Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 20 - Evidence - Meeting of March 8, 2007 - Morning meeting
HUMBOLDT, SASKATCHEWAN, Thursday, March 8, 2007
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 9:10 a.m. to examine and report on rural poverty in Canada.
Senator Joyce Fairbairn (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good morning, senators, witnesses and members of the audience who are here to find out what this is all about. We are pleased that you are able to come out today and we look forward to hearing from you.
We are also very pleased to be able to be in Humboldt. As a number of our witnesses have pointed out, Humboldt is a stellar example of a successful rural community, and the success is due, I have no doubt, to the vibrant German community within Humboldt. The Germanic presence, I believe, is reflected in Humboldt's tourist slogan, "A little bit of Germany in the heart of the Prairies.''
We are here to learn from your success, but also to listen to your concerns and the causes and consequences of being poor in rural Saskatchewan communities. We also want to listen to those who either live in poverty or help people find a way out of poverty and the kind of infrastructure that you build in these areas to help those who need the help the most.
This committee has been working on this issue in Ottawa over the past year. However, a couple of weeks ago, we started believing that just listening to so-called experts in Ottawa was not enough, that we should hit the road and go out to the communities. We have been through the four provinces in Atlantic Canada. We started out in the West this week; in Prince George, British Columbia. We have had a rollicking visit in the southwest corner of Alberta, around my hometown of Lethbridge; very good hearings yesterday in the smaller communities; and then we came into the chill, but warm welcome of Humboldt last night.
Our first witness today is Germain Dauk, a member of the Action Committee on the Rural Economy. He is joined by Dianne Olchowski, Chief Executive Officer of the Community Futures Sagehill.
Germain Dauk, Member, Action Committee on the Rural Economy: I must apologize for my very brief written report. All week I have been dealing with a personal problem at home, and it is related to the problem here with rural poverty. My son has got some real problems, and I have been involved in getting him into a drug treatment centre. This morning, I just spent a few minutes putting something together very briefly.
Rural poverty is a reality. We can use our own farm as an example. Although we are considered to be in a sure-crop district, we have just been hammered in the last five years by two frosts, a drought and now two years of excess moisture. Last year, we did not get to seed a lot of our crop. Almost 40 per cent of our crop we could not seed, and of the 60 per cent that we did, much of that did drown out and was moisture-stressed.
The risk-management tools just do not cut it, and I will give you an example. Crop insurance this year will probably be in the neighbourhood of $100 an acre, which already sounds like quite a bit, but with increased costs, our costs will be well over $200 an acre. On a farm of almost 5,000 acres involving two sons, my wife and myself, it is a big loss. If we do not get a crop in, we are looking at a loss of half a million dollars. The Canadian Agriculture Stabilization Program, CAIS, will help to the tune of about $20, but with the long session of poor crops, our margins are very low. As a result, CAIS really does not help very much.
I talked to Senator Peterson about the difference in the U.S. I have been there with Minister Vanclief a couple of times to talk to senators and congressmen. They consider their risk-management programs as an investment in rural America, and they will go out of their way to get money out to the producers.
I have been involved all these years with programs and they are frightening. This year's crop insurance on barley is $2.19 a bushel. The corn price is over $4. The Pool Return Outlooks, PROs, are almost $3. It is $3.50 for malt barley, and yet Saskatchewan Crop Insurance has set their highest price at $2.19, which is almost criminal. That is just an example. You have to remember that food production, food processing in Canada is the second biggest industry, so many sectors of the value chain.
I must express how naive I was, I thought I was here because I chair the Special Crops Value Chain Roundtable, and so I was prepared to talk about value chains and not about acre. They all fit so very closely together that I do not believe it really matters.
We have lost a huge amount of money on our farm. My sons say we will try for one more year and that is it; if the situation does not turn around, they are done. Of course, I am done because I am as old as Senators Peterson and Gustafson.
There is a rural poverty crisis. If our farm is any reflection of other farms, yes, there is a crisis.
More importantly, what are the solutions? We have to immediately fix the risk-management programs. They are not adequate; they are not doing the job. It is difficult to get credit because they are just not adequate.
I believe there is huge potential for the future. If we can get over this crisis, agriculture has a tremendous potential.
What does it need? What does it need from government? First, the agriculture industry needs the ability for producers to participate in the ownership of value-added industries, such as the biofuel. The U.S. has had a program in place for a number of years to help producers through with guaranteed loans, participation in the ethanol program and biodiesel programs. We need producer ownership.
Second, the research is required. As past chair, I know that Pulse Canada is currently doing clinical trials in the bioproducts area to determine the benefit of consuming pulse crops — two cups a week of peas, lentils, chick peas or beans, or any combination thereof — and the effect on cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease. Preliminary results are so exciting. The special crops also include not only pulses, but also crops such as canary seed, mustard, buckwheat, herbs and spices. We believe that food has a tremendous part to play in solving our health care costs. We are spending billions of dollars on health care and really nothing on the research to lower health care costs.
Currently, this research is paid for by the federal government, provincial government and producers. It is so exciting, but the program ends very shortly from Agricultural Policy Framework I, APFI, and goes into the next generation. We need to have a transition. That is extremely important for the future.
All our minerals and fibres are produced from non-renewable resources. That will have to change because we are running out, and research is needed in order to make that change.
I also chair the Advisory Committee on Environmental Farm Planning. I would say that that has been a very successful program. In less than two years, we have put 10,000 farm units through that program. These are one-time payments to improve the environmental sustainability on our farms, and this must be maintained.
There is another aspect to it, and I have alluded to it in my report. On our farm, we have about 50 acres of native trees and several hundred acres of wetlands that are a cost to us. We pay taxes on those acres. We have no income from that land; and yet those wetlands and that native bush provide a great service for society. Is there any opportunity for environmental goods and services to be a source of income for producers?
We have a short-term crisis; we have to get over that, but we also have to look to the long term. The long term involves research; it involves a plan to enable agriculture to participate in the whole bioproduct industry. That will be so critical. I have great optimism for the future, but we are in a crisis.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Dauk. I should also like to note that Bradley Trost has just come in. He is the member of Parliament for this area. Welcome. Thank you very much for coming.
Dianne Olchowski, Chief Executive Officer, Community Futures Sagehill: Good morning. It is certainly my pleasure to address the members of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, specifically on the issue of rural poverty.
As I prepared for this opportunity, I struggled with those words "rural poverty.'' Typically, the word "poverty'' is used almost interchangeably with the word "poor,'' and the word "poor'' is used to describe the lack of income to fulfill basic needs, such as feeding our family or housing.
In my experience, I believe it would be difficult to find many people in the Sagehill region who would willingly describe themselves as poor. In fact, they would more likely point to urban environments where each night on the news we hear about homelessness, about rising crime rates and about children not being in school. However, if you asked those folks whether we are experiencing deficits in our rural areas, they would go on to list health care, transportation networks, education and literacy, communication and labour force issues.
Words are important because they provide the lens we use when developing policy, programs and service. Each of you is keenly aware that the issue of rural poverty encompasses far more than someone's income level or today's price of grain; it must also consider the contributing sociological and psychological factors that can ultimately lead to exclusion. Most importantly a conversation about rural poverty needs to include the word "development.''
I am proud to be a member of a Community Futures team. Our focus is on reducing the rural deficit and ultimately growing the regional economy. We do that by strengthening our collective community capacity to innovate, to seize opportunity and by working together. Whether the deficit is in access to capital for small business; the opportunity to educate our children close to home; community literacy issues; immigration strategies; the development of a biofuel industry; defining, capitalizing and improving transportation corridors; rejuvenating the legion of volunteers in our community; facilitating municipal or organizational cooperation; the development of value-added processing strategies; encouraging our youth through leadership and learning opportunities; building on cultural strengths or navigating the path, so that our region might benefit from available assistance at senior levels of government, Community Futures is on the front line.
Community Futures Sagehill has a total population of about 43,000 and includes 76 municipalities, only one of which has city status. About 88 per cent of the population make their home in towns, villages or on the farm. This scenario poses interesting challenges.
Many of the communities in our region are experiencing population loss. While this situation is similar to many other regions of our province, it is not something that sits well with most folks. Consequently, we are experiencing a growing level of interest in regeneration, discovery of new opportunity and a willingness to explore innovative strategies.
Locally driven initiatives are happening in many of the communities in the Sagehill region. We have a strong manufacturing corridor just east of Humboldt, and we are building on that strength by encouraging the development of businesses that can support or add value to that existing production.
We have a national treasure in the historic site at Batoche and are working with the local Metis community and Parks Canada to substantially enhance that cultural experience. The Resort Village of Manitou Beach continues to build on the unique properties of Manitou Lake in a very concerted way. The community of Nokomis just recently announced its plan to build a biodiesel manufacturing facility.
While these are just a few examples, we know that in every corner of our region communities are making the decision to take control by focussing their energy on creation and implementation of community development plans and the development of volunteer strategies. They are harnessing their energy and their resources to ensure that their piece of rural Canada can remain strong and be a vibrant contributor to our national economy. Community Futures Sagehill is with them every step of the way.
While the projects are different, the drive is the same. The strength of our region is in our people, our natural resources, our willingness to put our money where our mouth is, to try something new and to rally the troops toward a common goal.
While the Sagehill region has a full employment rate at 4 per cent, we know that there are almost 100 jobs in our region that have been vacant for almost one year. We also know that our median age is higher than the provincial average and that our participation rate is higher as well. Our land base is significant, and there is a real and growing interest in a shift away from traditional primary production. We know these factors and are prepared to act by crafting strategies designed to bring people into our communities, to build on organic production, to grow an orchard where there was a cereal crop, to support individuals who want to pursue small business ownership, to protect the integrity of our environment by ensuring good stewardship and to celebrate our collective history and culture through unique tourism experiences. Generally, we believe that we have a relatively high quality of life. That is not to say we do not have issues.
In many urban environments, fire and police protection is assumed, as is appropriate and available child care. Convenient transportation methods and routes are a given. Health care providers are located around the corner and many times available 24 hours per day. Schools are located in most neighbourhoods and those students that must be bussed typically have less than a 30-minute ride. In rural environments, we volunteer to man our local fire departments, and in terms of a police presence, that may be every couple of weeks, if we are lucky. In rural regions, we form neighbourhood and rural watch committees and are utilizing the Block Parent Program in record numbers, while that same programming in urban environments is going by the wayside. Health care providers may make a weekly visit, but more often we find ourselves organizing volunteers to make a trip to a community 30 miles to 60 miles away so our local residents, who are not able to drive, can see their doctor. Schools in rural communities are under review and many parents face a difficult decision in terms of bus times as they consider options such as home schooling.
