqueam Indian reserve. These other people who come from all over Canada do not exist to the city, so there are no resources for them. The city of Vancouver is not going to put any money into native programs or anything native because they believe they have only 500 natives in Vancouver.

The Chairman: What about all the Aboriginal political organizations in and around Vancouver such as the United Native Nations? What are those organizations doing to help you?

Mr. Bates: I have to work here after you guys are gone. I do not think I am really the person to give the full comment on that question. I am very focused on what I do. Several times the organizations have tried to pull us into their idealism, and we over the years became very careful about it because if we were to join their little coalitions then it looks like you have the Vancouver Police Department acknowledging some of these organizations.

We have been very careful in choosing which organization we become affiliated with because we actually do represent the Vancouver Police and Native Liaison Society.

The Chairman: Have you received any letters of support from the Aboriginal political organizations in the province of British Columbia?

Mr. Bates: I have given you a list of the people that have written to me. One time, we wrote a letter saying that our funding was going to be cut, and asking for donations. We sent the letter to every native organization and every band in British Columbia. I think we got back a cheque for $100.

The Chairman: That is very interesting.

You are also doing wonderful things in prevention. Do you get any support or is there anything available to help the kids get clean? I am referring to the kids that are already addicted.

Mr. Bates: I think there are only ten detox beds in Vancouver for women. I might be off but there are not very many. They used to have a detox centre just down the street on Pender, but they shut that down. There is just one now, just across from the police department.

The focus that I have is once those girls and those guys get up there and they are on the end of a needle they are basically done. I even tell them that those people out there I cannot do anything for them. But I can sit in this room and I can do something for 10 or 12 kids, you know.

Once a girl has prostituted herself her self-esteem is gone. She now is on the end of a needle or a crack pipe; she is now selling herself for money and she is probably only got a Grade 8 or 9 education. Once she can learn she can make $500 in two hours she does not want to go back to school and she does not want to think about earning eight dollars an hour. Even if she can go back to school she has few skills to use after.

Once they get out there, they are pretty much finished. I make them understand this is going to be their decision that they are going to make. I have letters from kids that did not make it

These kids have got to be educated and the reason I do the program is that hopefully that they will understand where their life can go if they take that funny little trail with those drugs.

The kids come to Vancouver; they do not go to Edmonton. The girls who start up in Whitehorse go to Edmonton and Calgary, and as soon as it starts getting cold out there they come to Vancouver. Down her, if you walk down the street there will be 300 people willing you to sell you a $20 flap of cocaine or heroin. Illegal drugs are very easily available in Vancouver. Kids cannot go buy cigarettes but they can go buy crack cocaine.

Senator St. Germain: Mr. John Kim Bell from the Aboriginal community pointed out the terrible state that education is in. We are aware that funds are being spent on the ESL program for immigrants and yet we relegate our Aboriginal peoples the moment they check the native box on the school form. They natives are this country are relegated to a world of where they will never be competitive because the education that they are about to receive will be in an alternative class. I believe you pointed that out.

Mr. Bates: Yes.

Senator St. Germain: The moment these children are put into alternative education programs they lose their chance to compete in the working world. That is why we do not have Aboriginal policemen or Aboriginal fireman; they cannot compete with the non-native applicants.

Madam Chair this fact must be made known. If this is the policy of the provincial school boards everything we are doing here is for naught.

Mr. Bates, Senator Chalifoux, Senator Carney, Senator Lawson and myself, are all have different political backgrounds, but this is an non-partisan question; it has nothing to do with politics. What would you have us recommend?

Senator Chalifoux and others have sat on the Aboriginal committee for years. It is our responsibility to right the wrongs that are occurring with the Aboriginal youth. We must learn to look after our own people.

Can you help us get this message out? How can we help you?

The entire British Columbia educational systems should be brought to task for this, if this is indeed what they are doing to the Aboriginal youth.

How do we get your message out, Mr. Bates?

I do not want to put you in kind of an untenable position because I know you have to live on the streets and you have to live with various organizations, but if there is some discrete way we can help you without jeopardizing your worthwhile cause please tell us.

Mr. Bates: I do not really understand all you people's power; I have never been to a Senate meeting before. The room is starting to get nicer, though; I am feeling more comfortable.

I have been at my job for 10 years. I got an education in Washington State because my dad would not let them put me in a residential school. My dad packed up my two brothers and me and took us to the States to school so they could not touch us down there. I got an education; I was one of the first natives from my town of Williams Lake to graduate.

When I see what is happening down here with these kids it is just despicable. Some of these kids only have a grade 8 or grade 9 education.

I believe that the schools should be held accountable for educating those kids. I tell the kids that they have to stay in school. Nobody's going to get any place in this world with a Grade 8 or 9 education in the year 2003 and so on. They have to have an education. That is what I really try to push in the program.

I tell the kids to stay away from the drugs and go to school. I tell them not to listen to the harm reduction crap, sorry. It is difficult for these kids because when the harm reduction people come out they sort of make — I mean, they are going to put a place right down the street where people can walk in there in a room and they will help you shoot up drugs and if you OD they are going to have a nurse there for you.

What kind of message is that you send out to children?

The Chairman: What is your opinion on the decriminalization of marijuana?

Mr. Bates: It is never going to happen. You think the United States is going to let that thing happen? They have got a big war on drugs going on down there; they have had it for years.

You think they are going to let Canada legalize pot when we have the biggest border in the world that is unmanned?

I mean, they have got juice wherever they want it and they will sure as hell put a stamp on Canada's butt if they try to make marijuana legal up here. That is my opinion.

