Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 7 - Evidence - Meeting of May 11, 2005
OTTAWA, Wednesday, May 11, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 6:25 p.m. pursuant to rule 131, referral of the response of the government to the sixth report of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples entitled ``Urban Aboriginal Youth: An Action Plan for Change.''
Senator Nick G. Sibbeston (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: I shall call the committee meeting to order. Before we begin I will give a background on the report that we are considering tonight. Some committee members will recall that there was a study, ``Urban Aboriginal Youth: An Action Plan for Change'', done by our former colleague, Senator Chalifoux. The report was initially presented in the Senate on October 30, 2003. It was adopted on April 1, 2004, and then a request for a response by the government was made on November 3, 2004. A response was tabled by the government on April 19. That is the history of the study that was undertaken and we are now hearing the federal government's response.
It is my pleasure tonight to welcome the Honourable Ethel Blondin-Andrew, the Minister of State for Northern Development. With her are two officials, Mr. Allan MacDonald, a director in the Office of the Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-status Indians, and Suzanne Desjarlais, who is a senior policy analyst.
The Honourable Ethel Blondin-Andrew, Minister of State (Northern Development): I bring good wishes from the Honourable Andy Scott, Minister for Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-status Indians. He has asked me to relay his regrets for not being able to be here due to prior commitments. He has also asked me to congratulate you for your good work in examining issues that are important to urban Aboriginal youth and making sure that the issues are understood and acted upon by the Government of Canada.
I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to talk to you about the Government of Canada's support for urban Aboriginal youth. Issues relating to Aboriginal children and youth are profoundly important to me. They have always been. In fact, one reason I was drawn to public service was so that I could work with others to realize the tremendous potential of Aboriginal young people across our country.
I have been involved with children and youth work both in Human Resources Development Canada and also Health Canada. I believe that we have made some important strides in this area, but I know we need to do more. That is why your work through the report on urban Aboriginal youth is very helpful. The action plan sets out a number of excellent recommendations to support urban Aboriginal youth, and I know that a number of federal departments have already implemented your suggestions or are seriously considering how to do so.
I know that many honourable senators want to hear that the government has adopted all of the recommendations. I wish I could say so, but the reality is that some of these issues require time and more work. This is especially true because of the discussions that are currently underway through the Canada-Aboriginal Peoples Roundtable process and the pending First Ministers' meeting with the leadership of Aboriginal people.
I will provide an update on these processes, but before doing so I would like to highlight some of the government's efforts directed to urban Aboriginal youth since your report of November 2003. I will speak to the government's action in the four areas mentioned in your report. Let me begin with the issue of policy and jurisdiction.
Jurisdiction has become a 12-letter word in Aboriginal policy. There is no question in my mind that the failure of governments to work together on Aboriginal issues in the past has been an incredible stumbling block for achieving better results for urban Aboriginal young people. The current realities — serious socio-economic conditions, the growing Aboriginal population living off reserve — combined with other pressures, such as pressures from the private sector and the courts, are making it necessary for federal-provincial governments to put the rhetoric of the past aside so as to focus on practical results. While it is unfortunate that governments often wait for issues to reach crisis level before doing something, it is good to see progress being made.
As a result of a more competitive intergovernmental environment, we are beginning to see innovative approaches to program and service delivery. The same applies to partnerships. To demonstrate the linkages between improved service delivery and partnerships, I would like to speak to you about our efforts through the Urban Aboriginal Strategy (UAS). Since the tabling of your report, the Government of Canada has doubled the amount of funding to the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. As many of you know, the Urban Aboriginal Strategy was introduced in 1998 to address, in partnership with stakeholders, the serious socio-economic needs of urban Aboriginal people by improving policy development and program coordination among federal departments and between levels of government. Through the UAS, governments and communities aim to reduce the level of disparity facing urban Aboriginal people by better tailoring programs to the local needs and priorities of Aboriginal people living in cities.
Funding through the Urban Aboriginal Strategy is mainly directed to the development of pilot projects in 12 priority cities: Vancouver, Prince George, Lethbridge, Calgary, Edmonton, Prince Albert, Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Thompson, Thunder Bay and Toronto. There was a lot of competition. These projects are community-driven and reflect the diversity of Aboriginal populations in cities. This means that the UAS steering committees include First Nations and Metis representatives, political and service delivery organizations, men and women, elders and youth. Priorities vary from one city to the next; however, youth are a priority common in most cities. There are several examples of exciting initiatives undertaken in the first two years of the UAS Pilot Projects program: ``stay-in-school'' initiatives that improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal youth through a number of different projects in a number of cities; an exciting graffiti arts program that captures the creativity and talent of Aboriginal youth at risk in the Winnipeg core area and in Saskatoon; the production of Moccasin Flats, a television series that showcases issues facing Aboriginal youth in Regina; and skills and leadership development initiatives that promote the ability of today's youth to be tomorrow's leaders. Each of these examples is exciting not only because of the projects but also because each of them is being realized as a result of partnerships. These examples demonstrate that by working in partnership we can, in fact, make a positive difference.
The last area covered in your report was urban Aboriginal initiatives. The government's response was prepared in conjunction with seven other departments, so I will limit my comments to general statements concerning issues facing urban Aboriginal youth and to initiatives specific to the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. However, in the case of the Urban Multi-Purpose Aboriginal Youth Centre Initiative, I am happy to report that on May 3 Minister Frulla announced its renewal for a period of five years to support initiatives for youth by youth.
I want to come back to my earlier comments on the Canada-Aboriginal Peoples Roundtable process and the upcoming First Ministers' meeting on Aboriginal issues. Both processes will have important implications for policy and programming relating to Aboriginal people, including urban Aboriginal youth. In fact, many of the sectoral issues identified through the Canada-Aboriginal Peoples Roundtable, such as health, lifelong learning, economic opportunities and housing, are critically important to urban Aboriginal youth. In examining each of these initiatives, governments and Aboriginal organizations have been asked to apply an urban lens and a youth lens to all discussions regarding potential Aboriginal policy and program initiatives.