We understand that much of this is a function of numbers. However, we are a resilient lot, those of us who choose to call rural Canada home, and there, in part, may lie some of the problem. Our ability to adapt to a changing environment can mask some of our reality. A growing percentage of rural folks are in crisis, family structures are caving under the burden of falling income, distance to service and the feeling of needing to go it alone. Services, which not long ago were available locally — and when I say that I mean a 20 or 30 minute drive — have now been rationalized into much larger urban environments. We are told to download the form from the Internet, but that assumes that people have a computer and that they have access to the Internet. If you have ever tried to download a colourful form that includes many department logos and wordmarks by using dial-up access, you will know it would be less painful to drive the hour to pick up the form in person. In our office each week, we receive a number of requests to download forms that we, in turn, fax to our customer because they do not have access to high-speed Internet, and it becomes an impossible task.
We need to celebrate innovation in service delivery by creating enabling rural policy. We need to take advantage of programs such as Community Futures because it provides a national opportunity. We need to decide what kind of rural Canada we want and go for it.
In the closing pages of the committee's interim report, Understanding Freefall: The Challenge of the Rural Poor, the members insist on their deep faith in rural Canada's ability to develop its own solutions to its own problems with the appropriate support from government. We share that faith.
The Chairman: Thank you very much both of you. It is a great beginning to our discussion today, and we are really glad to be here in Humboldt. When you mention your work along the way, Ms. Olchowski, with the community support that the people you work with give you and give all of Canada, everywhere we go we hear about Community Futures. In fact, just before we left Ottawa, we had a real session with people from Community Futures, who spoke very much like you. Therefore, it is a very good combination to begin our hearing.
Senator Gustafson: I have a few questions, but basically to get right to the bone of it, what is happening to your land prices here, Mr. Dauk?
Mr. Dauk: It varies from region to region; commodity prices have improved. In areas where production was good, land prices actually have increased. Where there have been problems in production, such as our area, where it is very wet and we are extremely worried about seeding a crop for next year, the land prices have been flat or slightly lower. It is very hard to generalize for the province; it is very regionalized. That is not a very good answer, but it is quite variable. With the higher prices and the great optimism for this year, where production was good last year and where there is a potential to have production this year, the prices have actually strengthened somewhat.
Senator Gustafson: We found that in Alberta their land prices are staying so high that it is very difficult to get a profit back on that investment. Therefore, that poses a question of retirement and keeping the farm afloat.
Mr. Dauk: I will say that that very fact is maybe maintaining prices higher than they should be — even here. In our small area, approximately five sections of farmland were recently purchased by an Alberta investment group because land prices are so high in their province. They look at our land prices, which are in the neighbourhood of $400 to $500 an acre, and think that is a good deal. In Alberta, the same kind of land would be $3,000 an acre.
Senator Gustafson: There seems to be a sense of depression among many of our farmers. Do you find that in your community? There is not the hype to get out there and plant a crop. Usually when spring comes, the weather is warm, the grass is green and everyone is excited to get the crop in.
Mr. Dauk: It varies somewhat again with the situation. We have older farmers who have some equity and are living on this equity. However, we have my sons, who are going through a very difficult time, and they do not have that equity to live on. They are living on a capital cost allowance, depreciation, their off-farm income. People my age, who have a pension and Old Age Pension, we can survive. It is quite depressing for the younger people, and that is the generation we are losing. That really concerns me.
Senator Gustafson: They made that point very clear to us in Alberta, that if one generation of farmers is left out, it is the end of the farm.
Mr. Dauk: My sons are 35 years old and 45 years old. They are both going through very bad times not only on the farm, but also it is reflected in their personal life. That impacts us tremendously. I spent all week dealing with one son and it is just heart-rending. It is reflected in marriage breakups, and that is happening in this case. It is just tragic. It is just so hard to watch. Not all of it can be blamed on the farm issue, but the pressures that are brought to bear on these young people are real. I am a living testament that it is happening.
Senator Peterson: Mr. Dauk, with respect to the biofuels, you talked about producer ownership. Is this an individual or a group?
Mr. Dauk: It can be either. I would like to invest in the biofuel industry. I have cousins in Minnesota and, therefore, have a way of sort of comparing notes. My problem is I do not have any money to invest right now. The banks are reluctant to lend it to me because we are using up our equity in farming. Through guaranteeing loans, et cetera, my cousins in the U.S. would get a payback in a year and a half; they would get all their investment back. That is a huge return. I spoke to them recently, and because of higher corn prices and maybe lower oil prices, they have extended that to two and a half years. That is still a 40 per cent return on their investment. He told me that of all the loans that are guaranteed by the U.S. government, they have not defaulted on any yet. Now, that might happen in the future, but it has allowed ownership of these facilities instead of the multi-nationals, such as Husky in Lloydminster, owning everything. It allows producers to participate in that ownership. Not only that, but also combines it with what Ms. Olchowski said. There are so many opportunities or will be in the future for the value added, and if we can somehow help producers get involved in that ownership, I feel we would concur on many issues relating to that.
Senator Peterson: You talked about wetlands and treed areas on farms, which you have to pay taxes on, but from which you get nothing back. Would you see any benefit there on carbon credits that others could purchase from you?
Mr. Dauk: There is tremendous opportunity for agriculture to be a solution for issues such as climate change. We were sort of pioneers in the direct seeding concept 16 years ago; everybody looked at us and followed our lead. It has become the mainstream now and has the potential to sequester carbon. There is a real desire out there to convert some of our farmland — especially the more marginal grain land — into grass. Grass has the ability to sequester many times more carbon than grain farming. Trees have a much greater potential to sequester carbon because of their size. There is much potential there.
With respect to the ecological goods and services, it is a new area. My concern is that if payments such as those are brought in — and we might relate it to the conservation reserve program in the U.S. — that it will take from one program and give to another. I would not want to see that happen, especially with environmental farm planning, the one-time payment concept as opposed to the annual payment concept. They are both important, but they are based on different principles. I am sometimes concerned that people will roll them into one and say they are the same.
Senator Peterson: On risk-management protection, do you feel we need a totally new program that better reflects the last three or four years, which have all been a negative cash flow?
Mr. Dauk: I have been involved in these programs for a long time. I was on the Agricultural Income Disaster Assistance Program, AIDA, appeal board, and I actually quit. I could not stand the bureaucratic interference and the attempts to take payments away from farmers to which they were entitled. My leaving was kind of mutual because I raised so much heck that they fired me — I am not sure if I quit or got fired; it is a moot point.
I believe the program has potential. It needs some work. I have been very fortunate to have been in Ottawa a few times to talk about it with ministers, including our newest minister, Chuck Strahl. The program has potential, but when we have multi-year disasters, such as those we have had, it just does not work. I do not know how it can be fixed. I get excited about bioproducts, about the health benefits of special crops, herbs, spices, pulses, but I just do not want to put myself up as an expert in this area. It is something that I really have not spent a lot of time working on. I just know the program does not work.
Senator Peterson: Ms. Olchowski, how long do you feel it will be before high-speed Internet and broadband are here?
Ms. Olchowski: We have it in certain pieces of our region. The issue is that it tends to be clustered; therefore, if you are a half a mile over here or a half a mile over there, the service is not there. My best guess might be two years to three years. We try to utilize a program called the Community Access Program, CAP. It is a federal program to at least be able to put locations in communities, so that people do have access. That program is struggling. It is underfunded and always on the chopping block. That is an issue for us.
Mr. Dauk: We just had an agri-meeting that talked about that whole issue. Saskatchewan has one of the highest percentages of people who are on high-speed Internet and has a great potential for opportunities, especially rural opportunities, to participate in the economy by the use of that. Our recommendations would be to expand high-speed Internet. We think of call centres as being a low-cost industry. However, if we can assemble experts, such as medical experts, nurses, mechanical experts, et cetera, throughout the province, hook them up with high-speed Internet, offer a very high-end call centre — which is being attempted in Kenaston with i-Tracks and Dan Weber's group — then the potential for rural Saskatchewan is huge. It all relates to the high-speed Internet business.
Senator Mercer: Ms. Olchowski, you talked about a biofuel manufacturing facility in Nokomis. Would this be the first biofuel plant in the province?
Ms. Olchowski: There is one in Lloydminster that is in those stages; but in a small community, yes.
Senator Mercer: Who will own this plant?
Ms. Olchowski: The producers intend to have some ownership. They are estimating that the plant will capitalize about $65 million. The plans are that the producers would invest between $8 million and $12 million into that plant. There would be an additional $5 million to $7 million that would be based on service delivery contracts. There is an intention that producers will have rights and obligations in terms of being able to deliver grain as well, have that obligation to deliver it.
Senator Mercer: Do you know what crops they plan to use?
Ms. Olchowski: Right now they plan to use just the oilseeds, canola. They have some plans around the glycerine side of the product as well, and their plans also include working with a fairly substantial feedlot in that area. They are hoping that some of those combinations will help secure the plant's future.
Senator Mercer: Would this change some of the traditional crops being planted in that area of the province?
Ms. Olchowski: I expect that over the last couple of years, substantially, it has been canola and oilseeds that have been seeded in that particular region. When we talked with producers just yesterday — because that is when this was announced — there is big excitement about converting some of that acreage into oilseeds.
Senator Mercer: You have mentioned, and many others have mentioned, the issue of child care in rural Canada. The current government introduced a program of $100 to families who qualify, which replaced an agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of Saskatchewan. Has this had a positive effect or a negative effect?
Ms. Olchowski: That depends on the location in rural Saskatchewan. The issue is not whether people have the money to pay for child care, but whether it is available.
Senator Mercer: The previous agreement was supposed to create spots, and I do not believe this program has created spots.
Ms. Olchowski: It has not created spots in our region.
Senator Mercer: Mr. Dauk, you grow pulse crops. I have another hat on next week. As a member of the Committee on Transportation and Communications, I will be in the Port of Vancouver. I will ask the obvious linkage between both of my committees: How big is your transportation problem to get your crops from Saskatchewan to the port and to the customer?