The Chairman: Good answer.

Senator Carney: I do not necessarily agree with my esteemed colleague, Senator St. Germain, that cutting funding for English as a Second Language and other issues like that is something that should be done.

I think we definitely need to fund those programs that help people achieve the opportunities that are our society has to offer. I did not want to leave the impression that the whole committee necessarily supports Senator St. Germain's statement.

I do want to say that in the letters from the children that you have counselled there is one paragraph that says it all. There is one paragraph that sums up the work that you are doing.

This is a letter from a girl called Raven. I will not give her last name for reasons of privacy. She writes:

I will never forget this day. I learned things I didn't know before. It was on this day that I realized what kind of a job or career I want for myself and it was just by seeing how much help these people need and want. Thank you, Morris Bates, for caring and opening my eyes.

I think that says it all.

The Chairman: Mr. Bates, you have been one of the most interesting and articulate witnesses that we have heard.

This committee's members hail from all over Canada; some of us are Aboriginal. All of us are very dedicated and very interested in exactly what is happening to our children.

I will comment on the ESL program for immigrants. Many of our children come into the cities and English is not their first language. They are not allowed to take an ESL program because they do not have the necessary landed immigrant card that is needed to apply for the free program. That is sad. The natives are not on a level playing field.

When an immigrant enters Canada they are welcomed with all kinds of benefits and all kinds of assistance in order to acclimatize them and help them to become part of the country. Yet, when our Aboriginal people come in from the outlying areas there are no support services for them. I have challenged the immigration department, and the caucuses concerning this very issue. We must consider the migration of people within our own country, not only the migration of people from outside our country.

I want to thank you so much for coming forward with all the issues that face the Aboriginal people in Vancouver. I am sure that the ministers and the government and the powers to be in Ottawa are really going to hear this loud and clear from every one of us in this committee.

Mr. Bates: Thank you.

The Chairman: I would like to welcome Angie Todd-Dennis and her colleague, Rita Barnes, from the B.C. Women's Health Centre. Mr. Lou Demerais was supposed to be here to represent the Vancouver Native Health Society but is unable to attend. Instead, we have two vibrant women who I am sure will give us good information on what is happening with the B.C. Women's Health Centre.

Ms. Angie Todd-Dennis, B.C. Women's Health Centre: Senators, I am pleased to be here but I did not know that I was going to be here two days ago because somebody submitted my name while I was away on holidays. I will give you a little background on my own history. I am a Dene from Northern B.C. In my earlier life I was a schoolteacher and I belong to the Frog Clan. I have two children and four grandchildren. I brought my friend, Rita Barnes, here to give me moral support. We both belong to the Pacific Association of First Nations Women and I am now working in the health area, having gone back to university when I was 50 years of age, and it was a torturous two years in Hawaii, believe me. I have a Master of Public Health and since 1995 I have been working as a community development consultant for B.C. Women's Health Centre.

I was asked to talk about youth and some of the things affecting youth. Rita and I discussed it a little on the way here, our health, our employment, our lifestyle, and the thing that jumped out at us is the poverty in which many of our youth live. No matter how many programs we have, it does not seem to improve the quality of life, particularly in British Columbia, where in fact so many of our programs have been decimated, particularly those working with Aboriginal people, street kids. I believe that funds that have been designated as Aboriginal-specific, such as the education funds, are not going where they should be going. I was a youth worker in Kumtux, which was the first alternate school here in Vancouver, and we worked with street kids from age eight on. There have been about three alternate schools since then and I believe only one continues to exist. The schoolteachers and home care workers in Vancouver feel that those funds that should continue to be designated for Aboriginal youth are being put into the larger pot, and I think that is very damaging.

Rita was a home-school worker, a very effective program in which she went into the homes not only to counsel, but also to ensure that kids were fed. She would bring sandwiches to school, knowing that many of the students that she worked with would come to school hungry. Two or three years ago, she was very gratified to be at the graduation of the mother whose children she used to feed, and who has since obtained a law degree from Harvard. She saw these children in Prince George watching their mother being admitted to the bar and they remembered her. I feel that the funds for these kinds of programs are being misallocated at the moment and that should be looked into.

The slogan for the program that I run at B.C. Women's Health Centre is ``healthy women, healthy babies, healthy communities.'' You cannot separate youth from their families. You need to look at youth issues as Aboriginal family issues, and again I will mention poverty as a significant detriment to the lives of Aboriginal people.

I came from a background of institutionalization, first through residential school then as a ward of the state. Fortunately, when I was 12 years old, I was digging through my records at the boarding school I was attending and found that a social worker had written to that school to say that ``Agnes,'' that was my birth name, ``is a very clever girl.'' I had not known that because in residential school, you are just pushed from one grade to the other and nobody tells you that you are smart. I told Premier Harcourt at a meeting that I found out at 12 years of age through a social worker that I was smart and I have been acting smart ever since.

We have huge concerns in our association and also at B.C. Women's Health Centre about a hidden element that very few women want to speak about publicly, and that is the violence within our homes and communities that Aboriginal children see on a daily basis. There are very few programs or monies designated for assisting women to build healthier households. There have been Aboriginal parenting programs, but I am not aware of any success in those I have seen because they do not look at the issue of parenting. Learning how to dance is not parenting. Learning how to drum is not parenting. I think that all child and youth have a right to be loved, secure and safe, and these issues are not looked at. If you are looking at program money, this is a huge area that would really benefit Aboriginal women. I know that Senator Chalifoux knows about the residential schools, and I know that many of you know a little about them, but picture a village without children between the ages of 6 and 16 over several generations. I went to residential school when I was four years old. We were not taught how to parent. What we saw were punitive means of discipline, and many of us brought that kind of parenting to our children, so that intergenerational cycle remains to this day. If we are looking at the health of youth, we need to also consider working with the whole family.