I am confident that these processes will result in interesting initiatives that will support many of the recommendations made in the report of this committee. To be more categorical, there is an expectation that the Government of Canada will build on these processes to significantly advance the agenda on Aboriginal issues. The Aboriginal Policy Retreat is scheduled for later this month and will be followed by the First Ministers' meeting in the fall of 2005, where we will begin to see the initial products of work from the roundtable and follow-up sessions.
While I am generally optimistic, we need to be realistic as well. The issues facing our urban Aboriginal youth are serious and complex, with far-reaching consequences. Effective answers are neither simple nor easily found. They demand commitment and resources from a broad cross-section of partners — all levels of government, Aboriginal leaders and organizations, community groups and agencies, and the private sector. The needs are urgent; action is needed now. In closing, I want to echo the words of Duncan Mercredi cited in the committee's report: ``These kids, they're gonna be okay. When they're ready, they gonna take us places we never dreamed of.'' Senators, I think we are in for an exciting ride. Let us ensure that our kids have access to the opportunities that will allow them to take us to new and exciting places.
I will conclude by saying that words written on paper and discussions in a single room will not resolve the issues that we speak to today. Anyone who knows Senator Chalifoux knows that she is well aware of that because of her lifelong commitment to her people and the challenges they face and to many others who live in an urban setting. Sometimes that environment is very predatory and sometimes that environment has more than one challenge for an individual or group to face. Whatever discussion we have tonight might be instructive but not conclusive; much work needs to be done.
The Chairman: I had the good fortune to be involved as a member of the committee that Senator Chalifoux chaired. It was a long study and Senator Chalifoux was serious and absolutely committed to the work of that committee. She was very concerned for the Aboriginal youth in cities. The phenomenon is the movement of Aboriginal and non- Aboriginal people alike to the urban centres of our country over the last decades. I believe that more than 50 per cent of Aboriginal people live in urban centres. I had the opportunity to see this firsthand when we travelled for meetings in Winnipeg, Vancouver and Edmonton. The concern expressed was for Aboriginal young people and how they are coping in the city after moving from rural areas. Many federal government programs are aimed at Aboriginal people on reserve, not off reserve. We wanted to know what happened when they left the reserves and entered the cities and what services and support were available to them.
Senator Chalifoux was totally dedicated and hopeful that the federal government would respond. That is why the report was called an action plan. Often reports are not taken seriously within the government bureaucratic system and they end up gathering dust. Senator Chalifoux was committed to having the government respond as positively, humanly and effectively as possible. Here we are, after many months, with the federal government's response. We have also had analysis of this report.
Senator Pearson: Was Mr. MacDonald going to say anything?
The Chairman: Not to my mind. I was encapsulating the atmosphere and the spirit with which Senator Chalifoux's report was prepared and presented to the government.
Mr. Allan MacDonald, Director, Office of the Federal Interlocutor for Metis and Non-status Indians: I am here to support the minister, if needed.
Senator Pearson: From long experience, minister, I know about your complete devotion to the issue of Aboriginal youth, so I have no question about your commitment whatsoever.
For the members of the committee that made the recommendations, it was a very exciting experience. We heard from a variety of terrific young people across the country, and some of what we heard was promising and encouraging, but we also heard about the barriers and the things that were frustrating for them.
To start off, I was struck by the problems or issues related to the transition back and forth on and off reserve. For example, those who wanted further education needed support as they went on to post-secondary education. We saw some good examples in Calgary and in Saskatchewan, where measures were built in to help the kids enter the schools and universities and help them with the adjustment. That is so important. It is always important for anyone moving into a new environment to have support systems around them.
Another thing that struck me was the successful story with respect to the arts. This community has exceptional gifts, and we supported anything that could be done to help them with opportunities or training in the arts. Another issue was sports, and we felt that perhaps more investment in games and teams and so on would be helpful.
Many of these young people going on to further education are dependent on outside financial support and scholarships. Unlike kids from middle class families or professional families in Toronto, their families are not able to fill in the spaces that sometimes the rest of us can do for our kids. In many ways, they need more than the normal kind of scholarship. That was one of my impressions. I have heard from some young women that when they get support from their reserve to do post-secondary education in their communities, they have difficulty getting support for what might be considered non-traditional areas of study or occupations.
I do not feel terribly confident in the government response. This has nothing to do with the minister, I assure you. The voices of the young people are being sought and the roundtables are there, but when I read the response I did not feel that adequate mechanisms were being put in place to ensure that the young people are fully engaged in the discussions about their future. Since the youth are such a large proportion of the Aboriginal population, I would like to see more done to ensure that they participate. Would you comment about the opportunity for young people to be heard in all these roundtables and the policy retreats? Is space being made for them at the First Ministers' meetings?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: You covered many areas in your questions. You talked about some jurisdictional issues. You talked about the mobility of programming from the reserve to the urban setting. That is a systemic issue, because more than one player is involved. Clearly it is quite a difficult issue. Some bands and reserves or Metis locals and communities in the remote regions hang on dearly to the money they have, and the monies for young people who move into the large centres do not necessarily go with them. When the young people enter into a new jurisdiction in an urban centre, they go to other sources for different funding needs like child care, post-secondary education grants and housing. Sometimes they are refused because they do not belong to the local band or the local organization. That is a problem, and fixing it is complicated. Some of the programs accept those relocated people, but some do not, even some under the same heading like Aboriginal human resource development training. Some groups will allow portability of those programs; some will not. It is a huge problem, because we have 600 bands across the country and many Metis organizations. We have jurisdictional issues. We have portability of programming and services issues. Fixing this situation will take a lot more work than we can discuss here tonight. For the 11 years I was in charge of that program, we struggled with that. Some of the problem is human, some of it is competitive, and some of it is jurisdictional. Some bands or communities set up different regulations and apply the program in different ways. We give them the money, and they set priorities and run their programs. The same thing happens in housing as well.