Mr. Dauk: In the roundtable, we have done a number of bench-marking studies with the help of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in red lentils, green peas, buckwheat and so on, and the benchmark tells us what we are good at. We are good at many things in Canada, but we excel at others. We want to use that in our brand development with Branding Canada. The one issue that keeps coming up over and over again in every country and in every product is our transportation system, and it is the one barrier with which we are just so frustrated. We are working on it, but it is so hard to get anywhere. There are so many players; it is so complex. However, if you can do something about that, you will become famous and we will love you forever.
Senator Mercer: I do not know that I will have the solution, but I am sure trying to help. The issue that keeps coming up from both farmers and exporters is the lack of containers. Is that a continuing problem, to have no containers on the ground here in Saskatchewan where you can load the crops instead of shipping them out and repackaging them in Vancouver?
Mr. Dauk: As you know, special crops use containers almost exclusively, and it is so critical. I know Red Williams talks about the concept of a container port in Saskatchewan, which would be very helpful. However, I do not understand all the issues, so I will not spout off and tell you what should be done. It does require much work, study and effort by everybody and all levels of government, all parties to work on this. It is important.
Senator Mahovlich: You mentioned that you need incentives. Are there other examples in other industries in Canada where the government has given incentives, fisheries or mining, and it has worked?
Mr. Dauk: I get my inspiration from Senator Segal because he spouts eloquently about this very issue. He has very concrete examples of places where industries and companies have had the benefit of government help. I call it investment, whether we go to companies such as Bombardier Inc. or whether we go to the fisheries or forestry industry, especially the oil industry. If we look at the oil industry and count up the incentives that are involved in that — again, I quote Senator Segal on that — they are just huge. They dwarf anything that is being done in agriculture by a tremendous amount. I believe there are incentives that work, I really do. I believe it is that our attitude toward these incentives in Canada is that they are just a bailout, welfare for farmers. That same kind of attitude does not exist when you talk about the oil industry. The automobile industry is huge in terms of incentives, and if we look at all of these, they are not considered from that same negative attitude. In the U.S., it is considered an investment in rural America. There are many examples, but I am not advocating that we get a bunch of money. I am saying work with producers to develop an insurance program that will adequately cover our risk, so that we can get financing, et cetera. It is working with people — different than a bailout.
Senator Mahovlich: Ms. Olchowski, youth is moving out of rural areas, and we have to try to keep them here. Is there enough for them to do? Are they active? Is there enough recreation to keep the youth here? Do we support them in that way?
Ms. Olchowski: I am not convinced that there are enough activities. Just a few years ago when I was younger, I moved too. It is what we do. When we turn 18 years of age, we want to get more education, to see the world. When I was 18 years old, the world was 60 miles down the road in Saskatoon. Now, for youth the distance is nothing. In working with youth — and we used to do this when I was in school — we have tried to talk about civics and civic responsibility and how important it was to manage your home. We find that youth are becoming more actively engaged in their community, and yet when they graduate, they leave to further their education. I have got to tell you, we want them to leave because they will not get that further education in a small town. We want them to get that education. Our strategies need to be more concerted in terms of how we will encourage them to come home.
The community of Bruno, where I live, there are 600 people on a really good day. We are all really good souls, but at the end of the day some of those choices might be limited. The key is to find different ways to encourage them to come back rather than harp on the fact that they should never leave. We do need to do some work in terms of those kinds of activities. Governments all over built skating rinks, put in artificial ice, did all those things, which, now, we are busy closing down. It is utilizing our infrastructure more importantly, even our transportation corridors to some extent. For someone who lives in rural Saskatchewan, driving an hour is nothing. My husband and I will go into Saskatoon, which is an hour down the road, to have dinner with friends. That has become our way of life. I believe that younger people, as they come home, are even more willing to get in the car. The issue would be the condition of the highway.
Senator Mahovlich: I live in the middle of Toronto, and it takes me an hour to get downtown.
Ms. Olchowski: My sister-in-law used to do that, too, and she was mortified that I drove thirty minutes on a highway to work. I said, "You have got to be kidding me, I would never change places with you.''
Senator Gustafson: In the interim report, one of the main issues was the Canadian farm bill. I would like to hear your comments on that. Basically, I feel it should be at least 10 years, maybe 15 years.
Mr. Dauk: Of course, and it is kind of silly for you and I to talk about 10 years and 15 years from now, but it is critical; we have to do that. You talk about a Canadian farm bill, and the attractive and exciting aspects of it are that there is an overall plan, and it is longer range. It just seems to me sometimes we lurch from crisis to crisis without an overall plan and, therefore, are not as efficient as we should be.
The Chairman: We very much appreciate you taking the time and the effort; we know that you are under certain pressures. Thank you. To you, Ms. Olchowski, keep going; just fight on.
Our next witnesses are Russ McPherson and Mary Lou Whittles. We have your material and the floor is yours, Ms. Whittles.
Mary Lou Whittles, President, Kenaston & District Chamber of Commerce: Welcome to Saskatchewan. Thank you for taking the time to hear from me. My name is Mary Lou Whittles, and I am about as grassroots as you get. With the exception of a year spent in a small community in Ontario called Manotick and a couple of years in Calgary during the mid 1970s, I have spent my life in Saskatchewan.
After reading your interim report entitled Understanding Freefall: The Challenge of the Rural Poor, I felt compelled to appear before you. I am here as a citizen; as president of the Kenaston and District Chamber of Commerce; as a director of Mid Sask, a combined Regional Economic Development Authority, REDA, and Community Futures Development Corporation, CFDC; and as someone whose passion has become regional economic development.
For the past 20 years, my husband and I have lived in Kenaston, a farming community of just under 300 people. I do not have charts, graphs and statistics that portray the dismal plight of rural Saskatchewan. I am living in it and see, firsthand, the effect that years of low grain prices, drought, Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, BSE — or commonly referred to as "mad cow disease'' — and high input costs have had on our farm families and, in turn, local business.
If we adhere to Dr. Mark Partridge's theory that communities within a 100-kilometre radius of a major city have a better chance to not only survive, but thrive, then Kenaston sits in an enviable location. A mere 80 kilometres south of Saskatoon, Kenaston is located on the crossroads of two major highways. Highway 11 runs north and south, moving large volumes of traffic each day between Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Regina. Highway 15 sees transport trucks and local traffic heading east and west. If you look at the communities within the 100-kilometre radius of Saskatoon, you will become a believer in the 100-kilometre theory. Although it is reassuring to live within "the zone,'' we realize that just being does not necessarily assure survival. As noted in the recent research paper put out by Statistics Canada, "Factors Driving Canada's Rural Economy,'' Ray D. Bollman states, "Successful rural communities in the future will have found new goods and/or services to sell from their communities.''
As part of its business plan a few years ago, the Kenaston and District Chamber of Commerce identified ensuring the future of our school as being imperative to the well-being of our community. An opportunity presented itself that would have brought 60 international students into our high school. In a community of our size, the plan had to be shelved as too ambitious.
With the consolidation of the school districts, we have redefined the project to encompass more schools. This should help to secure and enhance all the participating high schools in the Sun West School Division, which covers 80,000 square miles in West Central Saskatchewan. International students will be secured through a well-known Saskatchewan entrepreneur and corporate solicitor based in Saskatoon.
A North American university degree is prized and sought after by young people in many Asian and European countries. In order to attend a North American university, fluency in the English language is a prerequisite. By attending the last year or two at a North American high school, honing the ability to communicate in English at all levels and graduating with a Grade 12 diploma helps ensure the international student acceptance at a university of their choice. It would appear that their problem is our solution and vice versa.
Engaging the 84 rural municipalities, towns, villages and resort villages, which make up the tax base of the Sun West School Division, proved, for lack of a better word, challenging. Given the area covered by the Sun West School Division, it was and remains difficult to communicate and hold meetings, especially on a volunteer basis. However, three meetings have been held, several letters have been sent and four communities will initiate this project.
A successful international student program in our schools will require a homestay-farmstay program. Typically, an international student pays on average $600 per month to a family for room and board. Each student will bring in $6,000 per year to a family and, in turn, the community, and approximately $8,000 to the school division to educate the student. With 16 high schools throughout the division, economic spin-offs and the international spotlight that this project could bring to our region is enormous. We believe that this "thinking outside of the box'' approach will assist in not only enhancing our rural schools, but also help to alleviate some of the economic despair prevalent in our region.
Personally speaking, I would like to tell you a little of the path travelled that lead me to you today. I have been married for over 24 years to a man who spent his career as an agricultural lender. I have had a career as a paralegal and work at a law firm in Saskatoon. As much as I was aware of the social and economic asperity that surrounded me, I believed that if I ignored it, it would not affect me. What could I possibly do about it anyway? I do not believe that I am alone in this attitude.
As an agricultural lender, I watched my husband come home day after day, month after month, and year after year, growing more and more stressed out. Over the course of a mere 20 years, I have watched the framework of the world around me change until it is almost unrecognizable. At first, I believed the attitude I was encountering of so many around me was apathy. I have since changed my mind. I believe that many in rural Saskatchewan are frustrated, scared, truly dejected and stretched to the limit. A middle-aged farmer pretty much summed it up for me one evening when he said, "All we hear on the news is how great Saskatoon and many of our cities are doing. Most of us would feel a lot better about things if we had an extra $20,000 in our pockets and not have to worry about how we will pay the heating bill this winter.'' This is a far cry from the attitude of "the bread basket of the world'' from when I was a young girl.
I began, in my community, to become involved with the Kenaston and District Chamber of Commerce. I had heard of, but never bothered learning about, the offices of Mid Sask CFDC/REDA. I knew, however, that they had something to do with economic development. That was good enough for me. I volunteered to represent the Village of Kenaston, the Regional Municipality of McCraney and the Regional Municipality of Rosedale on the board, and have spent the last three years learning about and experiencing the ups and downs of economic development in our region.
I consider the Mid Sask CFDC/REDA office as the greatest tool given by my governments to someone such as myself. When one enters the economic development arena from the grassroots level, the lack of leadership and capacity in rural Saskatchewan is difficult to comprehend. If I had the opportunity to make a recommendation to this Senate committee, it would be that Mid Sask CFDC/REDA be given the capacity to continue with the leadership mantle they have assumed in order to bring economic development projects already on the drawing board to fruition.