When there was that huge fiasco at HRDC a number of years ago, our Pacific Association of First Nations Women, like all other Aboriginal programs across Canada, unfortunately had a lot of its funding cut off. Aboriginal women's programs were sacrificed for the big picture. We did not lose millions of dollars, but what little we had was cut in half, and then we got to the point where we felt we did not want to apply for any more funds from the federal government because they changed the rules so many times. Taking a second look at Aboriginal women's programs is a must. We need to restore the funds that have been taken from us and to make sure that there is equity. Why were funds to some populations cut and not others? I question that, and I believe that you need to question it also.

I believe that the Aboriginal Healing Foundation funds need to be sustained. Although it is finite funding, we have done a lot of good with many of the programs across Canada. We run a program dealing with those remote communities that cannot access these funds. We offer training in looking at violence within the community, within the family, and help them to develop strategies. Thus far, our Pacific association has worked with seven remote and semi- remote groups of women, and we have done training here in the city on dealing with violence in relationships, sexual assaults and any other kind of physical violence that is common in our homes.

In addition to speaking about the poverty and the violence, I want to relate a story, and then you may ask me any questions you wish. When I worked at Kumtux, which was an outreach school on Gore and Hastings, our children came from RayCam and a lot of families close by. We ran our program out of a church, and one year, we decided we were going to take these tough little street kids to Disneyland. We worked all year raising funds, and some airport employees union gave us a healthy chunk, but the rest of it was more or less raised by those kids. There was a range of ages, and 4 of us staff members took 16 of them down by bus and a car. These were tough street kids who used to, I have to tell you, try to sell me everything: ``Do you not need a new TV set?'' ``No, I do not.'' ``What about your kids who are growing up, do they not need jeans? We have lots.'' I would say no. I refuse to touch anything remotely ``warm.'' As soon as we leave the Downtown Eastside, we notice a great difference in them. We took them out of their element and they were absolutely well behaved — they were not within the confines of their home and their territory — and as a matter of fact, they were a little scared of the outside world. When we got to San Francisco, we said, ``Go and explore the city; here, we will put you on the tram.'' Well, they had heard, of course, that San Francisco has a large gay population, and they thought that as soon as they got on the bus, somebody was going to pinch their bottom or something. They went to one side of San Francisco on the tram and came right back.

They had each saved a couple of hundred dollars, and that went very quickly once we got to Disneyland, but fortunately we had enough money so that all of them were able to enjoy it. I was talking to one of the child care workers that I worked with at that time and I said, ``You know, we should have a reunion,'' because I know some of our kids have fallen by the wayside, some have killed themselves, some have overdosed, but I believe that there is such resiliency among these youth. I see them walking around, I see that they have jobs and I see that some of them are good mothers, and I think to myself, there is hope. There is hope, and we need to somehow recognize that resiliency of our youth and the resiliency of the mothers who produced them. That tells me that it is not entirely hopeless, but we do need money and programs and to create safe venues. My children were able to play soccer; I kept them busy. Thank heavens they were both athletes, but when I saw how much my grandchild, who is five years old, had to pay for hockey equipment and fees, I was glad that he has a rich grandfather on the other side of the family. Many of our children cannot get into these activities. Poverty affects everything for a youth growing up — poor nutrition, no money for recreational activities. Rita was saying on the bus coming down, even on a day like this, rather than be at home in a dysfunctional household, kids will be outside, hanging around doing nothing, waiting, and it frightens me at times. I will walk right up to see if our young girls are being hassled by some elements that want to lure them onto the street. I will say, ``What is he saying to you and what is he doing?'' I will speak to the male person and say, ``You stay away from our girls, period. If you do not, I will scream.'' I always remember what Jane Middleton-Moz said about adult children of alcoholics; when she saw a child being mistreated, she said, ``I will intervene on behalf of any child,'' and I think that is the attitude that we as Aboriginal women need to take collectively. That is why it is so important that you look at the funding practices and at increasing funding for Aboriginal women's programs, because we want to be able to help our women. If we do not have strong, healthy women, we cannot have strong healthy children.

The Chairman: Ms. Barnes, would you like to say a few words?

Ms. Rita Barnes, B.C. Women's Health Centre: I am really just here, as Angie said, as moral support for her. I think she was feeling a little shaky about this. What she did say was this is so important. We need help here. We need help for our families, opportunities for children to have something to do. On days like this they do not even want to be in the house because of the home situation, but they have no money to take part in sports. My grandchildren all play soccer and my daughters are always complaining about the cost of soccer boots because growing children need new boots every six months. There is just no chance that any child living in the inner city will ever be able to afford that. It costs money, and with the cutbacks, organizations are not able to help. Every time you step out the door it costs money. Even to go out fund-raising you need start-up money, and we do not have that. It seems that every time we get together as organizations there is always this big question of how do we raise money for this? In the meantime, every time you walk out the door you see our kids on the street and our homeless native women. I am becoming emotional here so I will stop before I break down completely.