You talked about another problem, which I think we can have some impact on, and that is the voice of young people. In fact, senator, you and I did work on this internationally. In regard to the empowerment of young people and giving them access, we insisted that our international negotiating teams included young people on every document we worked on. We went to China in 1995, I believe, and we had two young women as part of our negotiating team. Lloyd Axworthy and I went to the social development conference in Denmark, and we had a whole cadre of young people involved there. If we see fit as leaders to include young people, they will have a voice. If the local and national leaders do not include them, those young people will have to find their own voice. In a system as competitive and with as many sharp elbows as politics and political organizations, you can imagine how difficult it is for young people. We have experienced that, and there are ways that we can help.
Some organizations do better than others. I noticed that the Metis include their young people. When I was at HRDC, we instituted a youth intervenor program, with $100,000 to $150,000 a year for every national organization to allow young people to engage at that level. If a new program came out that affected young people, like the healing and reconciliation program, the youth would be able to be able to speak to the issues and be involved in every major forum. The process of including youth takes the ability and the will to share power, to make room for young people to come in, to educate them about the process, and to allow them to be part of it. It is possible if people have the will.
However, that is kind of leaving things to chance. We have to do more than that. We have to ensure that Aboriginal youth have the money and resources to be able to take leadership training. I visited a leadership school with Senator Sibbeston. The school was very deliberate in grooming young leaders, which is what we need. Some people view this as elitist. I think it is smart. It includes young people, it invests in them and it produces results.
On the government report, I cannot speak to every issue. You dealt with quite a bit. You talked about sports. We have the Aboriginal Sport Circle, and we need more money for that. It is a very a small pool of funds. We need to engage the minister responsible for sports. There is a very competitive environment with all the different categories of sports, right up to the Olympics.
Sports are empowering. Many Aboriginal athletes are role models. I think of Ted Nolan, Gino Odjick and Jordan Tootoo. They have provided a lot of leadership, but they cannot do that without resources, and resources are a perennial problem.
When young people go to the city, they need child care. Many of them are single parents and they need support in order to go to post-secondary education or to work. There are better programs now than there were even 10 years ago. We have Aboriginal Head Start, the Community Action Plan for Children and prenatal nutrition programs, and we have now had the announcement of some Inuit and First Nation child care programs.
Is the range of programs comprehensive enough? Have we covered everything? No, there is still quite a bit of work to do. Is there anything comprehensive and specific that covers urban Aboriginal youth? No, there is not. The programming is spotty and needs better coordination.
With regard to the arts, you mentioned something that I was really inspired by. I met a group of young people in Saskatoon who had either been involved with the young offenders programs or were street youth. They have a very empowering program with the arts. They painted murals and did an art show. It gave them something they did not realize they had. They are quite put upon in the lifestyle that they lead, and it is empowering for them to create something and see a reflection of what they value.
That was a federal government initiative working with a municipality, and it seemed to work well. Through crime prevention programs and some private sector programs they were able to put in place some pretty good programs. However, I think they could have gone further with more assistance from all levels of government.
Senator Peterson: My questions are about the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. Is it functioning as you envisioned? If there are difficulties, where are they occurring? Can you give us a sense of how is it administered in a city?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: The Urban Aboriginal Strategy has priority urban centres. I listed the ones that have a lot of competition. There are 12 pilot projects. A number of partners, including inner cities and municipal jurisdictions, come together to undertake projects. Some of them are magical and very good. If government had designed them, I do not think they would have been as effective. They are built from the bottom up and from the core of the cities with various agencies. They are quite effective.
I can give you a list. For example, in Vancouver we have a youth program called the Greater Vancouver Urban Aboriginal Strategy Steering Committee, which was established in 2003. It is made up of 16 members, eight representing the three orders of government and eight representing the Aboriginal community. They come together and undertake their activities. They do not all do the same thing.
An Open Space forum was held in Prince George on January 25 and 26. It was on learning and literacy and was attended by 275 community representatives. In Prince George they decided to organize themselves into two entities. One was the council responsible for the overall Urban Aboriginal Strategy. They scheduled community meetings and recommended projects for approval. It was quite self-empowering. The other was the UAS Community Entity comprised of two existing organizations, the Aboriginal employment centre and the Prince George Aboriginal Business Development Centre, which facilitate community networking and provide capacity development to local organizations to lead communications efforts.
There are other programs for education, one in particular on youth education skills development in Edmonton, Calgary and Lethbridge. In Regina there was a program on child safety and creating a safe, positive, family-connected community.
There are quite a few groups and programs. I can send you the list, if you wish.
I had the opportunity to see inter-agency initiatives work in my own home community, the city of Yellowknife. An inter-agency department runs the homelessness initiative with money from the federal government. Although there may be some gaps in it, the initiative is more effective coming from the urban centres themselves.
Senator Peterson: I was concerned more with the governance structure of the strategy. Let us use Regina as an example. Is the strategy broadly based? It seems that there was a problem in Regina where the strategy was made up of only one group to the exclusion of others. It seems almost dysfunctional if groups cannot work together. I wonder how that happened.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I will have Mr. MacDonald answer that, but I can say that almost every program we design experiences stress and strain in the development phase. The program that I ran for 11 years went through three or four incarnations. It started off as Pathways, went to Regional Bilateral Agreements, then to Aboriginal Human Resources Development Agreements, and changed twice within that name. We finally felt we had something that was comprehensive, inclusive and representative.