We will work to sustain schools and subsequently communities while we wait for the tide to turn. This is not a magic bullet, rather a concept to sustain infrastructure while the global economy determines if there is value in a rural way of life. I believe that the value is demonstrable.
Russ McPherson, Economic Development Officer, Mid-Saskatchewan Community Futures Development Corporation/ Regional Economic Development Authority: I just preface our remarks by saying that, in terms of background, I live on a family farm, which we have been on for 103 years, and between my grandfather and I, we have represented the same seat on rural council for probably 40 per cent of the time that it has been a municipality. It is a bit of an aggressive approach that we take, but it is not for lack of rural roots.
I will begin with a quotation from the Statistics Canada research paper entitled "Factors Driving Canada's Rural Economy'' — a little expansion on what Ms. Whittles had to say.
The bad news for traditional rural communities is that the primary sector will continue to shed labour. Successful rural communities in the future will have found new goods and/or services to sell from their communities.
This very much underpins the approach we have taken.
Rural communities in Saskatchewan have spent much of the time since World War II in trying to reinvent agriculture. During the bad times in that period, the prairie attitude was to "hunker down, stop spending, tighten your belt'' and hope the times get better. That kind of thinking has permeated not only our communities, but also the municipal bodies that govern them. The same culture sense also holds that change is bad — period.
The net result by municipalities has been an inclination to keep property taxes down, to put any substantive planning off, "until things get better.'' In both the municipal and the individual case, there has been little or no investment in infrastructure. This came to the fore with the concern over drinking water in the past few years. Many of the homes in our villages were constructed in the early part of the last century. While many have had upgrades, these were wood frame houses not planned to be used well into the next century. Curb and gutter are not common in these villages, and gravel is the common surface.
There are a few farm service businesses remaining in the rural villages. The closure of wooden grain elevators extinguished half of the tax base in many of them. The work of the village is usually carried out by a part-time clerk, perhaps some paid hours for basic repairs and maintenance and volunteer work by members of the village council. Strategic planning does not exist, and treating the municipality as a business, there is certainly no exit strategy. Individuals have exit strategies, and the exodus continues.
In some cases, the rural poor have simply been marooned on this shrinking island that is their village; or in some cases, their family farm. There is a need for capital and cash flow to facilitate the move to a larger centre and in many cases this is simply not present. Those that continue to work are almost certainly commuting to a larger centre. For those on the family farm, there is a huge emotional attachment to the land, and they will often choose poverty over liquidation.
Exacerbating the problem is a tendency by hard-pressed social service agencies to place persons receiving support in some of these communities to try to make the recipient's resources go a little further. The reality of commuting to another community for staples, such as groceries, prescription drugs, hardware and gasoline, eats up whatever gain there may have been, and they have now become poor and isolated.
There are resources in rural areas that aid in retraining, such as the Regional College system, which does an excellent job in helping individuals through counselling, classes and a flexible approach to skills upgrading. Structure has been missing to help communities to do the same.
Outside of the big 10 municipalities in Saskatchewan — and some of those big 10 municipalities have only 5,000 people — the other 800 rural and small urban municipalities simply lack the capacity to plan for change on their own. As Ms. Whittles alluded to, capacity is a huge issue. Most of these small governments have a single administrative employee, whose main job is collecting the taxes and paying the bills. Part of our culture in Saskatchewan is a resistance to amalgamation of municipalities into larger units with capacity. Mid Sask CFDC/REDA felt a need to step in and fill the void.
In 2005, Mid Sask CFDC/REDA, with the help of Western Economic Diversification Canada, the Rural Secretariat of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Rural Development Institute of Brandon University in Manitoba embarked on the WaterWolf Project, which is an attempt to build capacity and find solutions to that issue. The board decided to pursue the following five themes: a tax and investment sharing template for municipalities; to initiate land use planning, using geographic information systems, GIS, and Global Positioning Systems, GPS, as key tools; sharing of regional water technicians for small urban municipalities, which have a hard time funding those services; a river valley management group for the South Saskatchewan River below Meewasin Valley, basically between Saskatoon and Gardiner Dam; a focus on urban development on Lake Diefenbaker, particularly Danielson Park at the head of the dam.
The initiatives aim at the base of rural poverty — an inability to do long-term and comprehensive planning, and no capacity to rethink rural in the context of an ever-urbanizing world.
We cannot move forward in rural communities without some kind of regional presence to coordinate, plan and compile good information that will allow rural leaders to make evidence-based decisions about both the present and the future in a regional context. Mid Sask CFDC/REDA is in a strong position because of the municipal membership in our organization, which gives them ownership and seats at our board table.
The WaterWolf Project is trying to build that regional capacity. This alone will not cure rural poverty, but it may help us to create bottom-up driven development that will replace our total dependence on an agricultural economy that no longer provides the complete economic engine for rural Saskatchewan.
I would add that we have members, such as Ms. Whittles, sitting on our board who make a huge difference in both their drive and their commitment to finding change agents for our rural areas.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. Mr. Tucker, do you want to say a few words or should we get right to the questions?
Jim Tucker, General Manager, Mid-Saskatchewan Community Futures Development Corporation/Regional Economic Development Authority: No, you can go straight to the questions.
Senator Mercer: Ms. Whittles, I am very interested in your program on foreign students. We saw another example, in Alberta a couple of days ago, of people thinking outside the box. It was a hockey school for young women in Warner, Alberta. It is keeping their high school alive. You talked about a homestay-farmstay program. Have you looked at the liability for young people who come from around the world and stay in homes? Do you have a program for monitoring that?
Ms. Whittles: Absolutely. There will be a homestay coordinator. I am in the process of incorporating a non-profit corporation at this point with shareholders of the communities that are participating. There will be insurance for these children. We have contracts between the students, the school and where they will stay.
Senator Mercer: Mr. McPherson, you talked about the WaterWolf Project and I know that Ms. Whittles is on the board. You have been down the road a bit with these municipalities that are all involved, and you mention in your presentation the lack of willingness by small municipalities to amalgamate. It is a constant problem everywhere. Everybody wants to remain the same small unit; they all want to suffer by themselves. Now that you have gone part of the way through this project, if you went back to those same municipalities and asked them to reconsider, to amalgamate now, to come together now, would the answer be different?
Mr. McPherson: I doubt that. People like that rural ability to walk up to the councillor on the street or pull him over on the road and talk about the local issues. They like that flavour, but there is a growing realization that they need some kind of regional structure. I believe there is a willingness to see either capacity built into organizations such as ours or creation of regional bodies that can do some of that planning and forward-looking that they are not able to do.
The provincial government — when the culture was right for that in the 1960s and after — stripped away most of the responsibilities from municipalities. Therefore, their own cultural memory now is of doing graders and gravel and very little else. When I go back to my grandfather's time on council in the 1930s, they were the government. Ottawa and Regina were far off places, and the managing of welfare, the bearing of indigence and the providing of housing was all done in the rural communities by the local government.
There is a tendency now for the province to try to put some of that capacity back in the rural areas. I feel there is an understanding needed, and it cannot be from central government.
I believe there is a willingness now to look at new ways of coming at some of the problems, more locally driven and less provincially or federally driven.
Senator Mercer: I assume that you continue to monitor the evolution of similar programs in other parts of the country. In Ontario, they went to regional governments for regions, and they have now gone to forced amalgamation, which has worked in some cases and not worked in others. Do you continue to monitor that? Not just Ontario; I use that as an example.
Mr. McPherson: Well, it becomes a capacity. The issue with voluntary amalgamation is it is just like you and I sharing a bank account. If I have got more money than you, I will not be too keen on that. We find inequality among the municipal governments. It is very difficult, if I am in a rich municipality, to make the case why we should amalgamate with a poor one. Having said that, again, there is an appetite for some kind of regional structure, but I feel, at the end of the day, if we see amalgamation, it will have to be forced. We have pipeline- or potash-rich municipalities that are right beside agricultural municipalities, and they have no desire to amalgamate. It is pretty hard to sell the ratepayers on, "We will marry the guys next door, and your taxes will probably take a 20 to 30 per cent jump to cover that off, but it is the right thing to do.'' Well, you know, you are a politician; that is a hard sell.
Senator Peterson: Ms. Whittles, you said ". . .Mid Sask be given the capacity to continue with the leadership mantle.'' What do you mean by that capacity; monetary; manpower? Would this be a subset of Western Economic Diversification Canada or what do you mean by that?
Ms. Whittles: Through the WaterWolf Project and the rural secretariat, politicians and government people from federal and provincial levels come together. I am scared that that will be taken away. It is a pilot project. I see it as the hope in our region. I hope they continue to be given the capacity to do what they are doing there.
Senator Peterson: Mr. Tucker, would you concur with that in the funding? Is the trend to have the provider get closer to the client, be down at that level rather than Ottawa or Regina?
Mr. Tucker: The capacity in our office is split between our federal funding, provincial funding and municipal membership fees. The WaterWolf Project has been totally funded with federal dollars through Western Economic Diversification Canada and the Rural Secretariat of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in their program with Brandon University. We have about one year left in financial capacity for that program.
I believe Ms. Whittles is trying to say that we see the benefits of working in a region from the bottom up, and we are starting to get a change of attitude. We are starting to get a sense of ownership and that the people on the ground think of themselves as a region, not just the town of Central Butte or the Village of Riverhurst or whatever. We do not want to see that program come to an end. We are constantly trying to engage the provincial government to become involved in the program. We are getting closer, but it has been a big struggle.
Senator Mahovlich: Ms. Whittles, you remind me of a great westerner, Wild Bill Hunter. This fellow did so much for the West. He brought the Oilers to Edmonton. He brought the rink to Saskatoon. He never stopped. He was such a contributor to Canada, as he was to the West. From what you are saying about your area — and it is all location — it sounds like you have got a great location, and pursuing a university down there is an excellent idea. A university is a great attraction for people and a good way, a good gamble, I would think, to invite people to stay in a community. It has shown on the East Coast. There are so many universities in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that have been there for years and attract a nice community, a great community. I just want to compliment you. You are heading in the right direction.
I want to mention that the cities have poor people, also. In Toronto, we have more poor people now than we had 30 years ago. It is a struggle no matter where you are and an ongoing problem.
Ms. Whittles: Yes, I realize that the urban areas have their poor people as well, but as your report did indicate, it is easier to get to a food bank; it is easier to get to places. In rural areas, a roadworthy car is needed to get this help. We started a food bank in the next community, Davidson — it only comes up once a year. We have to get the names of those we feel will need it; there is the pride. They cannot just go anonymously and get this food. We then have the attitudes of, "Well, there is nobody from this area that we believe will use it, so why should we have to do this?''