Ms. Todd-Dennis: I know that there are Aboriginal-specific designated funds in the areas of health, and probably children's issues and education. I am wondering to what extent the federal government can influence the provincial government to reconsider the policies that they have put in place in the last two years and which have absolutely decimated a lot of our families. I understand from some people that women have gone into the sex trade to be able to feed their families and they are very afraid of the welfare system, which has a time limit on receiving benefits. I believe that the policies of this provincial government are detrimental to the life of Aboriginal people in general, and if it affects the communities, of course it will affect the youth. This is just a small community, but we have children shooting up at 10 years of age. We have drug dealers that the band councils are afraid to touch. We have leaders, chiefs, who will not deal with the violence within their communities because some of them may well be the perpetrators. People say they want to do something for our youth because they are our future. Well, they are certainly our future, but how strong are they going to be if they are so badly damaged by the time they get to grade 1? I know that some of these Head Start programs have been very successful and I think that any kind of programming should be more holistic. The family needs to heal together, not just the youth individually.

I think that the issue of poverty and all of its ramifications needs to be considered. We have many success stories, but I want to speak on behalf of those kids who have no one to speak for them.

Senator Pearson: Thank you very much for coming on such short notice. I think the way you have communicated very well so do not worry about that at all. I was particularly struck by one of your comments about the issues of parenting, which I think are extremely important, and the fact that in the residential school you learned that discipline was punitive. I had not heard it phrased that way before but I think that is a very helpful, if sad, insight. What is the best way to deal with parenting issues for the families that you work, because just teaching people will not necessarily work; you have to do something a little more engaging. Do you have some ideas about programs that work?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: I know that Aboriginal women who had their children taken away had to go to classes that were very focused on the middle-class way of parenting, and I believe that the only way Aboriginal people can help each other is to have them actively engage in a parenting process on a continuing basis. You can only do that by having them, say, come to a place where they can learn to interact, to cook for their children, to plan, and where mothers can talk to each other about ways and means of disciplining. For instance, how do you do this, what is a healthy way of doing that. However, it needs to be run by Aboriginals. It needs to have lots of support. We have very few counsellors who really understand the ``Aboriginal way,'' as we call it. We have very few counsellors for the mothers in the first place. We frequently get calls from remote parts of British Columbia that do not have the services we have in Vancouver from mothers just wanting to talk to somebody. I myself was 34 years old when I began to realize I was behaving like my mother and that is when I went into counselling. I did not want my boys to be harmed by the poor parenting skills I had then. That was a few years ago, I am still learning, and I am finding out that I am a better grandparent than I was a parent. Rita can give you some ideas because she has worked directly with families and seen some of the things that have worked.

Senator Pearson: Could you give us some ideas, because I think this is absolutely crucial, the parenting issue? It is not just crucial for Aboriginal families, but also for families across the board. An organization in Toronto called Invest in Kids conducted a survey that found that people with young children think that parenting is the most important thing they do. That is the good news. The bad news is they do not know how to do it and their understanding of the social and emotional development of children is very poor. They understand more about the physical development, but they admit to that poor knowledge. I think it is important that we as a society develop better ways to help parents do what only they can do, which is to parent, so if you have some ideas I would be really grateful for them.

Ms. Barnes: I just always assumed that when you plan a family, you are expecting your first child and this is going to be your own baby, you would know what to do. I did a lot of babysitting. I attended a residential school for nine years, but I was fortunate in that the school was in a place where I had lots of family and I was able to go home on weekends. I still speak my language. Babies were always loved — when you pick up babies, you just have to hug them. I just assumed that everybody thought that way, and I am sure basically everybody does, but if you have not grown up in a family watching how a baby is cared for, you may not know how. I realize now that it is learned behaviour. Working for the school board and doing home visits, I would watch young mothers change their babies' diapers, and there was no interaction. I wanted to say, ``Talk to her, play with her.'' Mothers naturally do that when they are changing diapers. However, I noticed that in a lot of our homes this was not done. I saw there was something missing here but I did not know how to address it. I knew that I could not say, ``Hey, you are doing this all wrong, this is what you do when you are changing diapers, you play with them, you talk to them, you interact with them.''

Eventually, I would say, ``Do you mind if I change this diaper? I have not changed a baby's diaper for ages.'' Then I would play with the baby or pick up a book to read to her while I was visiting. I would say, ``While you are doing that, can I play with the baby, can I hold the baby?'' Through the years that I worked for the school board, I did not see any results from that, but I knew that something needed to be done, that parenting skills programs were really important. When I had the opportunity to sit in on a parenting program I was not impressed. I was not impressed with how it was done. Then I went to another one in Burnaby that really impressed me, it was just wonderful. It was run by a very young woman who had four little boys, and her husband was a labourer. Some of the parents were court-ordered to attend this parenting skills program, but the way she set it up was just wonderful. She never pushed anything. They would start off with a meal, a healthy meal, and she would have her menu there, the cost of the food and the nutritional value. She would talk about it while we were eating this wonderful, healthy food and she would break it down into how much it would be per person. Then a childcare worker took the babies away for a while and they went on with other things. After four weeks, you would see that the court-ordered mums who had not wanted to be there would be right on time and seemed to be looking forward to the evening and talking about their week. Eventually, they would team up to give each other a break; one mother would give another parent a break for the whole week and take her kids. She needed that break. The lady who asked me to sit in on this program said, ``How do you see your role here?'' I was brought in as an elder, and I had to think about it for a week or so. I thought, ``I will give them the benefit of my mistakes.'' I raised five children in Burnaby and they are all grown, they are all parents now, and they are good parents. However, every once in a while we get together and they talk about the things that they hated about me. ``You know what I used to hate about you, mum, when we were growing up? You could never just answer a question directly; you always had to tell a story.'' Of course, they do that now, but there were other things that they did not like. If I had to do it all over again, I knew what I would change, so I gave them the benefit of my mistakes and said it was okay to say, ``I do not want to be a mother right now, I just want to get out of here.''