These programs do change; they do have problems. You have asked specifically about Regina and I will let Mr. MacDonald deal with that.
Mr. MacDonald: Thank you, minister. I will address not so much what is happening specifically in Regina or another city, but the generic system. The Urban Aboriginal Strategy is a community-driven and locally driven process. It usually starts off with a community meeting. The communities set their priorities and establish a decision-making board which will link with the federal and provincial governments to make decisions about where UAS investments will be made. That is generically how it works.
In each of the pilot project cities you will see variations of that. That is the way it works from the ground up with communities telling us what their priorities are, bringing us their problems, and then the federal government working behind the scenes with the provincial governments to try to find solutions, as opposed to the government's imposing our programs on their areas and telling them to make the program fit.
You also raised the issue of problems and successes with the UAS. The UAS has been around as a funded project for a couple of years now. It still is a challenge to work with or among federal departments. Sometimes it is a challenge to coordinate our activities or to work through the funding mechanisms and the accountabilities that go along with them.
However, we are finding that if we are driven by community priorities, we actually get better outcomes. Working in partnership with provincial governments and municipal governments gets better results as well. Partnering with the Aboriginal organizations, and as broad a base as possible, leads to successes. There are still some problems along with the successes, but the UAS is an opportunity to learn what works and what does not work. We will come back when the UAS pilot projects end in a year and a half or two years and look at a future direction for the urban Aboriginal environment.
Senator Christensen: Thank you, minister, for being here. During the study, we kept hearing about the problems that seem to manifest themselves. Foremost of these was the jurisdiction for urban youth. When young people came into the centres, they were not the responsibility of municipalities, not the responsibility of provinces, and not the responsibility of bands and reserves. That is not going to change overnight; rather such problems will take time to change, but perhaps you can address them.
Another problem was the maximizing of funds. We talked to many different groups that were each providing a program specific to their own communities, for example a program in a gym for kids in a particular neighbourhood. The funding that was allotted to those programs got eaten up in administration as it passed through the different levels, whether from the federal to the provincial to the municipal level or to the band and from the band to the region and from the region on down. We have to find ways to have smart programming, so that the funding is used for what is intended and is not lost. If the original amount available is $100,000 and the club or specific program ends up with access to $2,000 only, that is not going to do much good. There should be clearing centres or houses, so that programs are focused in one area in order to maximize the administration of that area and reduce the amount of monies taken out of those programs for administration. Operating on a shoestring is not working.
The question of programming for on and off reserve is very difficult. Many programs are specific to on reserve First Nations. When people leave the reserve, it is hard for the reserve administration to trace them. The reserves have enough trouble dealing with the problems on reserve without also trying to send their money to other places. Perhaps we need to look at programs geared specifically to the off reserve population, and at some way to manage those programs.
These issues are more long term than can be addressed immediately in your response to us, but they are serious concerns. It really does come down to smart programming: if we get $1 million for a program, that $1 million should go to the young people for whom that program is designed, and not three quarters of it disappear.
I have one further question regarding fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), which is an interest of mine. In the 2005 Budget, $145 million was identified for maternal and child health care. Is that specifically for Aboriginal people, or is it for the whole population, including the Aboriginals? If it is for the whole population, what part of it is for Aboriginals?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I lost that because the translation clicked in when you were speaking.
Senator Christensen: In response to recommendation 13 on FASD, it was mentioned in the 2005 Budget that $145 million has been identified for maternal and child health care. My question is whether that is specifically for Aboriginal people or whether is it right across the board for the general population. If the latter is the case, what portion of the $145 million would be for Aboriginals?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I will start with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. I was among those who announced the more than $400,000. I made the announcement in the Oneida Nation with Chief Docksteader and his other chiefs. There was a section for special needs, including fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, and that money is specifically for Aboriginal infants.
Senator Christensen: That was part of the money you announced. However, to clarify, is the $145 million for maternal and child health care mentioned in your response to us specifically for First Nations?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I understand that it is for Aboriginal infants born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
Senator Christensen: My other comments are perhaps more observations of problems than questions you can answer. What sort of weight is the government giving to try to come up with, for lack of a better term, smart programming?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: There is a general pot of money for fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Some of the money is for the general pot, and some of it is specifically for Aboriginals. I do not know what the specific number is, but there is an amount allocated for Aboriginals because the incidence of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder is quite high in some Aboriginal communities.
Senator Christensen: It is not an Aboriginal issue, per se?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: No, it is not.
Senator Christensen: It happens in any society under stress.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: It could happen to anyone. It is a preventable disability that anyone could experience.
You raised a number of issues about jurisdiction, and something you said caught my attention about the amount of resources that is eaten up in administering programs and services. I learned from working with Minister Axworthy, who is a very good teacher, that programs should be active, not passive, and that serving the client should be the priority, not propping up the industry.
From that day onwards, for every program that I was involved with we minimized the amount of money that went to administration. We had programs that had almost 50 per cent administration, and we reduced them to 25 per cent, and usually 15 per cent to 17 per cent, so that the majority of the money went to the clients and not to propping up the industry. There are ways to ensure that people are not losing while you are doing that: co-locations, if possible; sharing program dollars; partnership; and also single windows. You mentioned clearing houses; single window is a big goal for the government.
Not everyone agrees with the single window concept, but it certainly is an objective we have, to have Aboriginal people and other, non-Aboriginal clients of ours go to one area where they can access programs readily without going to 100 different places. When you are co-located, you are sharing resources, which helps, but that is not always possible when you have a tiny office and you have a small community. In Edmonton we did co-locations between different programs and they worked perfectly.
Senator Christensen: We were looking at urban areas and large cities. Co-locations and those types of things are possible in large cities.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: We have had success with sharing physical space and program dollars, and also with sharing training initiatives, as long as the training is in the same field. Those are things that can be achieved to get the maximum amount out of the resources that are allowed for those programs.