Senator Mahovlich: Do you have a Salvation Army in the area? In the city, we have a large Salvation Army.
Ms. Whittles: No, we have nothing.
Senator Gustafson: It appears to me that unless we get some capital into agriculture, we will not be there. I have said this so often, but it bears out where we are at: In 1970, a bushel of wheat was $2 and a barrel of oil was $2; today, a barrel of oil is between $50 and $70 and a bushel of wheat is still a little over $2. In fact, I delivered hard red spring durum and got $2.78. That was the initial payment, and I understand that, but I will be more than happy if I get another 75 cents or a dollar.
What will we do? We have to have an injection of capital. We have come up with the idea of a Canadian farm bill that would provide some protection into the future and have some teeth in it, but it will cost the government some money. It seems that we have got money for everything else: for subsidies to the oil community, for subsidies to the large auto builders. We came up with some "Mickey Mouse'' programs that hire many people, but do not send much money down to the local level and to the farmer.
Mr. McPherson: The reality where I live is that the 10,000 acre farm is becoming the norm. In the map on the front of our presentation, if you take a swath across the south side of that, there are half a dozen municipalities in that area. I am talking about the rural municipalities. There may be villages in them that have a few more kids. In the rural municipalities there are half a dozen of them that have zero to one child from newborn to kindergarten age in that whole municipality. The family farm, as we knew it, has moved on. Now, they are a big industrialized business. I am not saying that there is not a place for that in our economy, but I would be careful about how you come at investing money into that. In my municipality — we are about 100 kilometres out of Saskatoon — 75 per cent of the people between 18 years old and 65 years old work off-farm. They are either working in Saskatoon or the bigger centres such as Outlook. There is almost no one who is dependent on agricultural income any more as their sole source. Our economy has certainly evolved away from that dependence on agriculture. We are quite anxious to see more processing or value added, but in its absence we see more of a dependence on the commute to Saskatoon and the interaction with the city in providing goods and services into that urban centre. It is a very different community. By necessity, we are no longer grain and agriculture dependent.
Senator Gustafson: That makes the situation even more serious because in the global economy the Europeans have made it clear that they will not get off subsidy. They have said, "We saw starvation, we will not ever let that happen again.'' The Americans will always fight for the heartland. They will put their money behind their farmers and invest in it as an investment for the good of the country. Canada does not have that hard drive and until we get it, we are just fooling ourselves. Your 10,000-acre farm, they will be the first one to go down the hill.
Mr. McPherson: I would say, though, if I look at rural Canada — and I certainly have not travelled as much as you — I notice in rural Ontario and in the Maritimes we see the same kind of depopulation, the inability to attract youth, that urbanized attitude, which I believe is international. The U.N. said by 2030 half of us will be living in large urban centres. It is a much more complex thing than just western agriculture. We all want to attract the young people back after they get an education, but we seem to be missing some quality of life issues. We are not being as responsive.
If I could use a quick example, in my hometown of Outlook, there are 650 children between kindergarten and Grade 12 in the school system. At our rink, which absorbs 85 per cent of our recreation dollars, there are only 66 children involved in ice sports this year. Ten per cent of our population is being served in a recreation facility. However, are we willing to change and say maybe the young people want soccer; maybe they are looking for other activities? We do not react quickly enough to what young families and young people are looking for. We expect them to fit into our culture, and that is a tough haul.
I understand what you are saying. When I look across the country, rural Canada is in trouble whether it is a fishing area or forestry; it does not seem to really matter, the problems are much the same. Getting the young people to come back, it is cultural as much as anything else.
Senator Gustafson: If you look at the industries, whether it is fisheries, farming, lumber, oil, gas, mining or potash, it all comes out of rural Canada and very little goes back in. That becomes a political problem for rural Canada. It becomes a big problem for government, but they will have to deal with it. We export 80 per cent of our grain in Western Canada, Saskatchewan, and we could lose that industry entirely. I hope that will not happen, but it is a very serious situation.
Mr. McPherson: The other thing we did not speak about is that we do a lot of partnership work with First Nations communities and there is growth there. Their young people are willing to stay in rural areas. They are more culturally tied to the land. We work with Whitecap Dakota, and we have seen a huge willingness to work cooperatively and in joint economic ventures. There are some bright spots such as that. I did not want to go away without having mentioned some of the good work that we do with the First Nations.
The Chairman: We will now hear from our third panel, Ms. Nosbush and Mr. Desjarlais. You are coming to talk about a subject very dear to my heart: early learning, child care and child development.
Linda Nosbush, Chair, Ministerial Advisory Board of Early Learning and Child Care for the Minister of Learning, and Fellow, National Council for Early Child Development, as an individual: Thank you very much for inviting us here. I will say hello in my native tongue, "Willkommen.'' I grew up 20 miles from here and the roots of my life have been in the rural area and continue to be in the rural area, even though I live in an urban area now.
In my presentation, I will sketch ever so briefly what good child development looks like. I will then read to you a summary of 15 female gang interviews that I did this summer to talk about what happens when it goes badly awry. Every one of these 15 women grew up in the rural area, was part of a shadow population there and became part of the shadow population in the city area.
I will start with the home place. Each of these is a doorway that a community and a country can open through the caring and support systems that they put in place. The home place is a sociological place that is vital. It is where life in its essence is brought forth. It is where the spirit is nurtured, the family gathers and the first part of social support is developed.
The bridge line is the first line of protection that we can lay down for children. It has to do with an adequate income that, in turn, will allow you to put the physical place around that home place, housing. Then it has to do with the workplace, which can either build up or tear down. For many of our rural people, their workplace has radically shifted. We see a population in mourning for a lifestyle that has gone by the wayside.
The second line of protection is the safe start, where we want substance-free living: drugs, tobacco and alcohol. There are very clear distinctions now that we know the smoking of tobacco during pregnancy actually leads to serious behavioural disorders down the line. In my particular area, we are into fourth and fifth generation fetal alcohol syndrome. We are seeing parents who cannot parent their own children because their cognitive capacity has been so damaged by alcohol. We also see a huge issue with family violence. In the rural areas, the vigilance systems are not as great because the distances are far greater. I have had the privilege of working in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Prince Albert Police Service in the child abuse office for nearly two years while I was conducting my research. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, I saw more of "that side of life'' for very young children. It has affected their brains radically, and their view of the world.
The healthy start that children require includes nourishment, food security and immunization. Poverty also affects the food security that children have. In my paper, I suggest that undernourishment in developed countries surfaces as obesity. Just last week we heard about the high levels of obesity in Canada. Obesity is further implicated when we look at the stress levels under which people live. Even if you eat a similar diet, if you live under great stress, you tend to gain more weight.
Our immunization rate is going down in Northern Saskatchewan. Some diseases, tuberculosis in particular, which we thought we had abolished, are now rising again.
The safe start and the healthy start provide the second line of protection.
We then move to the smart start, where we find stimulation and the capacity to learn is developed. There are windows of opportunity when what we do with children can help them live and develop optimally. Why I chose to direct my comments today to children and youth is that the brain is in the most rapid stage of development during these years, and what we do or fail to do can set the stage for an entire lifetime. Sometimes no amount of intervention can radically alter that. Our medical health officer in our health region has just announced that 100 per cent of the women who are in the methadone program were sexually exploited as children.
In the smart start we need all kinds of stimulation. We want the support for parents. It is important to note that it has to be in unhurried time. Today, many people who live in rural areas have to work full-time jobs off the farm, both husband and wife, as well as maintain the family farm; time with their family is seriously compromised. The smart start provides opportunities and hope for a lifetime.
The sensitive start provides relationship. In order to develop as human beings, we need positive, secure, enduring relationships that are reciprocal across the lifespan. We need those for at least the first 24 years of our life. Today, we have so many parents out of the home for extended periods of time that our children are engaged in what is called a game of roulette. They have caretakers that are moving, changing and shifting. Fifty per cent of our marriages are no longer successful. We have a very high number of lone-parent families where the burden is great, and yet it is this positive relationship that is the seat of the development of personality and the context within which the capacity to cope develops.
Finally, we have the gift of community. It is called the connected start. Here we have the series of informal and formal programs that come together to provide that network and tapestry of support. It is important to note that here we have to build common ground. If we build that common ground on what is nearest and dearest to all of us — our children and youth — which I believe is what we are about today, we will succeed then in saying that our differences are our strengths.
Over the past number of years in Canada and throughout most of the developed world, we have tried to professionalize that caring, and that is a serious error. We can never professionalize what needs to be provided by common citizens in an ordinary community. We do need to have professionals working, but not instead of the vast community that needs to support human beings 24/7.
Together then we need protection, opportunities and hope, relationship and community. These doorways need to be open across the lifespan for all children and all youth. Today, many of those doorways are closed for many children for most of their lives. It is important to note that if there is vulnerability in more than a couple of these, there is serious risk for negative outcomes along the developmental continuum.
A caring society, a just society, provides opportunities for those doorways to remain open. Poverty compromises every single one of them, perhaps most profoundly the home place, where life is brought forth.
I will now talk about the gang interviews. Many of these young women are mothers of more than one child. These are my comments after listening to their 45-minute interviews. It wrenches my heart to say what I have to say today.
They are just fallen angels who have never experienced a sense of trust or belonging in their home environments.
All the girls, except one, describe troubled homes where parents were frequently violent and abusive to them. A number describe early and prolonged sexual exploitation from family members. How can people learn to trust when they are physically, sexually and emotionally exploited from a very young age? Four participants provided vivid descriptions of this early and prolonged exploitation, some beginning under two years of age; others alluded to it in passing, as if it were the norm.
All the girls directly, or indirectly, chronicled neglectful homes where parents were controlled by their own addictions, frequently trafficking in drugs, and all too often introducing their own children to drugs. These families were mobile and their addictions, and accompanying mental health issues, resulted in near homelessness for them and their children, creating extremely serious instability. Many described couch surfing or finding rest in stairwells or abandoned buildings as commonplace. Others found temporary housing with family or friends. Sometimes this destabilized the families and friends. Many of the girls described the burning hunger that is their constant companion. Others described the longing for someone to talk to, someone who will listen to them.