However, I had a large support system; I had my mother-in-law, who lived with us. I had two sisters in the city, so I was very fortunate to have that support system behind me, but I still made mistakes. We are not all perfect mothers here, but some of these families out there are so dysfunctional because the residential school system created four generations with no mothering skills. The first generation that was taken away from their homes went back to parents who had not been parenting for 10 months. They began to lose those skills and then it becomes a cycle. We are still trying to get back to knowing how to mother, how to parent. It always comes back to the almighty dollar, but it takes money for programs to help people become good parents. I just had to talk about that young lady out in Burnaby because I really liked that model. Of course, the funding only lasts for so long.

Senator Pearson: Same problem. I think I pulled out the components of a program that works from what you said. One is showing by example, developing a community of trust, and helping to develop support among parents so that they can talk with one another and help one another out. It has to be holistic, which you already talked about, and we need the resources to keep these programs alive.

Ms. Barnes: This young lady really impressed me, that she was able to do this. She was a young, native mother and her husband would go after work to pick up those parents who did not have the bus fare. Bus fare is always last on your priority list if you are on welfare. It was really all done by example. She encouraged them to bring their spouses and it was wonderful to watch a program that really worked. However, we need money for more programs like that and hopefully to get this young lady to teach others how to set up programs like hers.

Senator Sibbeston: Ms. Todd-Dennis, you talked about how you are involved with the B.C. Women's Health Centre and that you are the coordinator. I am interested in knowing the extent of Aboriginal involvement in health. I notice there is a Vancouver Native Health Society; is that a different organization, and just how many organizations are involved in Aboriginal health generally, trying to promote health care?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: Our large provincial organization, the Chiefs' Summit, puts on some fine provincial programs, for example, on diabetes, but they received a letter a week ago Monday stating that $500,000, their total budget, is being chopped. We have the Vancouver Native Health Society, which runs a clinic in the Downtown Eastside. We have a mental health project in Vancouver. Ours is a provincially run organization and my job is to work with women throughout the province who wish to set up programs for Aboriginal women to look at health issues for various age groups. I do a lot of community development work, and we have run three screening clinics in the more remote areas for about ten years because the mortality rate for cervical cancer, for instance, is four to six times the provincial norm. That was rather frightening when we began our program, but women themselves identified that we need to know more about healthy-women kinds of activities. Therefore, we have broadened our scope to give women information about their own health.

Each of the 5 regions — the province just recently reduced the number of health regions from 14 to 5 — has an Aboriginal coordinator, except for the Interior, which has one for only one day a week. Their role is to disburse funds for different kinds of health-related projects. The Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada has about 50 members in the province. I do not know how many physicians we have graduated. I used to work at UBC and my job was to encourage people to enter the health sciences, so I only know those people with whom I worked. I am proud to say that I went to a dinner with one of my students in Tucson last June who had just qualified in anaesthesiology, and he is working in Bellingham. What other health-related programs do we have? There is the Helping Spirit Lodge Society, which looks after the mental health of battered women. We have Healing Our Spirit, which is a provincial program looking after the needs of our people who have HIV/AIDS. There is also the Red Road Society, which is another provincial AIDS project.

I act as chair of the Aboriginal component of the college of midwifery and we are trying to find people who are interested in being trained and whether there are still any traditional practices in the field. We got very excited when we heard that among the Maoris, in the same way as they brought their language back in one generation, the women got together to bring back midwifery as part of their lifestyle, and that seems to have been very successful.

We have a FAS education project that used to be run by the friendship centre, but I believe Mr. Demerais' group runs it now. Mr. Demerais has many projects, by the way. They work with Sheway, which looks after the needs of mothers-to-be to make sure that their babies get prenatal and post-natal care. That is run in the Downtown Eastside. One of the recommendations of a report called ``Pathways to Healing'' was for a wellness centre in which many programs can be held. However, I am interested in seeing a women's clinic, because there is no safety in a wellness centre where a woman goes in one door and her batterer goes in the other.

I would like to see a clinic to which women can come for screening, for counselling, and leave their children while they go shopping or have a little respite time. That is my dream.

Senator Carney: What are the major health issues for Aboriginal women? There is the violence issue, but do Aboriginal health issues have a different profile from the general population?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: We are not dying of injuries as we used to. That used to be the leading cause of death. Our leading cause of death is now circulatory, and I think a lot of that has to do with a more sedentary life. Our lifestyle has changed considerably. Certainly the high mortality rate for cervical cancer has to do with late diagnosis, and as these changes occur in the province, women's health seems to get lost. Diabetes and arthritis have increased in Aboriginal women. Osteoporosis is on the rise, which was very surprising because it never used to be much of an issue. That is probably linked to the change in diet. I know women are asking about menopausal issues because our grandmothers never thought it was anything to consider. It was a stage of life and they worked so hard, menopause came and went. Now there are big concerns about that and more of an intergenerational interest. That is one of the workshops that we are frequently asked to give. A mother will phone and say, ``Can you come and do a workshop, because I want my daughter and my granddaughter to hear this?'' They are able to educate each other about why the mother behaves the way she does. There are changes going on in her body.