Senator Christensen: How do we get the government to put such measures into the mission statements of programs as they are developed so that, in fact, they happen?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I do not know about any other department, but I spent a lot of time with HRSDC. I was there for 12 years; I was Secretary of State for Training and Youth, and then I was Minister of State for Children and Youth. I spent most of my time building and rebuilding a billion-dollar-plus program for Aboriginal people. Those were the sorts of measures we looked at and tried to include when we did Aboriginal Head Start in Health Canada, because I worked there as well. In the fetal alcohol and the tobacco programs and in Aboriginal health programs, we tried to engender the same principles of sharing resources and reducing overhead. I do not know if it is a government-wide initiative now, but I know that it can be done.
Senator Christensen: It can be done, yes. But how do we get that sort of mentality going? How does this report and how do we create a lens through which every program is examined and which says that no program shall have any more than 10 per cent, 12 per cent, or 17 per cent administrative costs, and so on?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Mr. MacDonald will share his views with us on that.
Senator Christensen: I am probably dreaming in technicolour, but we have to keep pushing these things.
Mr. MacDonald: I do not think you are dreaming in technicolour. You make a very good point about the burden we place on the client to serve government rather than the government trying to serve the client. There are cases where a really good project has come forward and the government has sent this person off to five different government departments to sign five different contribution agreements with all of the accompanying administration costs. At the end of the day, the person is running around chasing contributions and not enough money or effort has been spent getting the work done on the ground.
Smart programming is required, and one of those smart programs is the Urban Aboriginal Strategy. As part of that Urban Aboriginal Strategy, we set out horizontal terms and conditions that make government do all the work behind the scenes. We will go chasing all around. We will assemble the terms and conditions. We will provide a single funding mechanism with which the client group can interact. We are doing the running around behind the scenes. Efforts are being made at smart programming and relieving a burden on the client.
Senator Christensen: That is good, provided that the government is not using up the funds in the process.
Mr. MacDonald: Yes, you are right.
Senator Christensen: I do not care who is doing the programs, as long as the funds are being used specifically for what they are intended. We visited many small organizations that were so frustrated. All they wanted to do was teach the kids basketball, for instance, and have staff there to help them and bring them in and give them soup, and they just could not get the funding for it. The big overall program looked great, but by the time the funding trickled down to the small organizations, there was not enough money to do those simple things. It was not grandiose programming.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Senator, perhaps I could make a point that really brings home what you are saying. We ran a training program with $1.6 billion, and we had only 76 agreement holders. For $400 million a year, we covered everyone. That is a pretty good economy of scale. We had agreements with those agreement holders; we gave them the money, and they set their priorities and spent the money. There was a limited administrative capacity, and they could live with that, they could work with that. If we had allowed 200 or 300 agreements, each one would have received just a trickle down of money, not enough to do anything substantial.
We intentionally kept the number of agreements small, but we ensured that we covered every part of Canada, including the Metis. It was the first time the Metis were included in government programming. It was pan-Aboriginal; all Aboriginal groups were included in that program. That kind of programming is possible but very difficult to do.
Senator Christensen: Do we maximize the use of friendship centres in the big urban areas?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Some of the best program delivery agents are in friendship centres, and they have been some of our urban Aboriginal agreement holders to do training in the urban centres.
The Chairman: While we are on that topic, I remember that continuity of funding was raised as an issue in quite a number of the meetings we held in the urban centres. Staff members were always apprehensive and concerned, wondering how long a good program would last, given that there was no certainly of continuity of funding. Programs and people live under the apprehension that at a certain date the program will end, along with its funding, and then they will have to start all over again, losing staff. Has the department or the government dealt with that issue in any way to provide more assurance of funding?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: In previous decades we had a big problem with ten-year pilot projects. When you are getting into years, it is no longer a pilot project, so we had to eliminate that. A very long-term pilot project is the easy way out, not having to really decide whether you are going to commit yourself to creating a real program.
We went for five-year programs, and then we started working towards renewal at the two-and-a-half-year mark. We would get into renewal and doing accounting and everything. By the time the last year rolled, we were just in the process of going for approval to cabinet to get a new five-year mandate. We did it by five years because generally governments do not like to go beyond their mandate and commit other governments to their priorities.
Senator Léger: What is the goal of a pilot project? I know you went up to five and even ten years. Is it temporary or is it the opposite? If the project is good, is it to be continued and is it no longer a pilot project? Very often we heard that a basic difficulty and complaint was that a project did not continue once it had successfully achieved a goal.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: The Urban Aboriginal Strategy is four years. I would assume that once an evaluation is done, if the project is found to be a viable program but needs tweaking and fixing, a source of funding and the willingness to make it into a bona fide program would be found, but that does not happen automatically. The government has to prepare a lot of information and has to commit to having a real program as opposed to a pilot project.
Senator Léger: Is the goal of a pilot project to become a program?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Sometimes pilot projects will give you an indication of whether you have a long, systemic, fundamental issue that needs a program, or if you have a temporary problem that can be ameliorated by a series of activities undertaken by a pilot project. A pilot project could legitimately disappear after it served its purpose, or else it could morph into a bona fide program through a series of activities.
Senator Léger: Very often complaints were that we are succeeding and we are at the end of the project; we do not know what is going to happen now.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: That is the problematic nature of a pilot project. It is almost like a long-term feasibility study, I guess. You undertake it; you see whether it is going to work or not, or else you develop a real program. Sometimes you do not have enough time to develop a program to go for the resources needed, so you try to do something on an interim basis that will hold you until you develop a real program.