As the girls grew older, they came to realize the sense of belonging that a gang provided was not a basis on which they could build strong, caring relationships. However much they might want and need the protection and the togetherness provided by the gang to ward off loneliness and the harsh realities of life, they came to realize that the gang did not offer a long-term solution. Twelve of the fifteen participants described their neighbourhood's gang involvement like this: everywhere, all around you, you cannot escape it. It is on reserves, it is in rural areas. Eleven girls described their family members' involvement. It has become the norm for many; the way of being in some neighbourhoods and, as such, a modelled pathway that provides an alternative and an allure for many young children.
Almost half the girls described their leadership roles in mixed gangs. They attained this role in a couple of ways: relationship to the male leadership or violence and/or aggression to attain the position. Having a reputation in this way took solid work and unrelenting dedication, and it resulted in power over others rather than shared leadership. To attain this, many had to forsake their friendships. Their hunger for relationships that are positive, enduring and reciprocal as well as non-judgmental makes the environment at our Youth Outreach Centre extremely desirable and a pathway to turning around some of these troubled lives.
They are just fallen angels, who live in environments fraught with violence and abuse, environments that fail to protect them as they grow and develop.
The attachment relationships with children were precarious, frequently resulting in children fleeing from home, some as young as nine years of age, reeking out their existence on the street any way they could. These children longed for relationship and sought belonging, and the only way that they could find it was on the streets. Children developed distorted notions of love and family because their homes were fraught with conflict, violence and substance abuse. The first experience of belonging for many was the gang they found on the street, and here the love and acceptance was always extremely conditional. Here they were always initiated into the sex trade to survive. We have children as young as five, six, seven and eight years of age being exploited in this way in Prince Albert. Sometimes their own burgeoning drug habits, some beginning at eight, led them to prostitution. Sometimes their need for food, clothing and shelter led them to prostitution and substance abuse followed.
For others, who had been sexually exploited from a young age, prostitution at least gave them a choice to at least say no to some of their partners. For others, whose role in the gang was elevated because of their relationship to male gang members, pimping out other girls, often their own family members, became their function. Years in this role have caused serious mental health repercussions for them. For all the girls in the sex trade, their health has been compromised. HIV/Aids is common and almost all the girls have hepatitis C and a range of sexually transmitted infections on a regular basis. Many have blocked all emotion in order to survive, not even showing a reaction when they are violently raped. Some spoke of their mental health issues and the depression openly, others only hinted at the suicide attempts.
They are just fallen angels, who find themselves involved in institutions long before they know who they are.
Almost without exception they became involved in criminal activity at a very young age. Some of the girls were involved in violent crimes as young as 12 years of age. For most, involvement in property crime was first, but for at least two, violent crime was the first and began at 11 years of age or 12 years of age. For most, the avails of prostitution were given over to their pimps. With one exception, the girls described the time spent in criminal institutions, some serving more than half of the last decade in such institutions.
In Prince Albert, a city of nearly 40,000 people, we incarcerate 1,000 people at any one point in time in our 10 penal institutions. We know what the dark side of the law looks like and we are working hard to turn that around.
Ten of our 15 participants have been hospitalized for issues related to gangs, including violence, overdose of drugs, beatings and/or mental health issues.
Ten of the 15 participants have been involved with social services, either as wards of the court themselves, or by having their own children apprehended, the latter being more common. Others have not had their children apprehended because their extended family has cared for them while they have attempted to deal with their own substance abuse issues.
One of the strong features of rural Canada used to be the powerful extended family units. With so many of our families crumbling, grandparents are becoming parents, and the role of grandparent is now left vacant.
Half of the girls directly described their teen pregnancies and the difficulties raising children when they were addicted and involved in gang activity. Several participants described the birth of children as a turning point in their lives, causing them to reduce the involvement in gangs or leave them entirely. Others described the birth of addicted babies and the guilt that they felt.
In Prince Albert, our teen pregnancy rate is one in five. Three hundred babies are born to teens every single year, some to mothers as young as 11 years of age. There is another word for that; it is called sexual exploitation.
Almost all the girls described severe substance abuse issues, many involving intravenous drug use. Last year, we collected more than half a million used needles in our city. Alcohol and marijuana are often the introductory drugs, but many of our youth, still in their early teens, have well established intravenous drug habits. The girls describe the power of this habit and how it keeps them bound to this way of life.
They are just fallen angels, who have learned how to survive the only way they could, but what they have learned does not always equip them to function in ways that lead to success.
Many participants described dropping out of school early, some as young as nine years of age. However, all of them regret doing this because they see education as a way out of this present lifestyle. One participant in her thirties described the need to keep children engaged with school, suggesting that this is the most positive pathway to avoid gang involvement. Many of the girls described their lack of success in schools, and one described racism as a serious issue. As the girls experienced the disintegration of their home environment, they felt increasingly isolated and alienated from their school environment, sometimes having very little in common with their classmates and sometimes incapable of following the norms in school. Once they left the school environment, the gang, or their peer group, was the only choice. Urie Bronfenbrenner, an international scholar in the area of child development, notes that children live, love and learn in four intersecting environments: home, school, peer group and community. These girls described alienation from home, school and community; the gang was the only option as a peer group left open to them. As they described their involvement in our Youth Outreach Centre, they saw it as a safe, welcoming environment that could meet most of their basic needs and provide positive paths to other choices. Not one of the 15 participants described involvement in recreational activities prior to coming to the centre, and those help to recreate us. It was as if the Youth Outreach Centre had opened new possibilities for recreating themselves in ways that were new and open to possibilities for them.
Ladies and gentlemen, they are just fallen angels. I hate to tell you how many of those fallen angels are because of the change in characteristics in our country. They crave a place to belong, an opportunity to develop positive competencies, an understanding of their own power and their own innate goodness. They need strong home places where their spirit is nurtured, safe environments and a healthy place to grow that will provide them with opportunities to learn and develop. They need a sensitive, nurturing environment where they can build trust and discover who they are and reach out and share their gifts with the community.
They are just fallen angels, who need a helping hand and a strong and supportive set of role models who can provide guidance and structure to them to recover and discover their own possibilities.
I am so pleased that our Canadian Senate is not willing to say, "Too bad, so sad.'' They are not even willing to say, "We want to beat the odds.'' Instead, they are here to listen and to help us figure out how we can change the odds and break the cycle of disadvantage that poverty creates.
Dean Desjarlais, Chief Executive Officer, Northern Development Board Corporation: Thank you for the opportunity to come before you to present our views on rural poverty as it affects Northern Saskatchewan. I must first give the regrets of Al Rivard, who was coming here today, but unfortunately something came up to which he had to attend.
Just a quick note: when I was first polling my 12 board members on the Northern Development Board Corporation, NDBC, as to what kind of points we should address to the Senate committee, one of the interesting comments that came back was that perhaps we should invite the Senate committee up to one of the most impoverished areas of Canada, that being Northern Saskatchewan.
The NDBC is charged with the responsibility of administering the Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement in partnership with the federal and provincial governments under a tripartite process. The NDBC is comprised of elected representatives from five northern organizations, including the Prince Albert Grand Council; Meadow Lake Tribal Council; Metis Nation of Saskatchewan; New North, an amalgamation of all 35 municipalities in Northern Saskatchewan; and the Athabasca Economic Development and Training Corporation, which encompasses the most northerly communities in the Athabasca region.
The members of the Northern Development Board Corporation bring a good cross-section of knowledge on northern issues and priorities. They provide the federal and provincial governments with advice on socioeconomic priorities in Northern Saskatchewan.
The Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement is a five-year, $20-million agreement intended to enhance the economic opportunities available to northerners and to promote and support sustainable economic development in Northern Saskatchewan. It also encourages the full participation of northerners in the Canadian economy and provides an opportunity for appropriate representatives of northerners to directly participate in helping establish priorities to be pursued by the agreement. It also plays a significant role in the decision-making process.
The Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement has five investment priorities: economic infrastructure, capacity building, realizing employment opportunities, investment attraction and innovation.
The Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement was signed on October 17, 2002. We are currently in the last year of the five-year term of the agreement. Also signed on the same day was the Saskatchewan Northern Development Accord. This accord is an over-arching agreement between the federal and provincial governments to work with northerners to begin reversing the adverse socio-economic conditions in Northern Saskatchewan.
The vision statement of the accord read as follows:
Northerners will possess the means to address the goals and aspirations they have for their communities, their families and themselves. With respect for northerners, their cultures and traditions, government will work as an active partner with communities, Aboriginal organizations, business and industry to promote economic development of the North.
The goals of the Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement are:
(i) to create a stronger, more diversified and sustainable northern economy that creates jobs and business opportunities for northerners;
(ii) to enhance community and regional infrastructure that will assist economic development in the North and improve northern living conditions;
(iii) to strengthen education and training in the North to allow northerners to pursue their academic goals and to better compete in the labour market, both in northern Saskatchewan and elsewhere;
(iv) to increase community self-reliance and strengthen northern leadership in the northern economy; and
(v) to increase participation by northerners in the management and protection of the natural environment of northern Saskatchewan.
Those were good goals under the accord, but, to date, there has been no movement toward those goals. Once the document was signed, both the federal and provincial governments just tended to hang back.
However, since the inception of the Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement, we have invested approximately $15 million into 44 projects. Since we are currently in our last year with $5 million remaining, we have asked for a one year extension to the current agreement. A favourable response was received almost immediately from the provincial government, but the federal government has chosen to wait until the results of the evaluation have come back. These results should be forthcoming within the next week or so. It is then that the federal government will be deciding whether or not to extend the agreement for another year to allow us to fully invest the extra $5 million.
In addition to investing the $15 million, we have also leveraged a further $13 million for projects in the North. As a result, there are 330 people trained, mostly northern Aboriginal people, with 100 people finding gainful employment.
For the purpose of the administration of the Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement, the geographic area commonly referred to as the Northern Administration District in Northern Saskatchewan is the principal investment area. Northern Saskatchewan is vast. The region is approximately 300,000 square kilometres and sparsely populated with about 35,000 residents in 35 communities and 12 First Nations. This works out to be about 0.12 people per square kilometre. The residents of the region are predominantly Aboriginal, with either Metis or First Nation ancestry.
The Northern Administration District encompasses about 46 per cent of the province, but only makes up about 3.4 per cent of the provincial population. We are the forgotten people.