Senator St. Germain: You cite residential schools as creating the violence, and I know what you are speaking of because I grew up with a white mother and an Aboriginal father. My father would never strike anything; he could barely kill flies, yet my mother disciplined me. The culture of Aboriginal peoples, regardless of where, was always more of a non-violent approach to raising their families. Then this different, residential school culture was forced upon Aboriginal people. We talk about violence and it is obviously both parents, not just the mothers. I know you are representing women here today, but I have to ask whether frustration at lack of accomplishment in the head of the family is a major contributing factor to this violence.

Ms. Todd-Dennis: We have seen huge cultural changes within our communities and culture does not stand still; 100 years ago or 200 years ago it was the males, the fathers and the uncles, who did the work of bringing in the food and building the homes, et cetera, that was their role. The women's role was to raise the children and do other things that women did in those days, such as picking and drying berries and being with the family while the husbands were away. Our role has remained basically the same, although some of us may go out to work now, whereas the men's role has changed significantly. They went from hunting, providing for the family, to working in the mills, working as loggers and trying to find whatever jobs they could, even picking roots. I understand that our people in the Vanderhoof area used to get paid a dollar an acre to pick roots for the farmers. A lot of our men are unemployed now and their role has changed significantly, so I believe that there is that feeling of hopelessness and helplessness because they cannot provide for the family.

Senator St. Germain: I cannot understand how this funding system works, because we have bureaucrats all over the place who are supposed to have funds, and we find out this morning that there is funding for Mr. Bates, who was here earlier, through HRDC. We have all these people working for the evil empire, DIAND, which gets more money every year, and yet more of our native peoples are moving off reserve and DIAND money is almost all allocated for on- reserve natives. That is a total mystery to me. I cannot work out what is going on, and maybe somebody has an explanation, but that is a real frustration for us as politicians as well. You talked about a holistic aspect or spiritual aspect, and I think that if we as societies, regardless of our different faiths, do not have a spiritual side, it is next to impossible to dig our way out of the morass in which we find ourselves. Do you give much thought to that in the process of what you are trying to do and what could be done to improve that state of affairs?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: Well, you cannot imbue or inject spirituality into anybody. Spirituality is different from religion. If you want to look at it from the holistic point of view, spirituality means you are healthy physically, mentally and emotionally. When you have all of those components in good order, your spiritual side is in balance. We help our women to feel safe and build some self-esteem so that they can be better mothers, and one of the elements of that is consistency. It has to do with being able to express love. I could not. Fortunately, I had a foster mother who insisted on hugging. I did not know how to hug before. Even when I had my children, I felt as if I were play-acting. I always had this vision where I wanted my family and my home to be like that of Dick and Jane, with a little white picket fence and Zeke the neighbour coming along every fall to do the raking. This was my image of a family until I had my own and realized that the most important thing is self-esteem; if you love yourself then you can express love. I am finally expressing it at my age to my adult sons, and I can express it very easily to my grandchildren because they give unconditional love.

I think that this program should take practical approaches, as Rita described, and look at budgeting, at where you can buy cheaper clothing, where you can go as a group to work on community gardens; you can each throw in $5 a month to buy a large bag of potatoes or rice or whatever. I just do not see it as ``I am going to teach you how to love your child and change your child's diapers.'' It has to do with growth and giving them the tools with which to raise their children in a more healthy way and being able to discuss it.

Senator Carney: I want to suggest that Mr. Demerais be asked to supply the names of the programs that he accesses, for the record, for our report.

Ms. Barnes talked about poverty and the lack of bus money and I was thinking about last night when the youth were saying how important it was for the parents to get involved in their schooling. Of course, it is more difficult to do that if you do not have bus money.

I wanted to ask Ms Todd-Dennis about these Aboriginal women's groups, what binds them and what power they feel they have. Does the Pacific Association of First Nations Women deal with on-reserve or off-reserve women?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: It started out as the Professional Native Women's Association in 1981, and since so many of us worked within government, within certain sensitive areas, we felt isolated and used that as a support group. We used to have regular dinners and some social interaction. We held casinos so that we could give scholarships and encourage people to go to university and celebrate their graduations. About 1995, because we were never able to get a registered charity number because of the word ``professional,'' we changed our name to Pacific Association of First Nations Women so we could include more women. We tried to act in an advocacy role, we tried to lobby on behalf of women, but we were given a specific mandate in 1995 to look after the social services and health interests of Aboriginal women, primarily in the city. However, we discovered that women in other areas needed the kinds of services we were providing so we expanded. Now, even though our constitution says ``primarily in the city of Vancouver,'' we have provincial membership.

There are very few Aboriginal women's groups registered in the province. One of the oldest, Indian Homemakers, fell apart and so we have the Pacific association, Upper Island Women of Native Ancestry, and some loose groups around the province that have aligned themselves with the Pacific association because we have worked with them in the area of violence. B.C. Native Women's Society is another women's group, based in Merritt.

Senator Carney: We have been told, or we know from our own experience, that a factor in the urban migration is that women leave the reserves and come to the city, and of course bring their children, because they cannot get services from male-dominated band councils. Sometimes it is a question of status and Bill C-31 and I do not know if you are familiar with that. Can you comment on that and do you agree that it is a factor in urban migration?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: In many cases, it is. There are many reasons for migrating. One has to do with education, or the lack of it. If you are not in favour with the family that controls the dollars you will not get funded to go to school. Therefore you might come to the city to find other ways, such as applying for the student grant. You might come into town because you have been living in an unhealthy situation where you were battered. You might come because there are job opportunities. I could never work on a reserve. To tell you the truth, I could not work for a band council with authority over me as an educated woman and that will find every excuse to fire me because I am educated. I will not work in a situation where somebody who has a grade 8 education tells me what to do. I applied for a job after I got my master's degree; they did not hire me, they hired a white psychologist who left within two years. I refuse to go through that indignity again, of applying for a job amongst my own people and then being rejected because I am educated. Many of us educated Indians do not go back to the reserve for that reason.