Senator Léger: In your department, are you concerned with continuity, with helping groups go from pilot project to program? Are they helped? I am talking about projects or groups that are successful and that prove they can continue.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I have worked in three departments, Health Canada, HRSDC and now DIAND. I have found that in all three departments, pilot projects were tried. I will give you an example. We did pilot projects in education in DIAND and, as a result of that, we now have a roundtable for education that draws on what was learned in the pilot projects.
I cannot name the pilot projects in Health Canada, but projects were undertaken with the provinces on fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and on tobacco initiatives. Not all of them necessarily turn into long-term permanent programs, but some do.
Senator Léger: You mentioned a partnership with seven departments. That must be hard for coordination, to ensure that all contributors really get together to make something move. I was wondering, is it a help or a handicap?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I like to think that it is a help, but it can also be a hindrance sometimes, depending on what you want to do.
When I first took over the youth portfolio, I wanted to repatriate all youth programs to where I was in HRDC. I found out there were 14 departments involved, everything from defence to foreign affairs. There were programs everywhere for youth.
Those departments were reluctant to separate themselves from the wonderful youth initiatives they had, like cadets and Aboriginal youth policing programs they had with the RCMP. It was difficult. We never did repatriate them; but all 14 departments — represented by 14 ministers — were there when we finished producing a youth employment strategy. They were all on the platform to put a face to their contribution to youth. I think you were there too, senator. It was really quite a marvellous thing.
It does not always work out that way; sometimes it can be difficult to reconcile issues. However, I think generally people try to put their best effort forward on whatever initiative the government is undertaking. I am trying to think of an example, perhaps Canada Corps. How many groups do we have working on that? It is a youth program, and generally those departments all step up and participate.
Senator Léger: Regarding communications, are these projects and all the activities that are being done communicated to the public through newspapers and television so that people can see what is being done by the Aboriginals? Very often there is a lack communication in these areas — we do not know that is going on. Is that a preoccupation?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: There has always been a reluctance to spend too much money on talking about what we are doing as opposed to doing it. There is a conflict there. Some of the projects are fantastic and people should know about what is happening. Take for example the Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres (UMAYC) initiative. That is quite a good initiative, and there are other fantastic examples of initiatives along those lines. Homelessness, where many Aboriginal communities are involved, is a good example too.
Some advertising is done; it depends on the different departments. Many of them will do standard government advertising on television and radio as well as in newspapers — for example, the summer youth employment placement program. That is well advertised; people know what the deadlines are, they all apply, and they know what kinds of jobs are available. Technology is used quite readily, but I do not think there are huge billboards and the like.
Senator Léger: I should have known, but I forgot that money is needed for all of those.
The Chairman: Senator Buchanan, I was sure you were going to have a question related to the 12 priority cities. I thought you would be jumping up and down and asking why no Maritime cities were included.
Senator Buchanan: I did not, because you are talking mainly about the big cities in western Canada. Of course, in our big cities of Halifax and Sydney, everything is fine.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Actually, senator, in your city of Halifax, you have some wonderful youth programs. You have a recycling centre, which I believe HRDC supported, where young people do 100 per cent of the recycling. I have been to that area. We have programs in other areas as well; I think we have a youth facility in downtown Halifax.
Senator Buchanan: Up on Gottingen Street.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Yes. It is a fantastic for-youth-by-youth facility.
Senator Buchanan: It is the Mi'kmaq Friendship Centre.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: The friendship centre and also a youth centre.
Senator Buchanan: Yes, a youth centre. I have been there.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Those are very good facilities.
Senator Buchanan: They need more money.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Okay. I will write it down.
The Chairman: Consider it done!
Senator Dyck: I hope my question makes sense. I am visiting the committee and new to the Senate. I come from Saskatchewan, where the urban Aboriginal population is growing at a much more rapid rate than so-called mainstream society. In all plans, it is always difficult to know which should come first, education or finding jobs. Keeping in mind this Aboriginal baby boom, and given that you are dealing with multiple agencies, what is the best long-term strategy? Where should one start? Do we need multiple initiatives? What is the best way to address the emerging population?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I think there are people in this room who could better speak to that than I, but I would say that early learning and child development are very important. If you start there and get children on the right path early with the proper development, the proper parenting, nurturing and care that is needed, many issues will be avoided. I always maintain that if you do everything right with your children — you provide for them, you nurture them — you are still not guaranteed positive results; but if you do nothing, the chances are pretty good that you are going to get negative results. Early childhood development is very important, as is basic education.
There are opportunities for work for Aboriginal people. People at IPSCO, a huge steel company, have told me that they have no problem finding Aboriginal people to work in Saskatchewan, but they have difficulty retaining them. I believe that takes innovation. I asked IPSCO questions about equity and participation on contracts. If people feel part of something, if they have a sense of ownership and belonging, they will want to stay. Do you have shares? Do you have equity participation? Do you have stock options? Do you provide the opportunity for upward mobility? They did not. I think there is a golden opportunity there.
You can create jobs. The Saskatchewan Indian Training Assessment Group (SITAG), I believe, does a lot of that for Saskatchewan, and they have been quite successful. Saskatchewan was one of the first places we put call centres in our training program, and that was another success. It set the pace. We have an Aboriginal university in Saskatchewan, the First Nations University, which is just fantastic.
Senator Dyck: Do you see a role between different levels of government and the private sector? You mentioned IPSCO. If I understand correctly, one of the major industries in Saskatchewan is mining. There is also some oil and gas as well as some agriculture. Do you see the possibility of bringing in companies to form partnerships in order to open up employment opportunities?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: The potential is tremendous. With the three diamond mines we have in the North, Ekati, Diavik and De Beers, the issue is not that we get guaranteed jobs, but that we do not have enough people to hold those jobs. In the last couple of days, Diavik has been providing free air flights from Edmonton to bring in outside workers. The shortage of workers is due to two factors: first, not all of our people who could be trained are trained; and second, mining jobs are not for everyone. You cannot make someone who is not suited for that job take it on.