Northern areas of Canada, while similar to rural areas of Canada in many ways, are quite different characteristically. Northern Canada for the most part is predominantly Aboriginal, more remote than rural areas and has different social problems. Out-migration is not a problem as most Aboriginal young people tend to stay within the community in which they were born.
There are only two communities in Northern Saskatchewan that enjoy most of the same amenities as those in larger urban centres. Other communities just have the essentials, a grocery store and place to purchase gasoline. Each community has retail services that the financial resources of the community are able to support and sustain. Any expansion in that area would be fruitless without having more financial capacity at the local level. Other services would require a northerner to travel south, with the travel time being anywhere from two hours to as much as 18 hours by road.
There are four hospitals in Northern Saskatchewan providing basic medical needs. Major procedures or specialized services are provided for at the nearest major hospital, which, most often, is in Saskatoon. The average travel time for major procedures or specialized services is about six hours one way. To go for an appointment in Saskatoon, the average travel time would be about 12 hours.
Northern Saskatchewan is plagued with high unemployment levels. Community leaders and business development corporations estimate the unemployment level to be 80 per cent in some of the communities. This is unacceptable in a country and a province that are currently enjoying economic prosperity, where unemployment rates are 6.2 per cent and 4.1 per cent, respectively.
The high unemployment levels create idleness resulting in low self-esteem and low self-worth. In turn, this is the root cause to the rampant social problems in Northern Saskatchewan. Alcoholism and drug abuse is evident throughout each community in Northern Saskatchewan. Not one community in the region can claim to be free of alcoholism or drug abuse.
Social problems lead to a breakdown of the family unit. Poverty leads to social problems, which then lead to a breakdown of the family unit, which then compounds the poverty being experienced by the family unit as the capacity to bring much needed resources into the family home is reduced by half.
The human costs and suffering extend far beyond any quantifiable measure. Children become the most affected and impacted from the social problems created by northern poverty.
In a recent informal inquiry about drug use in a northern community, I was informed that illegal drugs were so prevalent that you would find someone addicted to crack cocaine in every second house. This has become the drug of choice in some Northern Saskatchewan communities. I was also informed that some single parent females sell their furniture to feed their habit. It is the children that end up suffering.
Heavy drinking was defined by the Canadian Community Health Survey as drinking five or more alcohol drinks at one time, 12 or more times per year. In off-reserve communities, 46 per cent of Northern Saskatchewan males, aged 12 and over, who currently drink, reported heavy drinking compared to the provincial average of 33 per cent. About 25 per cent of northern females, who drink, reported heavy drinking compared to about 16 per cent for the provincial average.
During our research we have found no documentation on the abuse of illegal or prescription drugs.
Northerners are in dire need of help. Northerners are feeling dejected. According to Saskatchewan Health, the suicide rate in Northern Saskatchewan was almost double that of the province between 1993 and 1999.
Recently, a Northern Saskatchewan community received provincial attention after having endured the grief of five suicides since last August. There were another 15 attempts of suicide in this small community of approximately 1,500 people. Why do governments only respond once northerners resort to this horrible extreme? The human and financial resources now being poured into this community should have happened years ago, as well as in other communities throughout Northern Saskatchewan. Northern leaders have been identifying the issues of destitution for years to the provincial and federal governments.
I will stop there and open it up for questions.
Senator Mercer: Thank you both for being here. If I came to Saskatchewan to be cheered up, I have obviously come to the wrong place. You have given an honest, but fairly depressing view of what is out there. Mr. Desjarlais, I am looking for some positive information out of your report. You mentioned that you have spent $15 million on 44 projects. Can you give us a couple of examples of the projects and tell us whether they have been successful? What have been the successes? What have been the failures?
Mr. Desjarlais: Some of the most successful ones have been in the area of priority capacity building. There is a major need for labour and other types of employment in the tar sands of Northern Alberta. We have created training in Northwest Saskatchewan, in the region around Buffalo Narrows and Meadow Lake. Once they have acquired the training, then they are able to employ their skills through the oil sands in Northern Alberta.
The board did want me to stress that we need to start creating opportunities right here in Saskatchewan. The only way that we will be able to create those opportunities is by investing in economic infrastructure.
Senator Mercer: These people that you are training to work in the Alberta tar sands, what education level would they have?
Mr. Desjarlais: The minimum education requirement for these training programs is Grade 10. That is the minimum, but we have been finding that the average is just slightly higher than Grade 10. Just for clarification, they do go to work there, but they come back to live in Saskatchewan.
Senator Mercer: Do they go to work for a month and then come back again?
Mr. Desjarlais: Some of them are on a two-week on, one-week off schedule, but the work schedules do vary.
Senator Mercer: Well, that is good that they come back and spend their money in Saskatchewan because the Government of Saskatchewan has made some investment.
You indicate that you are in the last year of your program and you that the Government of Saskatchewan has signed on for an extension. What are you waiting for from the Government of Canada?
Mr. Desjarlais: Through the federal government, the program is administered by Western Economic Diversification Canada. When we requested WD to provide us with a one-year extension to allow us to fully invest the extra $5 million, they told us they wanted to wait for the evaluation. The Canada-Saskatchewan Northern Development Agreement is currently being evaluated for its effectiveness. We did get a preliminary report from the evaluator last week and the results were somewhat encouraging.
Senator Mercer: Ms. Nosbush, there are so many questions that I would like to ask you, but the problems you have described are so complex and are so deep rooted. If the Government of Canada could do one thing to help fix the problems you have described, what is that?
Ms. Nosbush: The Government of Canada could create a universally-accessible, quality early learning and child care system as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, has outlined. It would have of quality, universal access, and developmentally appropriate practice, to bootstrap development. We have many examples of where we have brought children, who were non-verbal, non-responsive, into early learning and parenting centres and within three months their development is starting to move forward. In order to break this cycle, we have to focus on the child in the context of the family unit and work with both simultaneously, so that they can see other possibilities.
Senator Mercer: The program of $100 to families for child care, which the current government brought in when they were elected, is that having any effect?
Ms. Nosbush: No, because an infant space in the area where I live is about $600 per month. The $100 program is very minimally effective with the kinds of people we are talking about.
Senator Mercer: In other parts of the country, we have seen child care rates go up by almost the exact amount of the grant from the government.
Ms. Nosbush: Ours have not gone up because our provincial government has really backstopped many wages. Saskatchewan started developing a plan in the early 1990s, so we had our plan ready to go and had already begun with it when the monies were announced.
Senator Mercer: Would the previous agreement between the Government of Canada and the Government of Saskatchewan for the creation of new child care spaces have had a more positive effect than this current program?
Ms. Nosbush: We saw that it provided a base, and then this one would allowed us to take the full-blown plan that we had developed, which we did through consultation. We had a special piece in the plan for meeting northern needs because we knew the northern needs were quite different.
Senator Mercer: How many of the girls that you have talked about in your report would come from rural communities to Prince Albert?
Ms. Nosbush: All the girls in this study did, and one of them has since died. She died of problems related to drugs. They migrate in because life, for whatever reason, was not functioning terribly well there, and then they became part of a shadow population within Prince Albert.
Senator Peterson: Ms. Nosbush, you talked about the gang. In Regina, it is the de facto home for the young people who have gone into the city because a lot of the homes are dysfunctional, and there is no one there. Should we focus more on urban reserves where we could then provide the infrastructure, a cultural centre, in dealing with this? Obviously, once they leave the reserve there is no help in the city. Would that be a better way to try to deal with this problem?
Ms. Nosbush: We have a phenomenon in our area where the people are moving back and forth between the reserves and the urban centre. It is not that they spend all their time in the city; they go back and spend some time on reserve. As a result, they are not counted in either place. Certainly, we would have a larger focus group. We have a very active Prince Albert Grand Council Urban Services program, which is working with us in this area to try to make that transition to smaller city living easier.
We see this problem not only in the Aboriginal community, but also as a much more pervasive problem where adults tend to think that youth can manage on their own. The child development researchers call this horizontal transmission of cultures, peers leading peers, rather than adults providing the way. We then find that youth are exhibiting all the problems we see today because adults have not maintained a strong role. I feel that urban centres would certainly be a good start.
One of the projects that has been very successful and involved regional, provincial and federal governments, and some community-based organizations, was an apartment complex that was completely gutted and rebuilt. They put a community development officer in the complex, who is sort of like a mom that helps youth to see how they become tenants and maintain their tenancy. There is an early learning and child care centre with the parenting support and transportation to and from the schools. With our youth and adults with complex needs, we cannot address their issues one at a time: being a single parent, lack of stable, safe, affordable housing, lacking the know-how for being a tenant or lacking access to jobs and community. All their needs are now provided within one context.
The program in La Loche has been very effective because it does that wrap-around. It actually won a national award. It is the one-stop shop where they provide the kinds of support systems that are needed across a range of areas, and where trust can actually be built with service providers.
Senator Peterson: Mr. Desjarlais, you indicated in your report that unemployment is a very major issue in the First Nations community. To deal with that, the educational structure has to improve. There are institutes in Prince Albert and Saskatoon, as well as the First Nations University of Canada in Regina that deals with more trades-orientated training. Is that working well in your mind? Are there some ways we could make it better?
Mr. Desjarlais: In addition to the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, SIAST, which is the provincial college, we do have Northlands College, a northern college. They provide most of the training needs. We feel that they are doing an adequate job in trying to provide the northerners with employable skills. We have recently found that some of the First Nations or the Metis communities themselves are contracting the specialized training to come into their community directly. We have found that to be working quite well, too.
Senator Peterson: One of the problems prior to the First Nations University was that students would go from Prince Albert to Saskatoon where there was no cultural support. They were among many gifted people, but felt alone. Therefore, they would leave again. The First Nations University overcame that, providing them a comfortable environment where they could grow. How much are you doing to really encourage that and make that university a model? It is the only one in Canada.
Mr. Desjarlais: We found that northerners would prefer to stay within their communities if the training was actually there. That is the need that we are trying to fill because we do not see many of them moving to Regina to access the training through First Nations University.