Senator Carney: However, more women are educated than men.

Ms. Todd-Dennis: Yes.

Senator Carney: Education is a factor in families, children, leaving the reserve and coming to the city? Is what you are saying?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: Yes.

Senator Carney: Ms. Barnes, did you want to comment?

It is very important that we talk about education, but we are dealing with youth migration from reserves to urban centres, and there are not always problems. I want to remind the senators of what the youth told us last night — so often, we look upon these issues as problems that have to be fixed. A lot of people and a lot of youth do very well and we should not be always looking for problems to be fixed. If we have a situation where there are disparities in education, where the women are doing better than the men, what can we do about it, or should we do anything about it? Either of you can comment.

Ms. Barnes: I am in the city because there were no jobs in the tiny village of which Indian Affairs decided that I should be a part.

Senator Carney: Kingcom?

Ms. Barnes: I always felt that I was culturally a part of three other villages. It was very isolated and my people were fishermen. Sometimes they did well and sometimes they did not. There were no jobs for women in this little village. Naturally, it was not a place where I could stay when was at an age where I needed a job, and Alert Bay was the next little town so that was where I went. Eventually, I moved from there to here.

Senator Carney: Therefore, women follow jobs or come because they do not get services. What are the other factors that bring families to the city in your experience? I know that Alert Bay looks like Paris compared to Kingcom, but it still a fascinating part of the coast.

Ms. Todd-Dennis: I think the people who have HIV/AIDS come to escape the stigma; so many of them come to the larger cities for anonymity and to die. Of course, the rate of HIV/AIDS is increasing, particularly among Aboriginal women.

Senator Carney: Why are women not more involved in band councils? There are governance issues here. Why is it that women do not seem able to access the power base? It is related to the issue of families and migration to the cities, so why are women not more active politically within Aboriginal governance?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: Most band councils are dominated by dysfunctional men, and some of them are powerful and threatening. They have families. For instance, if I wanted to become chief in my village and get rid of the dope dealer, he has a huge family base that could vote against me. He could threaten me, and I know he has threatened people before. I do not know whether as one woman I would be able to withstand that on a constant basis. Some of my relatives have been on band councils, but I do not think some of them could last more than one term. Our tribal chief has lasted three terms, but every once in a while we have to rush there as family to help her in maintaining any kind of power base, those of us urban Indians who can — our votes do count now.

Senator Carney: Do you feel less discriminated against in the urban culture than on the reserve?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: I think so.

Ms. Barnes: From where I sit, I see discrimination against women in the urban area.

Senator Carney: That is interesting.

Ms. Todd-Dennis: Is that from Aboriginal men, or just general discrimination?

Ms. Barnes: I am talking about men against women. Way back when Indian Affairs decided to set up the democratic system, with the band councils, men were led to believe that they would be the ones in those positions. It took away what used to be equality between men and women in our lifestyle, which used to work so well. It took that away from the women and it has somehow stayed that way. I have not seen much change.

Senator Carney: I am always amazed at how inactive Aboriginal women seem to be. Maybe the next generation will be more active, but our generation seems to be quite passive about some of these issues, and, of course, that affects migration and family culture. If daughters are raised in a culture where they feel inferior, maybe it motivates them to leave and get their education, I do not know. However, it is a factor in what we are looking at, which is problems of youth.

Senator Lawson: I found it interesting listening to these ladies talk about parenting and children and grandchildren. The beauty is that they do not hesitate to express themselves.

Somebody made a comment on financing and that funds may be available from HRDC for Morris Bates' program. Whether it is with the Minister of Indian Affairs or HRDC, there is a breakdown in communication, and I say this because subsequent to that serious problem in HRDC three or four years ago, I received many calls and complaints from contractors who were getting funding from HRDC.

A variety of groups, for example, the YWCA, had been receiving funds for training people to re-enter the workforce, so I took a number of grievances and complaints to the minister's office in Ottawa and met with the deputy minister. We thought we were making some progress, but over the next couple of years we had more and more complaints and grievances about these contracts.

I raised it again with the minister's office, and the deputy minister said, ``I will arrange for you to meet with the regional people in British Columbia.'' I said, ``As long as it is a two-step.'' He said, ``What is a two-step?'' I said, ``Well, I will meet with them, and then we will meet with the people complaining.''

They were very responsive. I said, ``You have some serious problems,'' and so he said, ``Well, all right, you want to call a meeting.'' I said yes. Here is a senator calling a meeting of HRDC contractors to talk about these grievances. To their surprise, not necessarily to mine, 70 contractors responded. We had a meeting just over here in the library building.

There was resistance at first, because they said, ``No, we are afraid to come to these meetings because we think that we would be putting our contracts at risk and the individual managers handling this have too much autonomy, too much authority.'' I said, ``The first thing that will happen at the meeting is that I will give a written guarantee that there will be hell to pay if anybody's contract is endangered in any way simply because they came.'' They brought in a neutral person to chair the meeting and these 70 contractors stood up one after the other and said whether they were happy or unhappy with the situation. It turned out that probably 65 out of the 70 contractors were unhappy and had a lot of grievances. We had an excellent dialogue and now that has been ongoing for about a year.