However, there are great opportunities there, and there are contractual arrangements. Where I am from, they have the contracts for hauling fuel as well as explosives. They also do a lot of engineering. A company called Aboriginal Engineering Limited subcontracts engineers from different places to work on the mine site. At Fort à la Corne, they are working to develop a diamond mine. There are all kinds of opportunities. Saskatchewan has a Northern Development Strategy, I believe, that was partially instituted with the help of Minister Goodale when he was Minister of Natural Resources.
Senator Pearson: One of the issues that concerned us was sexuality in young people. We are concerned about young mothers being very young and not being protected from getting pregnant. We know a bit about the risk that now appears of an explosion of HIV/AIDS and so on. Our recommendation 14 was about sexual health and parenting. The new budget, if it passes, has $400 million in prevention and promotion around suicide, maternal and child health, early childhood development. It would be a very significant investment.
We visited a site in Winnipeg where there were parents and young children. Everyone was young. All the parents were under the age of 18, but for them, having a child was a very rich experience. It kind of changed my view about waiting for a long time to have children. In this case it was obviously a positive experience for them. You felt what you needed to do was ensure you had all the resources possible around them to enable them to carry on in a positive way. They were doing some very good parenting.
The response of the government report was really sort of announcing, ``We are doing this program and that program.'' Our issues were more specific about what kinds of sexual education and sexual health programs are available and how are they being designed in order to help the young people. I thought the government response on this one was pretty vague. I am glad there is the promise of investment, but do you have some thoughts that might be helpful?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: Senator, you ask such simple questions. This is way out of my area of work. When I was a teacher, I dealt with many of those issues even though they were not my direct responsibility. We share responsibilities depending upon the age of the population we are dealing with. Ages zero to six, we do. Ages six to twelve, we do not do; that is education and under provincial or territorial jurisdiction. We use a UN category of ages 14 to 30, I believe; or is it 18 to 30?
Senator Pearson: In the UN categories, a child is under 18, and youth go from 14 years old.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: In the category of 18 to 30 years, we can do programming, but we are not allowed to do training because that is provincial. The exception is for Aboriginals who have treaty and the Inuit. In those cases, we have full fiduciary jurisdiction to do what we will.
Having said that, society has an ethical or moral responsibility to consider these religious, moral and cultural issues. These issues have many faces, depending on whom you are speaking to. When it comes to the safety and security of children, the government has an obligation from a legal or a judicial standpoint. The protection and security of children against commercial sexual exploitation is a government responsibility.
As for sex education and the question of what age is a proper child-bearing age, that is a whole other kettle of worms that I am not qualified to speak about.
Senator Pearson: I was not commenting on the age. I was commenting on the importance of valuing children at whatever age you have them.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: That is true, but the responsibility is not always ours, depending on what age they are at. Ages zero to six we do deal with. If there are issues related to sexuality that deal with children's safety or health, we deal with those. From ages six to twelve children are clearly a provincial responsibility. If there is child abuse or child sexual abuse, that is another issue.
Mr. MacDonald, can you comment further on this one?
Mr. MacDonald: Senator, I take your point about the report's being vague and high level in some cases. In putting together this report on behalf of the government, we tried to incorporate in a way that made sense the input from government departments. There is a great deal of detail behind what is in the report. Health Canada has that detail. Many programs are targeted at the issues to which you refer. The detail is not in the report, but it does exist. We can get that detail to you if you would like to see it.
Senator Pearson: I would appreciate that, yes.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: We have no room for opinions, but I can illustrate the way in which we are affected by information. I recently heard a radio or television report on the age at which young people are taking contraceptives. Two 10-year-olds were being given contraceptives in London, England. That is very young; they were children. It brings questions to our minds about how to deal with these issues, which are complicated and sensitive. Some of the issues are cultural, some are moral, and some are about health. I do not have answers for you. In the work we have undertaken dealing with many young children, our job is not to judge; our job is to help.
Senator St. Germain: One of my pet issues is education. It is the key to success for our Aboriginal young people. If one has options, one has a clearer path to travel down in life.
My question relates to the programs. When governments come into office, they want to have a program so that they can add arrows to their quiver. Is there a method of measuring the success of programs when they are put in place, other than the Auditor General coming in to audit them?
We can start a multitude of programs that relate to Aboriginal youth, or to Aboriginals period. However, if there is no way to audit or measure the success of the programs, that may one reason our success rate for education of Aboriginal peoples is so low. At the current rate, it will take 20 to 25 years for our people to catch up to the rest of the population with regard to education. Do we have a method in place to measure success?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: The roundtable is very engaged in looking at all the information we have been able to gather over the years, including the pilot projects that were undertaken. One was undertaken in New Brunswick with an Aboriginal doctor. That information is more than tracking; it involves a paradigm shift or a fundamental shift on what we make available to young people to become educated. It includes the standard of the teaching, the curriculum material, the facilities, the state of the technology that is used and the resources available. You must have all of those things in place, as well as the right student-teacher ratio. I add that point because I was a teacher. At that time, none of those things were considered. You were given books and you went to it.
The roundtable on education is considering all of the elements, not just one aspect. It is a new way of looking at the standard and quality of learning and teaching combined.
Instead of simply tracking how many students we have in the system and who failed and who passed, we are doing a longitudinal study with children as they develop cognitively through their learning and through the early years, up to grade six, I believe. There are many elements. We follow the children's learning patterns, how they acquire knowledge, what the impediments are, such as language, and identify the cultural deficiencies in the system. We will then have a base of knowledge to adequately judge, as opposed to the guesswork we would have to resort to now. This initiative is called ``Understanding the Early Years''.