Ms. Nosbush: In the last couple of weeks, I spoke to the 45 nursing students who are beginning their program at the First Nations University Northern Campus in Prince Albert. They are a vibrant group of young men and women, who have the desire to go back and work on reserve. One of the first students, who did part of her program at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon and then worked with me in the Prince Albert Integrated Human Services Practicum that we have developed, is now a nurse in a primary health care centre in Sturgeon Lake First Nation. This is very powerful. From what I am seeing, we have a strong social work program at the First Nations University Northern Campus in Prince Albert. We have a strong nursing program. We have had a strong education program through Saskatchewan Urban Native Teacher Education Program, SUNTEP, and Northern Teacher Education Program, NORTEP — both Aboriginal teacher education programs. We are providing those resources and seeing more young people take advantage of those opportunities knowing that they can actually go back to their home reserves to work there.
Senator Peterson: These students become role models. I believe that is what we have to build on and show others that it can be done. They can become very successful and move on.
Ms. Nosbush: There was such energy in that room of 45 individuals. I walked out of there just filled with hope. We were able to talk about all the strengths we have and about all the issues. They are ready to go and to make a difference as we move forth.
Senator Mahovlich: You mentioned spirituality. In rural communities now, are we losing our churches?
Ms. Nosbush: In many cases we are because the clergy are aging and not many other people are moving in. Across Canada, there is a deep-seated look for how it is we fit with what is beyond, greater than us and outside of us. If we do not fulfill that through organized religion, a number of our youth will look to cults and other ways to fulfill their need for spirituality.
In the rural communities — and I am a product of that — we used to have seven elevators in Lake Lenore, we now have two and we probably will not have the second for long. We used to have a vibrant economy there. We have a few stores that have remained. We had a large school. The school is diminishing in size, but still enough to be viable. We are bussing students from all around the area. We have a large church, which continues to be vibrant, but the population is decreasing because where there used to be a family on every quarter of land, now eight quarters is not enough, 12 quarters is not enough. We have families that have to farm as much as 20 quarters of land. Eventually, we will get into the corporate farm where they live off the farm. The factors that held a community together — agriculture business, church, school, recreational activities — are now not supported because they are only accessible some distance away. As soon as people become poor, they do not have transportation. Some of the community clubs — our notion of who we were as a community — are very tenacious and trying to hang in there.
In my own family, I have a brother-in-law with seven quarters of land, who could not afford to buy all the expensive machinery. He rented out his land to his nephew, and he is just keeping the home quarter to run cattle now. He is in his fifties, and does not feel he can afford to buy the new machinery for the size of his farm.
We are at a real turning point where either we will have to get bigger and then we will destroy the social fabric in our rural communities, or we will have to find a way to maintain some vibrancy. We have a number of localized industries in some of the small towns in this area that have managed to maintain that vibrancy and the strong capacity that would allow Saskatchewan to raise $5.6 million for the Kinsmen Telemiracle Foundation this past weekend for a population that is just over 900,000.
Senator Mahovlich: The government has to put their priorities in order. I come from a small community where I believe the first building that was built was the church. Throughout Canada and the U.S., there is a church in every town. There must be something to it.
Spirit was always very important to the Aboriginals. Is that continuing on with the youth?
Mr. Desjarlais: In some northern First Nations, they do provide culture camps to try to teach them ways of tradition. That spirituality would be part of it.
Senator Mahovlich: Are they still keeping the language going?
Mr. Desjarlais: Language teaching is a key component in cultural camps.
Senator Mahovlich: I believe that is important for them. I am a Catholic; I was brought up a Catholic and went to a Catholic school. That spirituality helped me in difficult situations. I am sure Aboriginal people feel it is important, especially the Elders.
Mr. Desjarlais: It is very important. I grew up as a Roman Catholic as well. I notice that in the communities that I have visited throughout Northern Saskatchewan, the priests are no longer there, but the community people are stepping up to provide the mass services.
Senator Mahovlich: Somebody has to provide those services.
I am not sure if there has been a law about prostitution in which they will start to penalize the users, the people who take advantage of this system. What do you think about that? Is that a positive action?
Ms. Nosbush: My work with the police service was really quite interesting because I got to see it from both the inside and the outside. My fellow officers told me to be very careful in my suppression efforts because once prostitution is driven underground, we have absolutely no capacity to monitor it from that point. I believe, rather than just going after the "johns,'' we have to look at the root causes of this whole set of principles. A number of them have moved and some of them are a little more successful than others, however, usually we find the "john'' is middle class and fairly well situated within the community. Our Salvation Army is just in the process of building a transition house for young girls in the Pine Grove Correctional Centre who want to leave this way of life. It is about 15 miles from town.
To illustrate how deep-seated it is, one morning at the police service, it was pouring rain and the officer said, "Hey, Linda, come here.'' I saw two 15-year old girls being released from cells. It had been a really awful night the night before, so the police officers picked up many of the prostitutes to give them a warm night in cells. These young women were leaving with all the earthly belongings they had in a black garbage bag over their arms. They were just young girls. For many of them, there was no other avenue to attain the goods and services that they needed than through this way of life. For many of them, it had been practiced from a very early time within the family. We have to look at how that home place can be nurtured. It is part of getting in touch with our cultural and spiritual roots to understand who we are as people and what values we espouse. I believe it takes great vigilance to realize what we need to do for our young children.
In law enforcement, certainly suppression efforts are the most frequently tried. They tend to be the least effective. To find adequate employment that gives a sense of dignity and to provide schooling — as our youth have told us — that is responsive to where they are, not where they should be and that allows them to use their strengths, these are most effective. Many of them discover that they have profound capabilities when they come into this Outreach Centre, but they were so used to being looked at as a deficit rather than actually having some strengths. Within our program, many of our youth graduate to talking about the program. They become casual employees and then full-time employees, where they really learn how to be an employee. They then move out into the community and take on other employment opportunities. There is that whole graduation toward independence and the vigilance that we need to monitor what is going on in inappropriate ways.
Senator Gustafson: How many of our Native people work in uranium mines? Have you numbers on that? There are other projects in the North.
Mr. Desjarlais: Through the two uranium-mining giants up in Northern Saskatchewan are Areva Resources Canada Inc. and Cameco Corporation. Through their surface lease agreements, they are required to employ at least 50 per cent Aboriginal peoples. To date, they have been meeting that quota; in some examples, they are surpassing that quota. On the flip side, though, the contractors with those mining companies are not tied to those same Aboriginal hiring requirements. That is the area that we would like to begin working on, though some of the contractors that do come up and work for Areva Resources Canada Inc. or Cameco Corporation are trying to fulfill that role as well.
Senator Gustafson: Are the reserves coming up with new ideas to create jobs within the reserve?
Mr. Desjarlais: Each reserve has an economic development portfolio counsellor that is charged with the responsibility of trying to create some economic activity within the reserve. It is just the scarce financial capacity of the residents of that First Nation that detracts or does not make it feasible or sustainable for any of that economic activity. That is why, in my report, I said they just have the essentials, which is the grocery store and the gas station.
Senator Gustafson: I sit on the Aboriginal Committee as well as the Agriculture Committee. There are at least 1,000 cases before the courts, and some of them have been there a long time. Most of them are economic, of course. This seems to be having a major impact on what is happening among our Native people on the reserves. Would you comment?
Mr. Desjarlais: There are some good examples of where First Nations are making good progress with economic development. The Lac La Ronge Indian Band with its economic development, Kitsaki Management Limited Partnership, which employs numerous Aboriginal people, is one example. I also look at the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation, which is capitalizing on economic opportunities, even within the City of Prince Albert, where they have a hotel and a gas bar. They sell confectionary items and gas. Meadow Lake Tribal Council have been humming right along in forestry, until just recently with the downturn in forestry. There are examples of leading First Nations. There is one just south of Saskatoon with the Dakota Dunes. A big casino is being built there that will create a lot of employment for Aboriginal people.
Senator Gustafson: Do social organizations and churches, such as the Salvation Army, have major works among the Native people?
Mr. Desjarlais: Up in Northern Saskatchewan there are no services, such as the Salvation Army, but we have found that Aboriginal people do tend to help one another out. If a guy goes out and shoots a moose, for example, they do share the meat with the people in the community.
The Chairman: Thank you. I have a quick but rare question. I could not sit here and listen to the two of you without reflecting on the 23 years of my life as a senator and how at the very beginning I stumbled into the issue of literacy. Listening to you today and others elsewhere as we have travelled across the country, I realize it is a foundation issue of the well-being of our country, and I am not sure how well we are working at it. Saskatchewan has always been very well known for the breadth and depth of its programs with Aboriginal people, seniors, adults and always with a focus on children. In the information and thoughts that you have given us here in Saskatchewan, how is the situation progressing? We have had some difficulty in recent months. I hope it is getting back on the rails. Is the infrastructure that Saskatchewan has had on these issues for so many years still able to work in your communities? Do people still go to their courses? Do they still have their tutors? Is there still a focus on children?
Ms. Nosbush: Prior to the last 10 years, my lifetime has been spent in the literacy area, both at the university level and at the school level. I would say that the ability to read gives people a window on the whole world and allows people to decentre. It is absolutely essential. Looking at our neighbouring province of Alberta, international statistics show their gradient is very steep. They have one of the highest scores on average in Canada, but they also have some of the very lowest. Saskatchewan has a flatter gradient. I would like to believe that that is because of our huge community school focus in Saskatchewan, where we look at breaking down the barriers. That infrastructure has been quite successful. We also have a new initiative by the Department of Learning called SchoolPlus, where the school is seen as the portal for the delivery and access of other social services — the one-stop shop. They say, as Senator Mahovlich mentioned, schools are still in communities; they are where the people are; we can make schools the portals through which services are delivered.
Having said that, when I look across Canada, I have lots of hope for people in Saskatchewan. If I give you the past year's statistics for the 750 women who have been through our Pine Grove Correctional Centre, which is the only female centre in Saskatchewan, they would all have less than what we call 11th-Grade certification, but their skill levels are between a Grade 5 and a Grade 8 level. For people who are falling on the fringes of our system, literacy is huge. If we look at the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, again the literacy level is low. These are people who are not functioning at anywhere near a Grade 10 literacy level, which is a functional level in Canada today.
The Chairman: I thank you for what you are doing. As we all say, fight on.
Ms. Nosbush: Senator Fairbairn, I just have one short quote I would like to read at the end. The artist Thomas Kinkade said, "Human life is a work of art that can reach eternity. Each life has the ability to touch other lives which, in turn, touch yet more lives. So person by person, generation by generation, a world and a future are shaped.''
I believe we must never lose sight that an "N of one'' is still significant.
The Chairman: Thank you very much — and thank you both for making the effort to come here today.
The committee adjourned.