At least they came together as a result of this and I think that we are making progress in some areas. Some are national issues that we have to take care of in Ottawa and some can be taken care of at the regional bases. I must say that the majority of the HRDC officials had a very positive attitude; they were keen to solve some of these problems because otherwise, there was going to be an explosion somewhere down the line.

Part of the problem is that they have one-year contracts, and when you are partway through that first year you have not developed a clear indication of how well you are doing, but now you are preparing for the second contract. I have been talking with them again about how they have to develop three-year contracts, at a minimum. The point I am making is that we talk about all these various native organizations and there does not seem to be a lot of connection between them. It may be appropriate for someone to intervene and say, ``Hey, let's call a meeting, let's bring all the native groups and all the people with grievances and complaints into one room, a room like this, deal with it, and see if we cannot make some progress.'' I do not know why there is this tremendous breakdown, although I think in some cases they are protecting their turf. I know that HRDC are very concerned because part of the complaint was that the regional directors or the individuals in charge of the programs were micromanaging the contractors. Then it was an issue of whether they were contractors or employees. Some HRDC people were treating them like employees and a lot of them got a little tired of it.

I think there was a case in Saskatchewan where they filed a lawsuit and the courts declared they were employees. HRDC does not want that because then they have to pay all the benefits, but neither should the contractors be treated as a source of cheap labour. They must be fairly treated. It is a good object lesson that progress can be made if somebody gets involved and makes it happen. You may want to think about recommending as a committee that such a meeting take place.

The Chairman: Once again it boils down to communication, and we have heard that all along. I just have one question. A recently released report by the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres entitled ``Tenuous Connections'' states that an alarming rate of unwanted Aboriginal teen pregnancy in urban areas is perpetrating a cycle of poverty and despair and calls for urgent intervention to break this cycle. The report estimates that the rate of unwanted Aboriginal teen pregnancy is between four and fifteen times the non-Aboriginal rate.

In your opinion, what are some of the contributing factors that lead to such high rates of teen pregnancy among urban Aboriginal youth and what assistance is available to young Aboriginal mothers residing in urban areas? Are the existing measures sufficient and is there a difference in programming between on and off reserve in this regard? Lastly, how important are educational awareness programs in reducing the alarmingly high rate of teen pregnancies among urban Aboriginal youth?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: First, I would like to ask if this report concerns only urban youth in Toronto.

The Chairman: Yes.

Ms. Todd-Dennis: How did they determine that the babies were unwanted? Was there an increase in abortion rates or —

The Chairman: Well, having been around for a long time, I have usually found that our Aboriginal teens end up wanting the babies, even the fathers. When we were in Winnipeg and met with youth at the Keewatin centre, there were fathers 16 years old saying, ``I am a father and very proud of it, and I am going to change my life because I do not want my child to do what I did.'' I find that in my own community also. Therefore, I think the term ``unwanted'' is not correct within our own culture.

Ms. Todd-Dennis: That is what I was going to question, because there has always been a higher rate of teen pregnancies amongst Aboriginal youth than the provincial norm. It has always been higher, and there are very few times when the family does not intervene and take care of the child. I know you are going to be speaking with Jerry Adams, who works with urban native youth, so you might ask him whether these children are unwanted. I find it hard to believe that they would be unwanted, because there is always an auntie or grandma or somebody around who will intervene.

As for services, I know that Sheway provides a very good service, and again that is one of Lou Demerais' programs in Crabtree Corner that also advises teens about planned parenthood. Is it sufficient? No, I do not believe that the programs are sufficient, and somehow, these teen pregnancies in the urban areas should be linked back to the parenting programs, because that way we can ensure that they are not apprehended. I do not want to see any more of our Aboriginal children apprehended. All of my siblings were apprehended and they are in pretty bad shape.

The Chairman: Just one last remark on this. I have noticed from years of dealing with young women in Alberta that a lot of them had babies because they were able to get welfare, so that the pregnancy becomes an economic resource for them. Have you found anything like that here in B.C.?

Ms. Todd-Dennis: I cannot really say that I found that.

Ms. Barnes: I am not sure about having babies to get more welfare, but what I have noticed among a lot of native families — I have a concern about one of my granddaughters because I notice that in her family there are a lot of very young mothers, pregnant at age 15, 16 — that have very young mothers, it is almost like the mother is pushing the child to grow up faster than she should. She does not stay a child for long. I notice that in a lot of families and I have my own idea of where that came from.

I have talked to my granddaughter's mother about my concern, and in my culture it was always aunts who talked to children about the rites of passage. The aunties were involved in explaining your body to you, but this does not happen any more. It is all done in school. Two of my daughters sat my granddaughter down and talked to her about dos and don'ts and they had a lot of fun with it. My husband got into the picture and then they were talking about not even considering having a first baby until at least 25, hopefully a couple of years older, and all the precautions that she must take. She says, ``Oh my God, you guys, I am only 12.''

However, I think she really enjoyed the sitting around the table talking and the big fuss being made of her at this period in her life. She said ``No, I am not going to have a baby until I am at least 26, because I see my sister get really frustrated sometimes because she cannot go out, she cannot have any fun and I am too young to babysit for her. I think some children are pushed into this situation by their parents, which is again a result of poor parenting skills. They are pushed by their parents to grow up faster than they should, even including the clothes that are bought for them, and I have seen this so many times. I do not know if that makes sense to you? When a child is made to feel older than she is, she thinks that she is ready for things that she should not be. This is my opinion.

The Chairman: I would like to thank you both very much. Your testimony has been most enlightening. I think the bottom line is that we need more parenting skills for our young people, not just our women but for our sons also. That is very important.

The committee adjourned.

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