Mr. MacDonald: I will give you a micro-answer and a macro-answer. The micro-answer is that certainly in the past few years all government social programs I have seen in the Aboriginal field are tasked with performing evaluations of their programs with the idea of establishing benchmarks and outcomes and seeing if those can be met and measured. That is part of the framework for most programs that are developed.
At the macro-level, as the minister has stated, as part of the Aboriginal roundtable there was a session on accountability. Coming out of the accountability session was an Aboriginal report card. The government will be reporting in future on what outcomes are targeted and what are being met, to provide our own assessment of what is working and not working so that we do not have to rely on the Auditor General coming in after the fact and saying what we have not accomplished.
Senator St. Germain: Minister, you have a teaching certificate or degree. I sense that there is a mindset in the Aboriginal community that one has to be either a lawyer or a teacher to be successful. Such a mindset restricts and inhibits many people from seeing light at the end of the tunnel. We cannot all be lawyers, thank God, and I do not think we all want to be teachers, either. Some of us are not suited to being teachers.
I have brought this point up before. One of our most successful business people is Freddy DeGasperis in Toronto, who is a successful builder. I believe he came over as a tradesman from Italy. My business partners, Germans and a Dutchman, went through the war and went to trade school. They were involved in leading construction companies in British Columbia.
From your observations, is enough emphasis being put on encouraging our Aboriginal youth to seek out trades in construction, such as plumbers and electricians? I do not want to beat up on my poor accountant, but he has said, ``I cannot invest anything and make money, yet you people seem to have all the right answers for making money.'' I said, ``You are too educated. You are too smart for the rest of us. You cannot think like the people on the street.''
I do not want to denigrate or take away from the professions, but they have a high level of importance in our society. I honestly believe that there is a lack of focus on encouraging our young people to enter the trades. Would you care to comment on that?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: The Government of Canada removed itself from training programs. We devolved labour market development and that took us out of apprenticeships and trades, so it was up to the various sectors to take that on. Currently we are re-engaging through partnerships with the large unions for a major resource development project. If the Mackenzie Valley project goes ahead, the unions are saying that the trades people who work on it will require a journeyman certificate. Trough the federal-provincial negotiations, we took ourselves jurisdictionally out of labour market development and training. Going in there now would create big problems with the provinces and they would accuse us of abusing the spending power, although now we have full jurisdiction with Aboriginal people to do that.
Canada has never been as good as it should have been at teaching people the value of the trades and apprenticeships. I have seen training programs in Austria and Germany that are excellent in the trades. Their government ministers are plumbers, electricians and carpenters, and they have university degrees. They have both formal education and trades training; it is compulsory. We have not done that in our system so we need to look at this. Mr. Axworthy used to ask what the difference was between a tool and die technician who makes $86,000 per year and a financial officer in senior management who earns the same amount? What is the difference? The value of their work is equal. I thought a lot about that when government was involved in training programs, although we never developed the apprenticeship programs that we had hoped to because we got out of training.
For Aboriginals, there are opportunities. Recently, we developed the $84-million Aboriginal Skills and Employment Partnership (ASEP) program, which involves private sector industry at various levels, Aboriginal partners, and provincial and federal governments. The aim is to develop training programs around resource development programs in forestry, mining, or oil and gas. The department has done this in Voisey's Bay, and the Northwest Territories and Manitoba will have programs in oil and gas and hydro respectively in the future. A large part of these programs involves trades training.
I read a survey from the 1990s that asked parents whether they anticipated their kids going into the trades or to university. The majority answered ``university.'' However, many of the kids did not achieve the marks required for university and they went into other areas instead. That survey showed that what people anticipate and what happens in reality are two different things. You might have a ready audience that wants to go into the trades but the attitude is such that parents aspire for their children to obtain university degrees; but perhaps the children did not aspire to that. It is interesting.
Senator St. Germain: How much focus is put on encouraging our Aboriginal youth to enter the military? I ask this because, as a young Metis high school graduate who could not afford to attend university, I went into the military. That experience was, without a doubt, one of the turning points in my life. I have seen a similar thing happen to many young men. I say ``men'' because the military at that time was predominantly male-oriented. Is there much emphasis or encouragement given to our Aboriginal youth to seek out a career in the military? With that military service come an education that cannot be bought elsewhere and the disciplines that most of us need.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: The government's Youth Service Canada project had a military aspect but it could not be developed because the government was in the process of closing Canadian Armed Forces bases. Military personnel were being released to reduce the numbers. In light of that, the department could not devise a fresh, new program. The military stream under the Youth Service Canada project did not happen.
In recent years, with the new commitments made to the military, I believe there has been a commitment to the cadets and the rangers and to the eagle program in Saskatchewan, which is quite successful. As well, there have been more active recruitment drives. Regarding recruitment, I recently met a senior officer heading up to Yellowknife to tour the Northwest Territories to re-engage. Senator Sibbeston's son was a pilot in the military, although I do not know his rank.
The Chairman: He flew Sea King helicopters off ships. He eventually left the military.
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: That is quite an accomplishment. There are Aboriginal people all across Canada involved in the military. I know an Aboriginal man from Fort Smith, Northwest Territories, who is involved in training and is quite seasoned in the military. There appear to be more, although I do not have the numbers to substantiate that. Government is putting more money into the system. Under Minister Eggleton there was a greater commitment to both the cadets and the rangers. The recruitment drive is active and has been successful in Saskatchewan with the eagle intern and orientation program.
Senator St. Germain: Is it providing the results that we should have?
Ms. Blondin-Andrew: I believe it is. In Saskatchewan I spoke to the general in charge at the time and the results were quite remarkable. The discipline, learning, commitment and respect were all quite evident. I did not get any negative feedback. More programs of this nature will happen because now there is more money available for them.
The Chairman: Minister, I thank you and your officials for appearing this evening.
The committee adjourned.